In the wake of another pastor's failure, we need to start seeing the 'Billy Graham Rule' as a symptom of unhealthy relationships, not the solution for them
I'm so glad you wrote this! As a new Christian I was a bit bemused when I first went to church and would be greeted warmly by the pastor's wife and be totally blanked by the pastor. One time he did actually say 'hey y'all' when I arrived - except I was the only one there, my husband and daughter never came to church though he had met them once at a church event. I've been a bit confused by all the single sex activities and starting to feel like I'm given the message I shouldn't talk to the opposite sex. Thanks for sharing that this has a lot to do with church culture, and not what Jesus intended.
I--a 77-yo retired male pastor--have often said that Mt 5:28-30 can be summarized as "Men, solving the lust problem is your responsibility; not hers." The BGR is not the way to do that.
Cutting something ut (what's going on inside) by grace, the comfort given by God, et al. is what does it. Maybe we need to sin "wisely", that is, understanding what's going on and solving it where it starts: inside of us. To solve an issue by external rules is legalism. To solve issues by an internal change (Rom 12:2) is living by grace. (BTW: if I need to change my summary of Mt 5:28-30, please LMK. It sounds good to me, but may not sound good to all. It won't be the first statement I had to change because of the way it sounded.)
As a man who typically feels much safer with women, this kind of nonsense has led to me having to forego several friendships because of the prevalence of views like the BGR espouses. It’s unfair to everyone, and it’s very telling how many men assume I’m wanting to sleep with their wives simply because I feel safe enough to open up around them. I wish I didn’t have that trauma response to a lot of men, but that doesn’t change the fact that I do. 🙃🫠
I’m with you. I tend to gravitate toward women’s conversations because they are more interesting topics (life, faith, the Bible, relationships. Men seem to just want to talk about sports and their jobs, neither of which interest me.
haha, I've had the same experience but in the opposite direction! My theory is that conversations with people who are "just like us" (life stage, gender, etc) can often tend towards the superficial, simply because those superficial things are what we have in common. In contrast, we can have better (deeper, more substantial) conversations with people who are unlike us in some ways, because we *don't* have the superficial topics available to us.
Great post, thank you for this. I am recovering from (among other things caused by the shame I experienced at the hands of the church for my teen pregnancy) being raised devout Catholic. Reading this made me think also: isn’t this a convenient way to subjugate women. In these churches, men have all the power. What’s the difference between “avoiding” women and ignoring them? Ignoring them and “keeping them in their place”?
I'm so sorry you were treated that way. And you're right - the problem is that in all these scenarios, as much as they are presented as efforts at "purity," men ultimately have the power to decide where women may and may not exist.
I think your suggested "rule" would be much better for everyone involved! Sure, it might be a little awkward, but it's better for the discomfort to be shared equally than for one person to force the other into a situation where they feel ashamed. I'm working on a post with alternative guidelines similar to this -- hope to publish later this week!
Great points. I also see this rule says nothing about same-sex relationships, which I’ve come to understand are more common in some churches than you might think. I also wonder how we should apply the lessons to children. With the history of many churches, I would think many would say the rule is necessary for that purpose. Curious what you would think about that.
Absolutely. Abuse against children is far too common in the church, and while many churches are starting to become aware of it and create protections, this deserves far more focus. You're right about the same-sex relationships angle ... if pastors really wanted to avoid any and all suspicion, they shouldn't meet with anyone alone, of any gender! But that's not realistic, which is why we need to focus on creating healthy relationships rather than external rules.
You are spot on! The church treats women with men like alcohol with addicts. I was told often that men can’t help themselves so women have to help them avoid temptation. So gross!
