Franklin Graham

• Barbara Bush says Jeb Bush should not run for the White House in 2016 because “we’ve had enough Bushes." We agree.
• Speaking of Bushes, Bryan Fischer says President Obama has been a "miserable failure" because there have been several terrorist attacks on American soil while he has been in office while there were none in the last seven years of George W. Bush's presidency.  Apparently 9/11 doesn't count.
• It is Fischer's tendency to say things like that which makes us sympathetic to the guy who owns the @BryanFischer handle on Twitter and ends up suffering all the abuse that is intended for the other Fischer.
• Honestly, take a look at this "map" and tell us how anyone can think it is in any way responsible for last summer's shooting at the Family Research Council headquarters. It literally tells you nothing other than that FRC is located in Washington, DC.
• FRC prays that the Boy Scouts will reject efforts to allow openly gay scouts: "May God hear our cries for mercy and move upon a strong majority of the National Council members to stand and vote for moral purity -- for the new resolution to be rejected! May they not be moved by pressures from without or from within to do otherwise. May American boys have a Boy Scout program that helps parents inculcate moral purity in their sons, virtues that derive from God's eternal laws, from now until the Lord returns!"
• On a similar note, Jane Chastain says gay Boy Scouts cannot be "morally straight": "Since all major religions condemn the practice of homosexuality in the strongest terms, it is as impossible for young people who declare themselves to be homosexuals to keep the oath, as it is for atheists, who also are barred from becoming Boy Scouts."
• Finally, Franklin Graham calls for a tax on violent video games and movies.

Franklin Graham recently sat down with Newsmax where he reiterated his belief that America has turned its back on God by re-electing President Obama and declared that God will judge this nation for doing so by bringing America to its knees through a massive economic collapse in order to wake people up and turn them back to Him:

Dejected, downcast and angry, conservatives have begun attacking the media and other Christians for not signing on to the anti-Obama campaign, maintaining that Obama’s re-election proves that America is experiencing moral breakdown. Family Research Council head Tony Perkins told talk show host Janet Mefferd that the election results reveal “symptoms of a deeper moral and spiritual problem that we’re facing in our nation,” and beseeched Christians not to just “go on the mountaintop and just wait for the Rapture.”

We wrestle with these political issues but at the core our problems as a nation are not political, they are spiritual. These are symptoms of a deeper moral and spiritual problem that we are facing in our nation. So how do we go forward as Christians? I think there is going to be a temptation for some to go on the mountaintop and just wait for the Rapture, but that’s not in the instruction manual that God has given us.

Mefferd even claimed that she does not believe America will survive an Obama second term and feared that death panels will try to kill her when she is older.

When we made all those proclamations before this election that we can’t survive another four years, I don’t know about all the other people who were saying that, I actually meant it. Now whether or not I’m right about that remains to be seen, but I wasn’t one of those people who woke up this morning and said ‘you know at least I have my health.’ Where my thoughts go is: at least I have my health until the death panels tell me I can’t have the treatment I need in about twenty years when I need something substantive and they tell me I’m too old.

Mike Huckabee on Focus on the Family said conservatives experienced a “humiliating defeat” and must repent.

He also prayed for Christians to begin to change America and stop abortion rights and same-sex marriage.

We have the freedom to love it, we also have the freedom to criticize it and the freedom to change it, forgive us God for not accepting the responsibility that comes with that freedom and for so often just being critical without participating and trying to make it better. We know we have sinned against you as a country: we have done it in that way that we’ve shown contempt toward life that you created, we know we have done it in the manner in which we’ve defiled the sacred bonds of marriage so that it accurately pictures your relationship between Christ and the church. But we also know God that you love us, you are willing to forgive us if we are willing to repent, and we pray that this could lead us to a time of real repentance as a country.

Janet Porter of Faith 2 Action said “there must be repentance” for the “pro-family election disaster,” blaming the media and “disobedient” Christians who “have idols of race, party and entitlements.”

