(RNS) — Franklin Graham, the president and CEO of two of the largest Christian ministries in the country, has quit his organizations’ membership in a financial accountability group that sets standards for evangelical nonprofits.
Graham, who leads Samaritan’s Purse and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, withdrew from the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability over new standards the group had set for “leader care.”
The ECFA, which requires member nonprofits to have audited financial statements and to make those public, among other things, recently announced it was adding leadership integrity requirements to prevent the kind of abuse and scandals that have rocked so many Christian leadership ranks.
Just in the past year, Texas megachurch founder Robert Morris pleaded guilty to child abuse, Dallas megachurch pastor Tony Evans stepped back from leading his church due to undisclosed “sin” and the Church of England’s Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby resigned over allegations that he failed to immediately report child abuse.
The new standard requires all ECFA member organizations to develop a care plan for their senior leader, one that would include regular communication with a board-led spiritual team and dedicated time for rest, retreats and physicals.
In a letter to the ECFA’s president this past summer, Graham wrote that the new leader standards “puts ECFA into the role of trying to be the moral police of the evangelical world.”
“The Leader Care standard,” Graham wrote, “deals with personal spiritual maturity and behavior matters clearly outside the scope of ECFA’s expertise. While ECFA has proven to have expertise in matters of fi …