Graham and the Press: New Look at Ledgers

Billy Graham has always had critics aplenty, but few of them in the last quarter century have found fault with his handling of finances. In this area he has been declared “clean” repeatedly. The most recent public certification came in a series of reports in the Knight newspaper chain’s Charlotte Observer, the major paper in the evangelist’s home area (see April 15 issue, Page 55).

The Observer startled many of its readers, therefore, when it published a supplementary story on Graham late last month, accusing him of “shielding from public view” a multi-million-dollar “secret” fund. The story was picked up by wire services and published around the world. At the heart of the charge was the Observer’s understanding that when the original series was prepared it had been provided a complete list of all Graham-related holdings. Instead, said the paper, it later found out that it was given only a partial list that excluded the little-publicized World Evangelism and Christian Education Fund (WECEF) of Dallas, Texas. Graham is chairman of WECEF’s board, and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA) board names the WECEF board.

In a rare response to public criticism, Graham called the Observer article “grossly misleading.” He specifically denied that the WECEF, a foundation, was secret and said annual reports on its transactions were on file with the Internal Revenue Service. The Observer reported that when confronted about its discoveries, the evangelist replied that he had not brought up WECEF since he assumed that the paper’s reporters had already discussed it with other BGEA members.

George Wilson, BGEA’s vice-president in charge of finance, said the Observer had asked him if the list in question included all BGEA holdings. He denied that he was asked about all Graham-related entities.

The Observer said WECEF amassed $22.9 million in land, stocks, and bonds over the last seven years, including 2,600 acres of mountain property near Graham’s home. The paper said the foundation gave away $324,000 in 1976. It quoted Graham as saying 80 to 90 per cent of WECEF’s money came from BGEA.

In the statement he issued after the Observer published its front-Page Sunday story, Graham declared, “I am very proud of the integrity with which this fund has been handled, and the purposes for which it has been used. No salaries are paid to anyone. There are no overhead expenses. It has been a labor of love on the part of dedicated Christians.”

He listed in his statement three of “America’s most reputable businessmen” who are officers of WECEF: William Mead of Dallas, chairman of the Campbell-Taggart bakery combine; Dewey Presley, president of First International Bancshares of Dallas; and George Bennett of Boston, treasurer of Harvard University before his retirement.

The fund was established in 1970, he reported, for three principal purposes:

• To help with student scholarships, to help other Christian organizations having financial needs, and to help finance congresses on evangelism all over the world.

• To build the Billy Graham Center (including a graduate school in communications and an archives) at Wheaton College.

• To build a laymen’s training center (near Asheville, North Carolina) after the Wheaton graduate center is completed.

Property transactions for the previously-unannounced laymen’s center in the Carolina mountains apparently tipped the Observer to the existence of the foundation. Some neighboring property owners had suspected Graham ownership of a tract and had asked if the evangelist owned it. According to the paper, one of his aides told the inquirers that the owners were friends in Texas.

After the Charlotte reporters asked Graham about the property (and before the Observer published its revelation), he disclosed plans for the new laymen’s Bible school to the Asheville Citizen. The property had originally been purchased in the name of a Texas lawyer and only recently transferred to WECEF, he explained, “because we were trying to purchase two other pieces of adjoining property, for which we are still negotiating.” He indicated that premature publicity on the plans might jeopardize the acquisition.

Construction of the mountain center will not begin until after the Wheaton building is completed, Graham told the Asheville paper. However, he said members of his team are already planning for the lay school’s staff and curriculum. Veteran crusade director Charles Riggs heads the working group.

“We want to build a different Bible school,” the evangelist said, “with no academics, no credits, with the single purpose of teaching Bible and speech courses to laymen. Students will be able to take a one-month course, or a three- or six-month course, or even a one-year course in the Bible taught by the leading Bible professors from all over the world.”

The Asheville paper promptly lauded the plans in an editorial and welcomed the school to western North Carolina. Also coming to Graham’s defense were a number of prominent area leaders who wrote letters to the editor of the Charlotte paper. Charlotte’s television station WBT said the Observer “is practically alone in trying to make something immoral of the fund.” The television editorial called the newspaper’s coverage of WECEF “a low journalistic blow” and emphasized that the gifts to WECEF “certainly don’t line [Graham’s] pocket.” Said WBT: “No money could be cleaner.”

In the initial disclosure the Observer conceded, “The ministry’s accumulation of wealth appears perfectly legal, and, in fact, is normal, good money management.”

Marse Grant, editor of the Biblical Recorder, the Southern Baptist Convention’s state paper in North Carolina, was less than enthusiastic about Graham’s handling of the revelation. He proposed that Graham convene a “national press conference” to clear the air. Grant also commented that western North Carolina already had enough mountain retreat centers, many with facilities that are unused much of the year.