In the wake of what many would describe as a pro-family election disaster, the question, “What happened?”

My answer: 3D’s.

No. 1: Dereliction of duty of Christians who sat this election out or threw their votes away.

No. 2: Deception brought to you by the most biased mainstream media, complete with biased debate moderators and cover-up of the most important stories and the positions of those running.

The third D: Disobedience. Those who identify themselves as Christians have idols of race, party and entitlements. There must be repentance.

So, repent, rest, recover, but for our liberties and values to survive, this is not the time to retreat. Now is the time to advance.

Orson Scott Card, the author and National Organization for Marriage board member, lashed out at the media for covering up Obama’s lies and acting like Nazis!

Barack Obama is still a liar -- you didn't change that, you merely hid it.

Barack Obama is still the selfish, cowardly commander-in-chief who abandons American public servants -- you didn't change him, nor did you give him any reason to change.

…

If America had a Joseph Goebbels who would arrest any journalist who reported anything that would make the administration look bad, did you write or say or report anything during this election campaign that would have put you inside a jail cell?

Everybody at Fox News would have been jailed, and Fox News would have been shut down. But you already do everything you can to get people not to listen to Fox, so the actions of such a propaganda minister would merely make official what you already try to accomplish by other means.

Don't you dare say I'm lying or exaggerating, because the Democrats did try to shut down conservative talk radio, and you supported them in that effort, allowing them to get away with calling the proposed action "fairness."

You go along with the big lie every day. You did it obviously and openly in these last weeks before the election, allowing Barack Obama to conceal, cover up, lie -- all because, like good obedient party flacks, you knew that nothing was more important than keeping the Beloved Leader in power.

…

But far more likely is the other alternative -- that, faced with your monolithic groupthink, your insistent flacking for the Beloved Leader, your dishonesty that is equal to his dishonesty, your emulation of Pravda, the Republicans in Congress will give up, Fox News will drop the story, it will all go away, and the Beloved Leader will continue in power.

Then, when his appeasement of our enemies results in a nuclear explosion in Tel Aviv ... When more and more Al-Qaeda-style attacks kill more Jews and more Americans around the world ...

…

Just because brown-shirted thugs aren't beating your opponents in the streets doesn't mean you aren't every bit as much the enemies of democracy as any Nazi or Bolshevik ever was.

Mat Staver of Liberty Counsel said that Christians under Obama will be living like under Nazi Germany and that, as a result of this election, America is on the brink of collapse now that “abortion, same-sex marriage, and immorality carried the day.”

The event we have just witnessed was far more than a general election – it was a referendum on the soul of America. We grieve today like we have lost a friend or a close relative. Millions of Americans looked evil in the eye and adopted it. Some Christian observers called the Democratic Party platform for 2012 a “Romans 1 Platform,” and they were right. Abortion, same-sex marriage, and immorality carried the day.

…

We might be a Bonhoeffer in Nazi Germany who never lived to see the fruit of his faithful labor. We might be a Wilberforce in England who saw the fruit of his labor (the abolition of slavery and reformation of morals), but died soon after, never getting the chance to enjoy the results. We might even be a David who stood up against popular opinion and defeated a giant who blasphemed God Almighty. No matter what our lot might be, we are called to be faithful!

…

We will no doubt see and feel the consequences of this election. More children will die. Marriage will come under greater attack. Immorality will be exalted. Sadly, the country could easily collapse under the weight of escalating economic debt. Islam will be emboldened. Our military will become weaker. Israel will not have as strong an ally as it needs at this critical time. The world will become a more dangerous place. These are all consequences that follow national actions like the ones we have just witnessed. But, when you are down, that is the time to fight all the harder!

Rick Green of WallBuilders blamed the education system for why America “knowingly embraced socialism,” and said that conservatives must channel the spirit of the American Revolution to resist Obama.

Half of the American voters that showed up to vote have knowingly embraced socialism. Does that mean they are evil? No, of course not. But it does mean they are wrong.

