Graham Blasts Evangelists’ Money Pleas

Evangelist Billy Graham said Wednesday that the greed of some television evangelists “brings disrepute to the Gospel.”

“I have seen certain evangelists who have made chills go up and down my spine,” Graham said at a news conference. “I felt they were going too far in appeals for money.”

Graham, 66, said television can be an important tool for evangelists, if used properly, but he has decided that “pleading for money” is damaging to the entire evangelical movement.

“Too much emotion and too much criticism of the church” also cheapens the work of evangelists, he said.

Some requests for money during television shows are necessary, so long as an evangelist doesn’t “beg,” Graham said.

He noted that it will cost his organization about $1 million a night to broadcast the Southern New England Billy Graham Crusade, which begins Sunday at the Hartford Civic Center Coliseum.

About three or four minutes each night will be spent talking about a book, which Graham said “we want people to write in for and hopefully send in a contribution.”