“No President has done more for the Evangelical community, and it’s not even close,” Trump tweeted on Friday.Manuel Balce Ceneta / AP
By Our Reporter & News Agencies
Popular USA evangelist and President of Samaritan’s Purse, Franklin Graham says his father, Billy Graham, voted for Donald J. Trump in 2016 because he believed “he was the best man for the job.”
Franklin Graham made these remarks on Friday, adding that his father knew Donald Trump, and believed in him.
The 67-year-old was responding to an article that appeared in Christianity Today — a magazine founded by “America’s pastor” Billy Graham — declaring that President Trump should be removed from office.
Writing one day after the House voted to pass two articles of impeachment against Trump, Christianity Today Editor-in-Chief Mark Galli wrote that not only was Trump’s conduct unconstitutional, but also “profoundly immoral.”
Galli said that Trump “has dumbed down the idea of morality in his administration” and that his Twitter feed “is a near perfect example of a human being who is morally lost and confused.”
Since “they invoked my father’s name (I suppose to try to bring legitimacy to their statements),” Rev. Graham wrote, “I feel it is important for me to respond.”
“Yes, my father Billy Graham founded Christianity Today; but no, he would not agree with their opinion piece. In fact, he would be very disappointed,” Graham said, noting that the misappropriation of his father’s name is what moved him to reveal whom his father voted for in 2016.
Rev. Graham then proceeded to offer his own searing indictment of the behavior of House Democrats in their “politically motivated, 100% partisan” impeachment of the president.
“For Christianity Today to side with the Democrat Party in a totally partisan attack on the President of the United States is unfathomable,” Graham wrote. “Christianity Today failed to acknowledge that not one single Republican voted with the Democrats to impeach the President.”
“I know a number of Republicans in Congress, and many of them are strong Christians,” he declared. “If the President were guilty of what the Democrats claimed, these Republicans would have joined with the Democrats to impeach him. But the Democrats were not even unanimous—two voted against impeachment and one voted present.”
“This impeachment was politically motivated, 100% partisan. Why would Christianity Today choose to take the side of the Democrat left whose only goal is to discredit and smear the name of a sitting president?” Graham asked. “They want readers to believe the Democrat leadership rather than believe the President of the United States.”
Rev. Graham next offered a tally of some of the president’s accomplishments, asking rhetorically why Christianity Today had not bothered to take them into consideration.
“Look at all the President has accomplished in a very short time,” he wrote. “The economy of our nation is the strongest it has been in 50 years, ISIS & the caliphate have been defeated, and the President has renegotiated trade deals to benefit all Americans.”
“The list of accomplishments is long, but for me as a Christian, the fact that he is the most pro-life president in modern history is extremely important — and Christianity Today wants us ignore that, to say it doesn’t count?” he continued. “The President has been a staunch defender of religious freedom at home and around the world — and Christianity Today wants us to ignore that? Also the President has appointed conservative judges in record number — and Christianity Today wants us to ignore that?”
The evangelical leader then moved into discuss the real motivation behind Christianity Today’s hit piece on the president.
“Christianity Today said it’s time to call a spade a spade,” he wrote. “The spade is this — Christianity Today has been used by the left for their political agenda. It’s obvious that Christianity Today has moved to the left and is representing the elitist liberal wing of evangelicalism.”
“Is President Trump guilty of sin?” Graham concludes. “Of course he is, as were all past presidents and as each one of us are, including myself. Therefore, let’s pray for the President as he continues to lead the affairs of our nation.”
Friday afternoon, President Trump thanked the younger Graham for announcing publicly that his father voted for Trump and added: “I guess the magazine, ‘Christianity Today,’ is looking for Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, or those of the socialist/communist bent, to guard their religion.”
Exit polls in 2016 showed that 80 percent of white evangelical voters backed Trump. A Pew Research Center survey earlier this year found that about 7-in-10 white evangelical Protestants say they approve of Trump’s job as president.