It means they are misinformed because our education system has for 60 years taught the “virtues” of socialism while tearing down capitalism and traditional values. We are simply living with the results.

The left wing understands that it takes decades and generations to move a culture. For 60 years, they have been actively engaged and focused on this fight for the soul of America.

…

The only logical explanation for half the nation holding out is that there were enough parents during the last three generations passing down liberty principles at home despite the cultural onslaught against them.

…

It’s EXACTLY like the Revolutionary Committees of Correspondence that started in 1764…eleven years before the Revolution actually began. Those were the seeds that bore the fruit of freedom nearly a full generation later. The British troops did not leave American soil for nearly 20 years after that handful of American patriots began their great work. It will be at least 20 years before we can fully turn the tide against socialism, but freedom for my kids and grandkids is worth it!

Americans for Legal Immigration PAC’s William Gheen urged Republicans to continue to oppose comprehensive immigration reform, even as they got trounced among Hispanic voters.

With the US House in the hands of Republicans, there is a chance that if we all work hard we can stop Obama from permanently empowering his illegal alien army as legal and illegal voters.

…

We expect Obama to follow a similar trajectory as Bush. Obama will push for mass amnesty for illegal aliens early in 2013 and by doing so his approval ratings will drop to historic lows just like Bush did when his approval dropped to around 20% making him the most unpopular President in modern American history.

We need to unite illegal immigration fighting groups with Tea Party groups, gun rights groups, and low tax groups immediately. We need to reach out to disaffected Democrats and Unaffiliated voters who will quickly sour on Obama early in his second term as Obama takes his nice guy mask off and the horns pop out.

UPDATE: The zealously anti-Obama pastor Rick Joyner in a new bulletin mourned that America is heading into a state of tyranny and may even dissolve into “separate nations.” He lamented that “the Republic cannot now long survive” and that Obama has already “fulfilled in many ways what the Scripture calls a wicked leader.” 

For about ten years, thinkers and writers in Russia have predicted the break up of the United States into four or more separate nations. At first I thought this was just sour grapes on their part because of the break up of the Soviet Union, but I also felt that there could be truth to this. I do not believe that it is absolutely determined, rather it is the direction we are now headed. As the saying goes, “If you do not change your direction, you will end up where you are headed.”

...

Our Founding Fathers were just as afraid of the tyranny of the masses as they were the tyranny of the king. They had witnessed in the French Revolution what happened when the masses ruled, and they established in our Constitution firewalls against the tyranny on both sides. Both of these firewalls have been breached or torn down altogether now, and as the Founders warned, the Republic cannot now long survive.

Thomas Jefferson warned that the Republic could not last if the people learned that they could vote for themselves the resources of the national treasury. That was breeched a long time ago, and we are now at the point where the entitlement mentality it has created in the masses is about to destroy us. We were led down this road by both the Democrats and the Republicans. This is not sustainable, but one is not likely to get elected to office if they even talk about trying to correct this. We are now very close to collapsing the whole system. Then elections will no longer be held at all and we will face a terrible tyranny. We will first face the tyranny of the mob, and then we will face the tyranny of the tyrant.

...

Our Constitution is now hanging by a thread. With the Senate so solidly in the hands of liberals, we can expect activist judges to be appointed throughout the Federal Courts, and likely take control of the Supreme Court for decades to come. For a long time, the Constitution has just been ignored, but now it is under a systematic attack and may not last much longer.

...

To date, I believe that Obama has fulfilled in many ways what the Scripture calls a wicked leader. He has sided with and promoted what the Bible calls wickedness, while attacking what the Bible calls righteousness. Even so, I think at this time he is an accurate reflection of the heart of the nation that has been turning away from God since the 1960s. More firewalls of the righteousness that our nation has walked in were breeched in this last election. So let’s be praying for our President and the people to turn back to the Lord.

UPDATE II: Televangelist James Robison wondered if “a severe shaking and ultimate humiliation will be necessary” to make America repent for continuing to back Obama and his liberal policies.

