I’m going with appropriate, though in the past I would have said “uptight.”
Billy Graham had a rule. He was a powerful man, away from his wife and children more often than he was with them. Aware of the significance of his reputation and convinced of the moral value of the Gospel message, he took precautions to guard against his own human weakness. He gave his ministry colleagues explicit instructions: never leave me alone in a room with a woman who is not my wife.
This article is about how marriage is hard–harder for evangelical Christians than others, apparently. But since it’s true–marriage is very hard–admitting that will be the first step toward curbing our divorce/adultery epidemic. If marriage matters, and I think we all know it does, we would do well to start taking it a bit more seriously. Even if that means instituting “over the top” rules about not being in a room alone with a woman/man who is not your spouse.
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Rebecca adds: Interesting. There’s a similar concept in Judaism which prohibits the seclusion of an unrelated adult man and woman, and the reasoning is the same. I go back and forth as to how useful this is in reality.
It’s true that if you’re never alone with someone of the opposite sex, you’re highly, highly unlikely to have an improper relationship with them – unless you’re so brazen that you’d do it in front of witnesses, in which case you have other issues. I worry that taking it to extremes can hinder all kinds of other things – I know male professors who won’t meet with a student of the opposite sex in their office, even during work hours, with the door open, but rather meet in a public room (for reasons other than religion), and while this may be prudent, it’s also sad that a closer, mentor-student relationship can’t be forged. And some (extremely) strict rabbinical interpretations forbid adult men from being alone with even underaged children, even if they’re relatives, although I’ve yet to meet people who follow this ruling. Of course, if your attractions are not to the opposite sex, does it follow that you should never be alone with anybody? That would make normal social and work interactions tricky, to say the least.
Nevertheless, whether Billy Graham’s approach is a bit over the top or not, the pendulum has swung so far in the direction of blurring boundaries, obliterating privacy, and loosened norms that a steering in this direction can only be an improvement, even if we disagree about what the theoretical ideal would be.
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Brigitte says: If the choice is between uptight and this, I’ll take uptight any day.
by 
Keeping men and women apart is pretty popular in Islam, too. Good to know the fundies are all together on this one. 😉
Equivocation. The difference here fern, is this Christian man doesn’t blame the woman for tempting him, but holds himself accountable for what he might do. Surely you can appreciate this distinction? I think until we learn to discern friend from foe, we’re prone to miss the real problems for women out there.
Well, it’s not just about temptation, but nobody can rightly accuse him of having an affair either and try to destroy his reputation. Keeping his reputation clean definitely helps in his line of work.
Deborah: good point. It’s not only disastrous for a senior clergyman to have an affair, it’s disastrous even for credible accusations to be made.
And what about how his wife feels? If he’s not alone with any one woman for any length of time, she’ll never have reason to feel suspicious.
We don’t have any sense of boundaries any more.
My husband is a professor at a university and he never closes the door while meeting with a female student. A prof at his university had his career and life ruined by a female student who accused him of harrassment. He was proven innocent, but not before it completely disabled the man. The girl suffered nothing from her false accusations. So better safe than stuck by those who would love to incriminate.
My first reaction is: “How come men never learn how to keep it in their pants?” I lived in a Muslim country for several years, and found their attitudes towards women all added up to nothing more than “pious” objectification. Mr. Graham’s approach strikes me as one of avoiding accountability and responsibility for our own actions. If I were his wife, I’d have been insulted to think that he treated women, at least in thought, as first and last vessels for his own sexual gratification.
Today there is a huge risk is lawsuits, yes, which is terribly sad.
I don’t think this precaution need apply to everyone, just to be clear. But when you are in Billy Graham’s position, if you fall you take thousands of people with you. I thought it was a move with integrity for a man in his position. Plus, we all know how much secular lefties love to publicize it when “fundies” fall! 🙂 (apparently they like to criticize it when they take steps to avoid that, too.)
“apparently they like to criticize it when they take steps to avoid that, too”
No matter what, you just can’t win! Sigh. Ah well, he’ll get his reward in heaven.
Well I personally have great respect for Billy Graham, he is one man on whom there is not one shred of scandal. So however he has managed to do that, obviously he has been successful.
Wouldn’t Mr. Mark Sanford have done well to have had some policy like Mr. Graham’s? I doubt that he had intended to go as far as he did when he first got to know the Argentinean woman. Just let the camel poke its head under the tent, and soon the whole body will follow.
My grandfather was a pastor. He refused to consider having an office in the church building. Indeed, most of the churches I’ve worshipped with do not have any offices in their buildings. (They were vacant except for meetings.) One reason is their small size, but there’s another very practical reason. Pastors are sinners too, and there have been many, many cases of the church’s pastor running away with the church’s secretary. Fighting temptation means not allowing a place for it in the first place.
“People are not good at anticipating the power of their urges, and those who are the most confident about their self-control are the most likely to give into temptation,” said Nordgren. “The key is simply to avoid any situations where vices and other weaknesses thrive and, most importantly, for individuals to keep a humble view of their willpower.”
I don’t remember if it was on this website that I first read about the study referred to above. The study will appear in an upcoming issue of PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE. Nordgren co-authored the research with Joop van der Pligt and Frank van Harreveld of the University of Amsterdam. Here is one article that tells about it: http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/554874/?sc=dwhr%3Bxy=5045466
I recognise that from somewhere…
Ah, yes. It sounds like a column I spoke of a while ago: http://moronality.blogspot.com/2009/07/ive-not-been-reading-news-sites-much.html
I’m guessing Graham may have read the book I was commenting on in that post, or at least the column.
I do see the simularity to Islamic regulations. The intention claimed is the same, to eliminate all possible sexual temptations. The main difference to me is that Graham’s restrictions are entirely voluntary and self-imposed. Enforcing them on others would be the next logical step though: If the objective is to reduce affairs and divorce, voluntary isolation just isn’t going to do it.
I agree regarding the risk of lawsuits. I used to work in a school, and they were terrified of accusations – and not just sexual. I once made the mistake of pushing a pupil’s hand away from the controls of a projector I was setting up, and he refered to this as me hitting him… I had to go through the formal investigation procedure, writing a formal statement for independant evaluation. Nothing came of it though, as the room contained around thirty pupils and seven members of staff at the time and noone else saw the claimed assault.
A ‘no alone time’ would make sense for someone at high risk of false accusations, such as preachers and politicians. But as a social policy, it’s an attack on basic human rights, and I would be weary of anyone who advocates it as such.