I once worked as a pastor’s PA and it was bizarre how many comments were made by church members about how we needed to protect ourselves by not being alone together. They would say things privately and publicly. It started to feel a bit sinister and I personally thought they didn’t trust either of us to practice any sort of respectful restraint. Like we might just lose control or something. I mean, you’ll trust a man to be your pastor, but not trust him alone with a woman? And I hadn’t done a thing to earn such scrutiny other than be female. I eventually quit, not because of the pastor, but because of the church members. Even his wife jumped in the act. The pastor was actually a very good man, totally devoted to his wife and family. He offered me the job so I could work from home and stay with my children. He left the church about a year later to go back to teaching. Can’t say that I blame him.
"I hadn’t done a thing to earn such scrutiny other than be female." I'm sorry for what you experienced -- that's awful. This kind of suspicion directed towards women is revealing of a church culture that sees us as dangerous objects or temptresses, not humans made in the image of God.
Yes, yes, and again more yes! Avoiding women [or men] creates a faux protection with the result of othering the least of these and failing to address the "youthful lusts," the rule was designed to protect against. It hasn't been very long since my last address of the BGR but perhaps it deserves a revisit.
Thoughtfully articulated and compelling. Thank you, Joy. Where mutual understanding and mutual respect are in a healthy place in community as God designed it, men and women would both experience safety and trust such that they probably would agree to healthy boundaries with buy-in all around based on understanding, trust and respect. Some may have experienced that, but I would join Joy in not assuming that this particular rule is usually experienced that way per se and without the larger healthier relational and communal context. I appreciate Joy pointing out that it is often a decision by men, for men, and has, in fact, been experienced harmfully by women. I hope men will consider this perspective.
The only time I experienced the BGR was in an interview for church membership by two male elders. Just before the meeting they asked me to wait until an older female member joined us before we went into the meeting. It startled me, because up to that point men in that church seemed to have no problem interacting with me as a single woman. I had previously met alone with one of the pastors, and on several occasions, because I played with the worship team and went to evening practices, I was the only woman among a group of men.
I think of the BGR as one of those rules the Apostle Paul warned against in Colossians 2:23: "Although these have a reputation for wisdom by promoting self-made religion, false humility, and severe treatment of the body, they are not of any value in curbing self-indulgence."
I believe the scripture says, "flee from sexual immorality" that's what the Billy Graham Rule based upon.
Lust is different from all other sins as the scripture highlights: Every other sin is sin outside one's body but lust sins against one's own body. Every other sin you can resist, but lust, you must flee from it—meaning, stay away from any occasions that will tempt you.
In Proverbs, the young man who falls into the trap of an adulteress because he takes the route that passes by her corner in the dark. The timing and the location he chooses lead to his sin. Of course, it's because he wants to give in to lust and that's why he takes that route. The Billy Graham Rule merely cut that possibility off.
Men will always battle with lust. Whoever say they don't are either sexually apathetic or are lying to you (and themselves). Most men are not even half as godly as David. Yet David sinned sexually. Their only choice is to flee from it.
If I am afraid to be alone with my sister in Christ then it seems that I either don’t trust her, or I don’t trust myself, or both. And, as you get at, that’s a relational problem!
If a half inch of cleavage causes me to go into an uncontrollable ’lust rage’ then perhaps I need to take a deep look into what’s actually going on in my own soul, rather than telling my sister how to dress (i.e. blame it on her). Guys, we’ve got to take ownership of our part in this (if we have a lust problem).
One final thought: If a woman’s midsection is so sexually provocative that the girls are required to wear one piece bathing suits, then I think that the boys should have to wear T-shirts in the pool to cover their’s also.
I guess I learned a different perspective on the Billy Graham Rule. At our ministry members of the opposite sex, not married to each other, are not to be alone together in a room with the door closed. I once had a female student make up a speech for me, and I had to ask a woman in the office to join me so there was no reason to suspect something untoward was happening behind closed doors.
The point is, the rule applies equally to men and women. If a man and a woman have business, it takes place in an office with the door open or in a room that is accessible to anyone (I am a professor and there is a classroom outside my office door, which fits the bill.
I am sorry for your and your daughter's negative experiences, and I'd love to call out the men who acted inappropriately toward you both. But I fail to see how a directive that applies equally to men and women is inherently sexist and harmful.