The Observer said it had been given two reasons why the foundation had not been publicized previously by Graham and his associates: the concern that people will think that the Graham organization is too rich (and thus not in need of small contributions), and the concern that knowledge of the fund will bring an abundance of requests for financial aid.

After the Observer report appeared, the evangelist told the Citizen that disbursements from WECEF have gone to such organizations as Campus Crusade for Christ, the Baptist World Alliance, Young Life, the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, and to various seminaries and relief funds around the world. About half of the current assets are committed to construction of the Wheaton center, he said.

Graham’s concluding comment in the statement about the Observer story was: “We are in great need of about $25 million more to complete these projects. We hope and pray that the publicity will help alert people to contribute.”

Vatican Envoy

Who should President Carter appoint as his envoy to the World Council of Churches?

The question may not come up in Geneva before the WCC Central Committee finishes its annual meeting next month, but it is a fair question, according to the man just appointed as the President’s personal representative to the Vatican. Miami lawyer David M. Walters, the first Roman Catholic to be named to represent an American president at Catholicism’s capital, told James E. Wood that he would have no trouble with the president’s appointment of envoys to international Protestant, Muslim, or Buddhist bodies.

Wood, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs, was one of the first to scold fellow Baptist Carter for sending a representative to the ecclesiastical headquarters. (Baptists also led the attack when Harry Truman, a Baptist, tried to name an ambassador in 1951, and he withdrew the nomination. Carter does not face the kind of senatorial opposition Truman got since he does not seek full ambassadorial status for his appointee. The appointment of a “personal representative” does not require Senate confirmation.)

“In a personal interview with Mr. Walters,” Wood reported, “the new envoy indicated to me that he saw his appointment as representing the concerns of our government for 771 million Roman Catholics throughout the world.” Walters sees his role as dealing primarily with the human rights of individual Catholics rather than with ecclesiastical structure, said Wood.

Although the Senate will not have the opportunity of voting on Walters’ appointment, it has already taken a position on U.S. diplomatic representation at the Vatican. In a quiet move last month it voted to repeal a 110-year-old law forbidding expenditure of funds “for the support of an American legation” at the Vatican. The amendment to the Foreign Relations Authorization Act for fiscal 1978 was introduced by a Jew, Senator Richard Stone, who like Walters is from Florida. The issue is yet to be decided in the House of Representatives.

Walters’ job will be an unsalaried one, but there are numerous expenses related to it. The State Department maintains a “Vatican desk” as well as a “a very small office” in Rome for Vatican relations, according to the Washington Post. That office, separate from the American Embassy in Italy, is staffed by one career foreign service officer and a secretary.

Carter’s appointee will replace Henry Cabot Lodge, who was the envoy of both Presidents Nixon and Ford. He continued in office until Carter could name his man. Lodge recently represented the President at canonization rites for the first American male saint, John Neumann.

Walters is well known as a fund raiser for both Roman Catholic and Democratic party causes. He was the Carter campaign’s Southern regional chairman for finance.

United Presbyterians: Slowing the Slide

Membership trends continued to be a cause for concern for commissioners (delegates) at last month’s 189th General Assembly of the United Presbyterian Church, which was held for the seventy-seventh time in Philadelphia. Although the loss of members in 1976 (50,311) was the best performance since 1968, the net loss since 1966 has been 682,921 members. Last year 36,395 infants (62,276 in 1966) and 13,179 adults (19,946 in 1966) were baptized. In response to a question relating to continual declines in the Presbyterian Church at a time of rising spiritual interest throughout the nation, newly elected moderator John T. Conner commented: “Perhaps our growth rates were more closely tied to growth rates of the population than to effective evangelism.” Conner, 49, has served as a campus pastor at Oregon State University since 1965. The post of moderator is the UPC’s highest elected, non-executive position.

Financial reports were more encouraging. In 1976, 2.6 million United Presbyterians gave an average of $130.11 for the mission of their local churches ($118.30 in 1975) and $10.86 ($10.31 in 1975, $11.74 in 1966) for the General Mission Program of the General Assembly. Last year per capita giving by United Presbyterians to “other mission” projects not directly related to church judicatories jumped to $9.69 ($3.93 in 1973). Before his election Conner stated, “The church nationally is suffering from leaping congregationalism.… If we’re going to call ourselves Presbyterian, we must make sure we are one family of God … we need to restore a strong sense of Presbyterian purpose.”

