Franklin Graham is parting ways with the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (EFCA).

EFCA will no longer be serving the two flagship Billy Graham initiatives: The Bill Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA) and Samaritan’s Purse (SP).

Graham, who is both the BGEA and SP CEO, said in a joint statement that EFCA’s new ministry guidelines put EFCA “inappropriately outside its founding mission, purpose and practice.”

The charter member’s big decision to part with the Big Eva accreditor/regulator was announced in July and formalised last week.

In the three-page letter published online by the Charlotte Observer, Graham told EFCA president Michael Martin, “BGEA and SP would not be renewing their EFCA memberships.”

Graham reassured Martin their decision was made without malice, “and on the firm belief and with peace that this was the right course of action.”

As a long-time subscriber to the mission and necessity of the EFCA’s monitoring of non-profit ministries, Graham gestured that the decision wasn’t an easy one.

The CEO explained that he, “along with a consensus of the Boards of Samaritan’s Purse and the BGEA, had strong objections and concerns about the EFCA’s new standard.”

This disagreement and alarm, he stated, was grounded in both “principle and practice.”

For example, EFCA’s recently adopted “Excellence in Leader Care,” Graham argued, “puts the EFCA into the role of trying to be the moral police of the evangelical world.”

As such, both the BGEA and SP can no longer support the regulator, despite the respect each organisation has for the EFCA.

Unpacking the reasons for unsubscribing, Graham said, “At first glance, the efforts to care for ministry leaders look fine.”

The problem is with the details.

“A deeper review,” Graham continued to argue, raised red flags.

The ECLA’s foray into politics appears to betray the organisation’s “founding purpose, scope and expertise.”

That founding purpose, he said, included only one job: “enhancing financial integrity.”

Carrying out this narrow mission is something the ECLA has excelled at for nearly 4 decades.

So why the change, Graham asked?

Why is the ECLA expanding its reach into “developing care plans for leaders?”

He then described the new standards as “ambiguous” and therefore dangerously subjective.

Unlike the existing framework for integrity, which requires “no interpretation – a non-profit either met those standards or didn’t,”  he remarked.

Expressing concern about precedent, Graham said additional standards down the track could take ECLA further away from its intended purpose.

“We are concerned,” he stated, that the new leadership standard could, in future years, add other yardsticks, which would amount to overreach.

“What’s to stop a future ECLA president and/or board from including standards that attempt to monitor or regulate a leader’s social media posts?”

Additionally, “what’s to stop standards from including climate change requirements – environmental, social governance (ESG) – or diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) mandates?”

While the standards appear to be a way of mitigating recent “high-profile moral failures,” they fail to address the cause.

“The common denominator in all of those cases is lying,” Graham exclaimed.

ECLA’s new standards have failed upon launching because “no one can prevent a leader from lying.”

“If a leader is living in sin and lying to their spouse about it, lying to board members about their ministry work,” that’s ultimately a “sin problem.”

“Only God can fix it, not the ECFA, or a mountain of standards.”

Pre-empting media inquiries, Graham concluded the letter by saying that “he believes BGEA and SP have handled the matter biblically.”

To this, he said that they do not intend to make a public issue of parting ways with the ECLA.

“If asked,” Graham stated, “we would merely provide the reasons offered in this letter.”

According to Ministry Watch (MW), some in Big Eva have welcomed the ECLA change.

ECLA boss, Michael Martin, told MW he wished BGEA and SP well.

His comments included disappointment at their decision and the assertion that ECLA would honour both organisations’ legacy.

Other charter members of the ECLA include R.C Sproul’s Ligonier Ministries, Mission Aviation Fellowship, Scripture Union-USA, Teen Challenge, World Vision Inc. and Youth For Christ-USA.

Notably, ECLA membership appears to always be in flux.

The Gospel Coalition parted ways with the ECLA in 2020, citing financial reasons.