"...when we make rules like the BGR that other women [and men tbf], it creates space and permission in our hearts to objectify them and use them from a distance; we are protected because of the rule, and yet, can objectify them from a distance and gratify ourselves—which we did."
It sounds to me like you took attitudes toward the opposite sex that you know were inappropriate, and decided to make a workplace rule the scapegoat for your inappropriate attitudes. That doesn’t make the rule the problem in your office culture.
We did, and the rule enabled it to take place. We didn't know any women that well (apart from our mothers and sisters) and family was so idolised that everyone else was deeply othered. (We had a saying "you can only trust your family") We had no basis for honour, respect, submission or love because it was like never letting your kids go outdoors. We never developed an immune system to handle those kinds of situations. So when the internet came along it was a field day of supressed sexuality, everything we never knew existed beyond the front door piped into our self-isolating homes like an unchecked social contagion for which we were, decidedly, not inoculated. We distanced ourselves not only from women but from other people; other families who were surely as suspicious of us as we were of them.
Taking a rule of life is a serious matter--it's not so simple as following a work-place-rule. That particular rule of life, that of self-isolation from the opposite sex both one-on-one and in community has resulted in generations of socially immunocompromised individuals who endanger our institutions by their very presence and lack of self-knowledge and repentance. It's not a matter of scapegoating the BGR, however, it did create the environment for sexual immorality to thrive uncontested. Instead of confronting lust for the usury that it is, we swept it under the carpet until a cartoonish and salacious bulge emerged from our unkempt minds.
For this reason, the BGR is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Lust is a plant that thrives in the shade and we planted a whole damn hedge for it to grow up into and are continually surprised when it chokes the life out of us.
You seem to be making the same error as Joy - assuming (pretending?) that the rule applies to men only and therefore makes men evil/exposes their evil/or something. Properly understood it applies to both men and women, at all levels of the organization.
Why should that make a difference? That just spreads the evil over the whole organisation. At the heart of the BGR is the belief in total depravity, that, left to our own devices we always choose immorality and so removed of the temptation we never learn and it assures that we choose opportunistic immorality. The BGR is directed specifically at men because, for the majority of church history, men have wielded a kind of rumour of power that puts them in positions of domination and the responsibility for their purity is overwhelmingly placed on women who, as Joy points out, are the subject of scrutiny by completely overfamiliar, strange men.
Yes, in principle, the BGR applies to men and women, but in practice it favours men and condemns women because of existing power dynamics.
…so there was no reason to suspect something untoward was happening behind closed doors…
It’s sad that you live in a world where you would suspect something untoward is happening just because a door is closed. That’s sick. I’d like to believe that MOST adults can control themselves. That a closed door isn’t an immediate license to get ‘untoward’. That’s so mistrustful. Geez… we’re not wild animals.
It's not being mistrustful. It's avoiding even the appearance of impropriety. It's being smart, in other words. We are not wild animals but in today's mistrustful, and litigious, society we need to not give others the opportunity to pretend that we're wild animals.
I’m not planning to be continuing on this comments section after posting this. What you write, M.Y. , that the rule can be protective (of course maybe should not be needed, but…that is true of many safety measures) is not demeaning for either men or women. It is just setting up boundaries about being alone in a closed space… When I talk to my male pastor alone, his door is always open a crack. I guess I’d be good with the same in a woman’s office, too. This is my opinion and way relating.
I'm so glad you wrote this! As a new Christian I was a bit bemused when I first went to church and would be greeted warmly by the pastor's wife and be totally blanked by the pastor. One time he did actually say 'hey y'all' when I arrived - except I was the only one there, my husband and daughter never came to church though he had met them once at a church event. I've been a bit confused by all the single sex activities and starting to feel like I'm given the message I shouldn't talk to the opposite sex. Thanks for sharing that this has a lot to do with church culture, and not what Jesus intended.