I am still wondering if only a severe shaking and ultimate humiliation will be necessary before both the church and nation turn to God in genuine repentance. With God’s help and His grace, we must all be faithful witnesses and as ministers proclaim His word fearlessly and faithfully. We must continually offer hope and help to the downtrodden, overlooked, and often forgotten people here and around the world. We are commissioned by Christ to be salt and light, Spirit-filled witnesses, and makers of disciples among the nations.

Too many Americans have been trained to want someone other than God to care for them and consistently fail to truly love their neighbors as themselves. People are on the brink of trusting what the Old Testament prophets referred to as “the shadow of Egypt” (the ways of the world) and in another type of Pharaoh rather than in the shelter of the Almighty and as a result we are headed for bondage from which only God can deliver us. The Lord remains our hope.

UPDATE III: Not to be outdone, Franklin Graham is now predicting America’s destruction:

On the day of his father’s 94th birthday, and the day after the country re-elected President Barack Obama president, evangelist Franklin Graham gave two-pronged advice to the American people:

Politically, it’s time for the two parties to work more closely.

Yet spiritually, Tuesday’s results sent America further down a “path of destruction.”

“Unless we’re willing to repent for our sins, we will stand in his judgment,” Graham said Wednesday, shortly after leaving a birthday party for his father, evangelist Billy Graham, in Montreat.

“I want to warn America: God is coming around. He will judge sin, and it won’t be pretty.”

In particular, Graham was referring to the re-election of Obama, a man he has accused of “waving his fist before God” by supporting abortion rights and same-sex marriage. Voters in four states Tuesday either passed laws legalizing gay unions or blocked moves to further restrict it.

Earlier this month, Jerry Boykin withdrew from a speaking engagement at West Point’s National Prayer Breakfast amid controversy over his anti-Islam activism and generally bizarre views.

Franklin Graham, who has recently been generating controversy of his own, knows what Boykin went through becuase he too was disinvited from a prayer breakfast back in 2010 for making similar anti-Islam comments.

In response, Graham has now written a column complaining that he and Boykin and anyone else who "speaks out firmly for truth" are being persecuted by the forces of political correctness, which are weaking "very foundation of our Judeo-Christian morality":

One of the most sinister and menacing threats to our society today lurks under the lethal guise of two small initials—PC.

I’m talking about political correctness—the maddening and prevailing public sentiment of offending no one (except Christians). It has infected our schools, government, universities, and the marketplace, leaving no room for moral absolutes or the authoritative truth of Scripture.

Instead, political correctness demands tolerance of everything as it panders to the godless values of pluralism, marginalizing and even persecuting men and women of faith.

...

[W]hen some politically correct people discovered Gen. Boykin was speaking, they began a media campaign to stop him, pointing to his criticism of radical Islam, whose militant adherents have killed thousands of innocent civilians on American soil. One commentator on a national news network called the effort to block Gen. Boykin “political correctness gone amok.”

I know exactly what he was facing. Some of the very same people worked together against me in 2010 to force the Army to withdraw my invitation to speak at the Pentagon on the National Day of Prayer because nine years earlier I had called the radical element of Islam what it is—evil and wicked.

The official explanation of my disinvitation was dripping with political correctness: “His past statements are not consistent with the multi-faith emphasis and inclusiveness of this event.”

Do you see the insidious nature of all this? Inclusiveness now means excluding anyone who speaks out firmly for truth. It is happening everywhere in the country. Wishing to offend no one, our nation’s politicians, leaders, and decision-makers now stand for absolutely nothing. The very foundation of our Judeo-Christian morality is severely threatened.

Franklin Graham sat down for an interview with Christianity Today to clarify some of the recent statements he had made.  During the discussion, Graham insisted that he never questioned the place of President Obama's birth and doesn't even care; he was simply making the point that the issue has been a "headache" for Obama and so it only seems logical that he'd produce his birth certificate in order to shut every one up.

