Godless Apostate

[You Need a Thneed]

Originally Posted by Thor

How did he make his net worth of 25 million then? Just curious.

Book sales, probably.

[Dion]

[photon]

Originally Posted by You Need a Thneed

Book sales, probably.

Donations mostly I'd say.

http://www.billygraham.org/assets/me...orm990BGEA.pdf

$80 million in donations
$4 million seminar registrations
$1 million magazine subs

Billy Graham is pretty clean as far as that lot goes though, at least I haven't seen him trying to sell healing water or pieces of the cross or begging for money saying God will kill him if he does, etc.

[You Need a Thneed]

Originally Posted by photon

Donations mostly I'd say.

http://www.billygraham.org/assets/me...orm990BGEA.pdf

$80 million in donations
$4 million seminar registrations
$1 million magazine subs

Billy Graham is pretty clean as far as that lot goes though, at least I haven't seen him trying to sell healing water or pieces of the cross or begging for money saying God will kill him if he does, etc.

Donations to the Association are different then donations to the man. I highly doubt that the man takes even a cent of pay for the association. The association may pay for travel and accommodations during events.

Considering the amount of his books that have been sold, if his net worth is $25 million, a $25 million net worth is really remarkably low.

[photon]

Originally Posted by You Need a Thneed

Donations to the Association are different then donations to the man. I highly doubt that the man takes even a cent of pay for the association. The association may pay for travel and accommodations during events.

Considering the amount of his books that have been sold, if his net worth is $25 million, a $25 million net worth is really remarkably low.

Sorry I was only partially paying attention to the post you quoted (was thinking more about sources of income for his ministry), I don't know if Billy Graham is worth $25 million.

Yeah Billy Graham seemed to draw a typical level salary, lived in a relatively modest house, etc. He again seems to be one of the better ones in that he tried to be honest and transparent, and used his resources for things to advance the goals of his ministry.

EDIT: Billy Graham being worth $25 million seems to be widely quoted, I guess stuff like book sales could be a part of that.. that's a lot of books, but he lived a long time too.

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by Thor

How did he make his net worth of 25 million then? Just curious.

Book sales, syndicating rights to his radio and television shows, and revenue from films etc. Graham also drew a comfortable (but not garish) salary from the ministry, but his own personal net worth was not accumulated through his preaching ministry (at least not directly). It is a pretty well known fact that the Billy Graham Crusades were open to the public and free of charge. I attended two with my family when I was much, much younger, and I can confirm that they were both free.

[Thor]

I always thought of him in a positive light, to be honest never really bothered to learn much about him but he always seemed like the nice grandpappy type.

What about his son though, he sure got a lot of hate here in Iceland for his stance on gay marriage, but is he more like his father or more like a hardened evangelical.

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by Thor

I always thought of him in a positive light, to be honest never really bothered to learn much about him but he always seemed like the nice grandpappy type.

A little known fact. Billy Graham holds—as far as estimates can be figured for this sort of thing—the world record for cumulative size of live audiences on the planet at around 215 million. That is, more people have listened to Graham live than any other human being in history, and by a wide, WIDE margin. He also holds the single largest audience record for a meeting in Seoul Korea which was attended by over one million people:

Originally Posted by Thor

What about his son though, he sure got a lot of hate here in Iceland for his stance on gay marriage, but is he more like his father or more like a hardened evangelical.

I think that the controversy with F. Graham when contrasted with his father is a two-fold product. First, the senior Graham's legacy was forged in an era of conservatism, and coincided with the positive surge of Evangelicalism in the 70's and 80's. There was a LOT of public good will that accumulated with his own association with burgeoning, young Evangelicals, and he rather brilliantly played his own affable, approachable, humble, and generous persona against the excesses of the papacy, and the "big tent revival" crowd who produced such charlatans as Kenneth Copeland, Benny Hinn, Peter Popoff, Robert Tilton, Crefio Dollar, etc. The other thing is that with Graham, the sincerity is really genuine, and for a man of his public stature, this really stands out as quite remarkable and impressive.

His son, on the other hand, has not had it so easy in the public eye, and I think a lot of this has to do with the fact that times have changed quite dramatically since the '70ies. A lot of attention paid to social issues such as abortion, gay marriage, "family values", teen sexuality, and the shift in US foreign policy that could no longer ignore the Middle East have put F. Graham in a tough spot politically. Many of these were issues that his father simply didn't have to give much attention to, but with the emergence of a much more visible politically savvy social conservatism, F. Graham couldn't ignore them.

Second, B. Graham has softened politically and theologically with age, and at a stage in his life where he has benefitted from the rare latitude to do so. With his legacy secured for all time, he can take more Evangelically controversial stances on several issues (which are simultaneously much more publicly palatable), and he doesn't experience the same sort of blow back that another Evangelical leader in the same position would absorb from his inner circle of supporters. In other words, he can "pander" to "secular pressure" and not suffer for it within the Evangelical world which is famous for devouring its own.

[photon]

I met Kenneth Copeland once a long time ago, family was invited to a causal evening at the pastor's house while he was there. Even though I was a kid (early teens I think), I felt like he was smarmy.

I remember seeing him present the crystalline canopy idea once and that was definitely a "wtf" moment for me.

http://creationwiki.org/Crystalline_canopy

Seeing Benny Hinn live was another "wtf" moment.