I--a 77-yo retired male pastor--have often said that Mt 5:28-30 can be summarized as "Men, solving the lust problem is your responsibility; not hers." The BGR is not the way to do that.
Cutting something ut (what's going on inside) by grace, the comfort given by God, et al. is what does it. Maybe we need to sin "wisely", that is, understanding what's going on and solving it where it starts: inside of us. To solve an issue by external rules is legalism. To solve issues by an internal change (Rom 12:2) is living by grace. (BTW: if I need to change my summary of Mt 5:28-30, please LMK. It sounds good to me, but may not sound good to all. It won't be the first statement I had to change because of the way it sounded.)
That’s so wise! Sin needs to be solved from the inside, not managed through external rules.
Yep. It’s common for men to struggle with sexual sin these days.
Yep. It’s common for men to struggle with sexual sin these days.
Yep. It’s common for men to struggle with sexual sin these days.
As a man who typically feels much safer with women, this kind of nonsense has led to me having to forego several friendships because of the prevalence of views like the BGR espouses. It’s unfair to everyone, and it’s very telling how many men assume I’m wanting to sleep with their wives simply because I feel safe enough to open up around them. I wish I didn’t have that trauma response to a lot of men, but that doesn’t change the fact that I do. 🙃🫠
I’m with you. I tend to gravitate toward women’s conversations because they are more interesting topics (life, faith, the Bible, relationships. Men seem to just want to talk about sports and their jobs, neither of which interest me.
haha, I've had the same experience but in the opposite direction! My theory is that conversations with people who are "just like us" (life stage, gender, etc) can often tend towards the superficial, simply because those superficial things are what we have in common. In contrast, we can have better (deeper, more substantial) conversations with people who are unlike us in some ways, because we *don't* have the superficial topics available to us.
Great post, thank you for this. I am recovering from (among other things caused by the shame I experienced at the hands of the church for my teen pregnancy) being raised devout Catholic. Reading this made me think also: isn’t this a convenient way to subjugate women. In these churches, men have all the power. What’s the difference between “avoiding” women and ignoring them? Ignoring them and “keeping them in their place”?
I'm so sorry you were treated that way. And you're right - the problem is that in all these scenarios, as much as they are presented as efforts at "purity," men ultimately have the power to decide where women may and may not exist.
Thank you so much, Joy. To be acknowledged is such a gift and I’m truly grateful.
Also I think that maybe the rule should be to ask if the person is comfortable being in a one on one meeting. But even that might be a little weird.
Really it’s a shame we have to think about these things!
I think your suggested "rule" would be much better for everyone involved! Sure, it might be a little awkward, but it's better for the discomfort to be shared equally than for one person to force the other into a situation where they feel ashamed. I'm working on a post with alternative guidelines similar to this -- hope to publish later this week!
Glad to hear it. It seems civilized. And something you can ask of any person. Regardless of Gender.
Great points. I also see this rule says nothing about same-sex relationships, which I’ve come to understand are more common in some churches than you might think. I also wonder how we should apply the lessons to children. With the history of many churches, I would think many would say the rule is necessary for that purpose. Curious what you would think about that.
Absolutely. Abuse against children is far too common in the church, and while many churches are starting to become aware of it and create protections, this deserves far more focus. You're right about the same-sex relationships angle ... if pastors really wanted to avoid any and all suspicion, they shouldn't meet with anyone alone, of any gender! But that's not realistic, which is why we need to focus on creating healthy relationships rather than external rules.
You are spot on! The church treats women with men like alcohol with addicts. I was told often that men can’t help themselves so women have to help them avoid temptation. So gross!
I once worked as a pastor’s PA and it was bizarre how many comments were made by church members about how we needed to protect ourselves by not being alone together. They would say things privately and publicly. It started to feel a bit sinister and I personally thought they didn’t trust either of us to practice any sort of respectful restraint. Like we might just lose control or something. I mean, you’ll trust a man to be your pastor, but not trust him alone with a woman? And I hadn’t done a thing to earn such scrutiny other than be female. I eventually quit, not because of the pastor, but because of the church members. Even his wife jumped in the act. The pastor was actually a very good man, totally devoted to his wife and family. He offered me the job so I could work from home and stay with my children. He left the church about a year later to go back to teaching. Can’t say that I blame him.