This led into a discussion about Obama's faith, with Graham asserting that he's never believed that Obama is a Muslim ... mainly because Obama is clealrly just a bad Christian: 

I was with President Obama when he was Senator Obama. I asked him, "How did you come to faith in Christ? What is your testimony?" He said, "I was organizing a community in the South Side of Chicago. The community said, 'What church do you go to?' I told them I didn't go to church. If you're going to organize a community, you're going to have to join a church." So he joined Jeremiah Wright's church. That's the testimony he told me, word for word.

The point is, nobody knows. I don't know if you're a Christian. God knows your heart. I'm not your judge. I'm not President Obama's judge. He has to stand before God one day. I'm going to have to stand before God. Only God knows a person's heart. For millions of Americans, being a Christian is being a member of a church. When I read the Bible, Jesus says, "There will be many in the last day who say 'Lord, Lord,' but I will say, 'Away from me, I knew you not.'" A Christian is a person who identifies himself with Christ, has confessed sin and received Christ into his heart and is following him in obedience. Church membership cannot save you.

...

We have to look at the policies, are they consistent with the teachings of Jesus Christ? The President's support of gay and lesbian rights in this country—is that consistent with the teachings of the Word of God? Those kinds of things have to be looked at. Do the positions match what they say they believe? If someone says they follow Jesus Christ, then why don't they obey him?

During the January 12 memorial service for the victims of the tragic Tucson shooting, a traditional Native American blessing was delivered by Carlos Gonzales, an associate professor at the University of Arizona College of Medicine ... and the Right has been outraged by it ever since.

Earlier this week, the Washington Times ran an op-ed by Franklin Graham blasting organizers for allowing such a prayer because "Father Sky and Mother Earth can do nothing to comfort" the victims: 

Rather than calling on the God of heaven who made us and created this universe, which He holds in the palm of His hand, the university professor called out to "Father Sky, where we get our masculine energy" and "Mother Earth, where we get our feminine energy."

How sad. Father Sky and Mother Earth can do nothing to comfort Capt. Mark Kelly, who had been at the bedside of his wife, Rep. Giffords, wondering if she'd ever leave her bed. Or Mavy Stoddard, who was only alive because her husband sacrificed his life by shielding her with his body. Or the family, classmates, teammates and friends of little Christina, whose life was snuffed out before she could play another season of Little League.

For the sake of these innocent people and for Americans everywhere, I wish someone could have prayed to the One who created all of us, Almighty God. The president quoted from the great textbook of grief, the Old Testament book of Job - always fitting words in times like these. Perhaps the Yaqui tribe representative, the president of the university - someone - could have echoed the words of the Psalmist: "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth."

What a shame that the University of Arizona didn't have enough sensitivity to suffering families and a watching nation to invoke the name of the God who is "Father to the fatherless and protector of widows."

Last week I wondered how Pat Robertson's American Center for Law and Justice was managing to rationalize its role in leading the opposition to the "Ground Zero Mosque" while still claiming to be a leading defender of religious freedom in America. 

As it turned it, the ACLJ did it by simply claiming that the debate wasn't about religious freedom at all.

But that excuse was laughably pathetic, and so Jay Sekulow and Brett Joshpe are back with an op-ed in the Washington Times, taking another stab at justifying themselves, claiming now that their "opposition to the ground-zero mosque reflects America's sacrosanct First Amendment ideals."

That's right - the ACLJ is simply exercising its own First Amendment right to freedom of speech:

The U.S. Constitution guarantees the right to do and say many things that are offensive - indeed, that is the bedrock of our constitutional system - but well-intentioned people, nonetheless, often choose not to do or say such things out of a moral concern for others. As the Anti-Defamation League eloquently wrote in its statement opposing the project, "ultimately this is not a question of rights, but a question of what is right."

We are witnessing a tidal wave of opposition from all across the nation. Americans are exercising their private First Amendment rights and expressing opposition to the ground-zero mosque. Their voices are what create that famed marketplace of ideas, and attempts to silence them through cries of bigotry and racism in the name of the First Amendment are especially ironic.