[Thor]

I have always wanted to see Benny Hinn live, that would be a trip!

[T@T]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

Book sales, syndicating rights to his radio and television shows, and revenue from films etc. Graham also drew a comfortable (but not garish) salary from the ministry, but his own personal net worth was not accumulated through his preaching ministry (at least not directly). It is a pretty well known fact that the Billy Graham Crusades were open to the public and free of charge. I attended two with my family when I was much, much younger, and I can confirm that they were both free.

You forgot to mention the "donation" barrels(yes...barrels) at every exit.

[You Need a Thneed]

Originally Posted by T@T

You forgot to mention the "donation" barrels(yes...barrels) at every exit.

Which no one is obliged to put money in, and it is explicitly stated so.

[Dion]

Originally Posted by T@T

You forgot to mention the "donation" barrels(yes...barrels) at every exit.

No one was forced to put money in those barrels.

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by T@T

You forgot to mention the "donation" barrels(yes...barrels) at every exit.

I did not forget. The question was about the source of Graham's wealth, and the "donation barrels" were very clearly NOT part of that. All the money collected at his crusades went straight back into his ministry (from which he drew a salary), and not into his pockets.

There are A LOT of charlatans out there who manipulate religion as a way to get rich, but B. Graham was not one of them. He certainly had his flaws, but being a money-grubbing con man was not one of them.

[DuffMan]

So I was just looking at the LPGA leaderboard in Edmonton, and checking out some of the girls playing, and I came across one I've never heard of before.


Brooke Pancake from Alabama.






So I noticed on the side of the page, it shows some of these girls latest tweets, and her last one was.

God only gives three answers to prayer: 1. 'Yes!' 2. 'Not yet.' 3. 'I have something better in mind.'

So, I prayed to God to hook me up with Brooke Pancake, and it was just silence. I don't get it, what am I doing wrong?

[onetwo_threefour]

^ I guess she forgot "4. No soup for you, you faithless heathen, fake praying to Me!" Or maybe it just didn't fit in the tweet.

(Yes, I think God is like Soup Nazi...)

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by DuffMan

...So, I prayed to God to hook me up with Brooke Pancake, and it was just silence. I don't get it, what am I doing wrong?

No, no. It doesn't work like that. God's token three answers are never actually experienced directly, nor in a timely fashion. Now that you have offered your prayer, the next step is to wait (most Christians fill this waiting time by uttering the same prayer over and over again, as if God didn't hear or didn't notice the first time). You can only know when your prayer is answered once you have discovered some correlation that even vaguely resembles the content of your prayer. At this stage, you can presume that God's default position "not yet" is in effect, and will remain so until either 1) you hook up with Brooke Pancake, or 2) something more gratifying happens (which could be anything!)

The important thing is just to stick with it, and have faith.

[T@T]

Originally Posted by You Need a Thneed

Which no one is obliged to put money in, and it is explicitly stated so.

I realize that...lets face facts though much like the salvation army people at christmas in the malls...they make you feel small if you don't donate.

If those barrel weren't filled with mostly "uncounted" cash Graham wouldn't have had a ministry for all those years.

Originally Posted by Textcritic

I did not forget. The question was about the source of Graham's wealth, and the "donation barrels" were very clearly NOT part of that. All the money collected at his crusades went straight back into his ministry (from which he drew a salary), and not into his pockets.

There are A LOT of charlatans out there who manipulate religion as a way to get rich, but B. Graham was not one of them. He certainly had his flaws, but being a money-grubbing con man was not one of them.

You say that like you believe it, maybe you do! Personally anyone who slings a pile of crappola on TV with "send help to" commercials and puts barrels for cash "donations" at the exits of his sermons is a friken con man.

I'll give him this though...he'll go down as one of the best ever.

[T@T]

Originally Posted by DuffMan

Brooke Pancake from Alabama.











So, I prayed to God to hook me up with Brooke Pancake, and it was just silence. I don't get it, what am I doing wrong?

Maybe she tried but your address is just a "local host" with loopback.

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by T@T

...If those barrel weren't filled with mostly "uncounted" cash Graham wouldn't have had a ministry for all those years...

I agree completely, but this is different from what you inferred in your earlier post. The important point here is that donations went directly to the ministry, and not to B. Graham himself.

Originally Posted by T@T

You say that like you believe it, maybe you do! Personally anyone who slings a pile of crappola on TV with "send help to" commercials and puts barrels for cash "donations" at the exits of his sermons is a friken con man...

And here is the big difference between B. Graham and those actual con-men who bilk the gullible masses for cash. Graham did not personally benefit from such donations—at least not directly in the form of personal income. Unlike some of the more despicable televangelists such as Hinn, Poppoff, Copeland, Tilton, etc., Graham did not make outrageous miracle claims, nor did he offer promises of personal financial gain in exchange for donations. He was actively quite adamant about ensuring that donations remained WITHIN THE MINISTRY, and were NOT to be used to line his pockets. Before his retirement, B. Graham was the CEO of a multi-national, multi-million dollar organisation, and received an annual salary of around $150,000. That's a pretty modest compensation for a man in his position, and hardly indicative of someone whose intentions are to get rich.