Two questions focused commissioners’ attention on ordination. Is it proper to ordain to the Gospel ministry an avowed practicing homosexual person, who otherwise meets the requirements for ordination? And is it proper to ordain to the ministry a person who in good conscience cannot ordain women as elders or ministers, but who otherwise meets ordination requirements?

The assembly voted continuation of a study of the overall subject of homosexuality that was begun last year. It also reaffirmed that ordination of an avowed, practicing homosexual “would at the present time be injudicious, if not improper.” The action struck down two overtures (petitions) that sought to discontinue or restrict the study and to have the ordination of homosexuals declared irrevocably improper.

The Task Force on Homosexuality met during the early days of the assembly to hear continuing testimony from “the church” relating to its charge. Some homosexuals testified to the meaningful relationships they had experienced with others of their own sex; others spoke of the “grace of Christ” that had liberated them from the power of homosexual drive. The Task Force heard ministers state that by today’s standards homosexuality is not a sin; others gave testimony based on their understanding that biblical precepts in this regard are presently and always binding. Those for whom the Scripture is either not clear or not definitively binding will have to wrestle during the next year with input from current theology, psychology, psychiatry, and, but not least, the impact on the church of whatever decision is made. Called the “most potentially divisive issue since slavery,” the ordination of homosexuals is being considered at the same time as the launching of the Major Mission Fund, a campaign to raise $60 million for various mission projects.

On the question related to the ordination of those who cannot “in good conscience” participate in ordaining women to the office of teaching or ruling elder, the issue centered on efforts to make small changes in the ordination vows. The assembly voted to keep the present vows and did so in a series of ballots by large majorities.

When the voting finally ended, a commissioner asked whether the results had, in effect, excluded from the church those who cannot in conscience ordain women. Stated Clerk William P. Thompson said it does not affect any such ministers in their present calls, but that should they move and thereby have to answer the ordination questions again, they would have to consider their positions anew. The assembly thus reaffirmed earlier actions stemming from the well publicized case of ministerial candidate Walter Wynn Kenyon, who was banned from ordination when he said he could not endorse for biblical reasons the UPC’s position on ordaining women ministers and elders (see June 6, 1975, issue, Page 42).

In other actions, the assembly:

• Called the UPC to a greater commitment to evangelism.

• Urged the U.S. government to help work for majority rule in Rhodesia, to pursue normal relations with Cuba, and to reaffirm its commitments to Israel as well as its support for Palestinian self-determination. (A proposal endorsing the Palestine Liberation Organization was rejected, prompting utterances of gratitude from Jewish religious leaders.)

• Expressed concern for human rights in Taiwan and South Korea (commissioners did affirm “deep concern for peace and security for Korean people”).

• Rejected conservative efforts to impose localized controls on the denomination’s sometimes controversial Legal Aid Fund for Racial and Intercultural Justice.

The assembly met ten years after formal adoption of the denomination’s Confession of 1967 was given final approval. Reflecting on that document, Edward A. Dowey, Jr., chairman of the committee that produced the confession, stated just before this year’s General Assembly: “It is doing its quiet work, as would be expected of such a document.” The two major contributions of the confession, as he sees them, are “the responsibility of the church in society, and an understanding of the Bible as focused on Christ, which moved us away from the fundamentalism of Westminster.”

GEORGE C. FULLER

Verdicts

Before taking off for its summer recess the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a batch of decisions dealing with moral and religious issues. At the top of the list were significant abortion and parochial school aid cases.

On the abortion question the high court did nothing to water down its 1973 ruling liberalizing abortion, but it did tell states that they are not required by law to finance abortions under the Medicaid program. The tribunal also decided that public hospitals are not obliged to offer abortions.

In a parochaid case from Ohio, described by court observers as one of the most complicated ever decided, the justices approved most of the kinds of aid to students in that state’s non-public schools. The Ohio law was passed after the court ruled in 1975 that the state could not “loan” certain materials to parochial schools. It allows the schools, however, to dispense the state-purchased materials and services to individual students. The federal tribunal disallowed provisions of the law which allow state financing of field trips and certain school equipment. The only justice among the nine to vote for striking down all provisions of the Ohio law was William Brennan, the court’s only Catholic. Over 90 percent of the children in Ohio’s non-public schools are Catholic.

In other cases the court:

• Struck down state laws that decree an automatic death penalty for rapists (after earlier in the term permitting the first state execution in ten years).

• Reversed an earlier decision and said companies do not have to spend money or upset seniority rights to accommodate Sabbatarians.

• Endorsed local community standards as the criteria against which federal obscenity cases could be judged.

Moon’s Church: Not Christian

Korean evangelist Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church cannot be considered a Christian church. Its teachings about salvation, the Trinity, and the Bible are incompatible with Christian belief, and Moon’s revelations promote anti-Semitism.