"I hadn’t done a thing to earn such scrutiny other than be female." I'm sorry for what you experienced -- that's awful. This kind of suspicion directed towards women is revealing of a church culture that sees us as dangerous objects or temptresses, not humans made in the image of God.
Yes, yes, and again more yes! Avoiding women [or men] creates a faux protection with the result of othering the least of these and failing to address the "youthful lusts," the rule was designed to protect against. It hasn't been very long since my last address of the BGR but perhaps it deserves a revisit.
For the interested: https://dlbacon.substack.com/p/the-porn-defence?utm_source=publication-search
Yep. completely my experience. If every woman is a threat, there is no true relationship. I despise the BG rule.
Thoughtfully articulated and compelling. Thank you, Joy. Where mutual understanding and mutual respect are in a healthy place in community as God designed it, men and women would both experience safety and trust such that they probably would agree to healthy boundaries with buy-in all around based on understanding, trust and respect. Some may have experienced that, but I would join Joy in not assuming that this particular rule is usually experienced that way per se and without the larger healthier relational and communal context. I appreciate Joy pointing out that it is often a decision by men, for men, and has, in fact, been experienced harmfully by women. I hope men will consider this perspective.
Well said, Joy. And these guys reveal so much about themselves….they, not women, are the unsafe ones.
The only time I experienced the BGR was in an interview for church membership by two male elders. Just before the meeting they asked me to wait until an older female member joined us before we went into the meeting. It startled me, because up to that point men in that church seemed to have no problem interacting with me as a single woman. I had previously met alone with one of the pastors, and on several occasions, because I played with the worship team and went to evening practices, I was the only woman among a group of men.
I think of the BGR as one of those rules the Apostle Paul warned against in Colossians 2:23: "Although these have a reputation for wisdom by promoting self-made religion, false humility, and severe treatment of the body, they are not of any value in curbing self-indulgence."
I believe the scripture says, "flee from sexual immorality" that's what the Billy Graham Rule based upon.
Lust is different from all other sins as the scripture highlights: Every other sin is sin outside one's body but lust sins against one's own body. Every other sin you can resist, but lust, you must flee from it—meaning, stay away from any occasions that will tempt you.
In Proverbs, the young man who falls into the trap of an adulteress because he takes the route that passes by her corner in the dark. The timing and the location he chooses lead to his sin. Of course, it's because he wants to give in to lust and that's why he takes that route. The Billy Graham Rule merely cut that possibility off.
Men will always battle with lust. Whoever say they don't are either sexually apathetic or are lying to you (and themselves). Most men are not even half as godly as David. Yet David sinned sexually. Their only choice is to flee from it.
Joy - Excellent piece!
If I am afraid to be alone with my sister in Christ then it seems that I either don’t trust her, or I don’t trust myself, or both. And, as you get at, that’s a relational problem!
If a half inch of cleavage causes me to go into an uncontrollable ’lust rage’ then perhaps I need to take a deep look into what’s actually going on in my own soul, rather than telling my sister how to dress (i.e. blame it on her). Guys, we’ve got to take ownership of our part in this (if we have a lust problem).
One final thought: If a woman’s midsection is so sexually provocative that the girls are required to wear one piece bathing suits, then I think that the boys should have to wear T-shirts in the pool to cover their’s also.
This is an incredibly important conversation. Thank you, Joy.
I guess I learned a different perspective on the Billy Graham Rule. At our ministry members of the opposite sex, not married to each other, are not to be alone together in a room with the door closed. I once had a female student make up a speech for me, and I had to ask a woman in the office to join me so there was no reason to suspect something untoward was happening behind closed doors.