Those are the main conclusions of a theological study of the Unification Church and its teachings by the Faith and Order Commission of the National Council of Churches. The conclusions are contained in an eleven-Page document released recently by the NCC. A number of Protestant and Catholic theologians took part in the study. The paper was written principally by Sister Agnes Cunningham, president of the Catholic Theological Society of America. It reaffirms the right of Moon’s church to exist, and it warns against use of the report for “arbitrary or punitive reasons.” But it outlines in detail the contradictions of Moon’s revelations to the Christian faith.

Spokesmen for the Moon group expressed distress that the NCC had ignored their requests to discuss the issues before publishing the paper. They challenged the NCC to defend the paper in a public debate.

Man of Tradition

It has been a year now since French archbishop Marcel Lefebvre was suspended by the Vatican from all priestly functions. In that year he has celebrated his seventy-first birthday and many unauthorized masses.

The leader of worldwide Roman Catholic traditionalism shows no sign of losing his zeal for taking the church back to pre-Vatican Council II practices. In the past year he has been under increasing pressure from the Vatican and a variety of Catholic leaders to stop his campaign, but his drive seems to have gained steam.

Last month he officiated at the ordination of fourteen priests at his seminary in Econe, Switzerland. Then he came to the United States this month to consecrate a chapel in Dickinson, Texas, which he says will become the capital of the traditionalist movement in North America.

The former archbishop of Dakar, Senegal, knows he is courting excommunication, but Pope Paul VI is reported to be trying to avoid that action lest he make a martyr of the rebel. Before the ordinations last month the Pope warned Lefebvre of the possibility of an “irreparable” break. The traditionalist hero, who is also a former superior general of the Holy Ghost Fathers, said he has reminded the Pope that he was once honored for the same things that have now brought him suspension. He has denounced the Vatican’s openness to ecumenicity with these words: “You cannot marry truth and error because that is like adultery and the child will be a bastard—a bastard rite for Mass, bastard sacraments, and bastard priests.” Lefebvre has also attacked Rome’s increasing contacts with Communist nations.

Religion in Transit

Members of the Massachusetts House sang “God Bless America” after voting overwhelmingly on Flag Day to require teachers to lead pupils in a daily Pledge of Allegiance. Both the House and Senate voted to override the veto of Governor Michael Dukakis, who said the bill would violate the rights of teachers. The bill was introduced at the urging of Rita Warren of Brockton, a crusader for school prayer.

A federal district court in Philadelphia ruled this month that the National Labor Relations Act cannot be applied to teachers in church-related schools. The ruling cited religious-freedom issues. It affects but does not resolve a major labor dispute involving Philadelphia’s Roman Catholic school system (see June 17 issue, page 38).

A Los Angeles judge has agreed to allow twenty Cambodian orphans to be adopted by families who originally received the children under a system he determined was unconstitutional. World Vision flew the children to California two years ago and gave them to Family Ministries for placement. Prospective adoptive parents were required to be “active members in good standing of an evangelical Protestant church,” a requirement that was challenged successfully on constitutional grounds by an Episcopalian couple after the children were already placed. The latest decision was deemed by all parties to be best for the welfare of the children.

Deaths: Cliff Gotaas, 57, well-known Christian travel agent in Chicago, of injuries apparently suffered in a fall; retired Episcopal bishop Hamilton Hyde Kellogg, 77, of Minnesota; Ladin Popov, 63, refugee Pentecostal pastor from Bulgaria and cofounder and director of the California-based Evangelism to Communist Lands mission.

Seven prominent British theologians have challenged the divinity of Christ, saying he never claimed to be the Son of God but was promoted to that status by pagan and other influences on early Christians. Their contention is spelled out in a jointly written book, The Myth of God Incarnate. The book has stirred up the worst theological fuss in Britain since 1963, when Anglican bishop John Robinson in Honest to God attempted to demythologize the Almighty.

The two-million-member Uniting Church of Australia (UCA) was launched last month at the Sydney town hall before an audience of 2,500 (U.S. Bible Presbyterian radio preacher Carl McIntire led a band of separatists and other merger opponents in protests outside). The UCA is a merger of Methodist, Presbyterian, and Congregational denominations.

An average of 600 persons a meeting professed Christ in a five-day campaign led by evangelist Luis Palau in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Some 17,000 persons, the majority of them under age 25, packed the enclosed Luna Park stadium for the closing Sunday rally, and thousands more stood outside, where Palau—who was born near Buenos Aires—preached to them after the main service was over. The crusade received wide press and TV coverage.

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