The point is, the rule applies equally to men and women. If a man and a woman have business, it takes place in an office with the door open or in a room that is accessible to anyone (I am a professor and there is a classroom outside my office door, which fits the bill.
I am sorry for your and your daughter's negative experiences, and I'd love to call out the men who acted inappropriately toward you both. But I fail to see how a directive that applies equally to men and women is inherently sexist and harmful.
If I may, this might answer your question.
"...when we make rules like the BGR that other women [and men tbf], it creates space and permission in our hearts to objectify them and use them from a distance; we are protected because of the rule, and yet, can objectify them from a distance and gratify ourselves—which we did."
https://dlbacon.substack.com/p/the-porn-defence?utm_source=publication-search
It sounds to me like you took attitudes toward the opposite sex that you know were inappropriate, and decided to make a workplace rule the scapegoat for your inappropriate attitudes. That doesn’t make the rule the problem in your office culture.
We did, and the rule enabled it to take place. We didn't know any women that well (apart from our mothers and sisters) and family was so idolised that everyone else was deeply othered. (We had a saying "you can only trust your family") We had no basis for honour, respect, submission or love because it was like never letting your kids go outdoors. We never developed an immune system to handle those kinds of situations. So when the internet came along it was a field day of supressed sexuality, everything we never knew existed beyond the front door piped into our self-isolating homes like an unchecked social contagion for which we were, decidedly, not inoculated. We distanced ourselves not only from women but from other people; other families who were surely as suspicious of us as we were of them.
Taking a rule of life is a serious matter--it's not so simple as following a work-place-rule. That particular rule of life, that of self-isolation from the opposite sex both one-on-one and in community has resulted in generations of socially immunocompromised individuals who endanger our institutions by their very presence and lack of self-knowledge and repentance. It's not a matter of scapegoating the BGR, however, it did create the environment for sexual immorality to thrive uncontested. Instead of confronting lust for the usury that it is, we swept it under the carpet until a cartoonish and salacious bulge emerged from our unkempt minds.
For this reason, the BGR is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Lust is a plant that thrives in the shade and we planted a whole damn hedge for it to grow up into and are continually surprised when it chokes the life out of us.
You seem to be making the same error as Joy - assuming (pretending?) that the rule applies to men only and therefore makes men evil/exposes their evil/or something. Properly understood it applies to both men and women, at all levels of the organization.
Why should that make a difference? That just spreads the evil over the whole organisation. At the heart of the BGR is the belief in total depravity, that, left to our own devices we always choose immorality and so removed of the temptation we never learn and it assures that we choose opportunistic immorality. The BGR is directed specifically at men because, for the majority of church history, men have wielded a kind of rumour of power that puts them in positions of domination and the responsibility for their purity is overwhelmingly placed on women who, as Joy points out, are the subject of scrutiny by completely overfamiliar, strange men.
Yes, in principle, the BGR applies to men and women, but in practice it favours men and condemns women because of existing power dynamics.
That’s a good rule cause it helps men and women avoid sex before marriage (fornification).
…so there was no reason to suspect something untoward was happening behind closed doors…
It’s sad that you live in a world where you would suspect something untoward is happening just because a door is closed. That’s sick. I’d like to believe that MOST adults can control themselves. That a closed door isn’t an immediate license to get ‘untoward’. That’s so mistrustful. Geez… we’re not wild animals.
It's not being mistrustful. It's avoiding even the appearance of impropriety. It's being smart, in other words. We are not wild animals but in today's mistrustful, and litigious, society we need to not give others the opportunity to pretend that we're wild animals.
This isn't difficult.
I’m not planning to be continuing on this comments section after posting this. What you write, M.Y. , that the rule can be protective (of course maybe should not be needed, but…that is true of many safety measures) is not demeaning for either men or women. It is just setting up boundaries about being alone in a closed space… When I talk to my male pastor alone, his door is always open a crack. I guess I’d be good with the same in a woman’s office, too. This is my opinion and way relating.