This debate, in fact, reflects the ideals of freedom, and despite the intensity and controversy of the issue, the relative civility of the discussion is a testament to American values and tolerance. No serious person has suggested banning Islam or mosques or even the freedom to practice Islam near ground zero. Instead, citizens are expressing their personal views that the location of the mosque is unnecessarily inflammatory and hurtful, given the circumstances, and that if the project's developers seek to promote mutual respect and harmony, as they claim, they should reconsider.

Our client is one of those private citizens who believes this project is an insult to the Sept. 11 victims' memory and their families. His right to express that view - to fight this development politically and by ensuring that administrative agencies follow their own precedents and the rule of law, and to speak with the chorus of others who find the Cordoba House mosque at ground zero inappropriate - represents the essence of a free democracy. That right is not in tension with the First Amendment; it is the First Amendment.

Wasn't it just a few months ago when the ACLJ was fuming that Franklin Graham has been disinvited to a Pentagon National Day of Prayer event because of some past anti-Islam statements, a move which Sekulow and the ACLJ decried an act of outrageous anti-Christian bigotry?

The ACLJ claims that they are simply exercising their First Amendment right to free speech in opposing others' First Amendment right of religious freedom ... while also complaining that those who accuses them of hypocrisy or anti-Muslim bigotry are trying to prevent them from exercising their First Amendment rights ... so really, they are the real victims here.

Given a convoluted justification like this, good luck trying to figure out exactly where the ACLJ stands on the question of religious freedom vs free speech.

Franklin Graham is apparently under the impression that freedom of speech and religion means that he is allowed to say anything the wants and nobody has a right to disagree or complain, nor will there ever be any repercussions, because he was merely exercising his religious freedom,

That, at least, seems to be his stock response whenever he discusses being disinvited from the Pentagon's National Day of Prayer event, as he's now complaining to CBN's David Brody that Christianity is being "put down":

"I think it is a put down, because there seems to be that Islam gets a pass, that a couple of Muslims complain about a Christian event at the Pentagon, when there's been Christian events at the Pentagon for years. My father has preached there, I have preached there, many others have preached there, but yet a couple of Muslims can complain. They can have Ramadan, they have their prayer services there, I don't complain, I'm happy for them to do that, but for them to complain because I don't believe as they believe and I don't worship the same God that they worship. I worship a different God than they worship. But we love them, and I care for them, and I want Muslims everywhere to know what I know that Jesus Christ died for their sins the same way he died for mine and if they're willing to confess and repent of their sins and receive Christ in their hearts, then their lives, they can have that assurance of salvation, forgiveness of sin, and they can have that assurance of Heaven, and I want them to know that."

I wonder how Graham and the Religious Right if the Pentagon had invited a Jewish or Muslim speaker to the Day of Prayer event who had called Christianity a "very evil and wicked religion"?

I'm sure that they would have respected said speaker's religious and first amendment rights ... just like they did when a group of Muslims tried to hold a prayer rally on the National Mall last year.

• Cliff Kincaid's America's Survival, Inc has released a "new blockbuster report argues that the admission of open and active homosexuals into the U.S. Armed Forces threatens the lives of our service personnel."
• The vice-president of the American Family Association of Kentucky, John Brewer, is among the candidates in the Republican primary for the 28th Kentucky House seat.
• Guess what?  The AFA's Bryan Fischer thinks Arizona's new immigration law is great.  Who ever would have imagined?
• Ken Cuccinelli "has demanded that the University of Virginia turn over documents related to a former UVa climatology professor at the center of the so-called 'climategate' scandal."
• Exciting: "Fox News personality and former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee is in Nashville to record a music project with various country artists. A source close to the sessions, who declined to provide any other details, said it will probably be officially announced in June in conjunction with the National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM) show in Nashville."
• Finally, the quote of the day from the Family Research Council's Tony Perkins, hailing Rep. Jack Kingston's call for a Congressional investigation into why Perkins and Franklin Graham saw their speaking invitations withdrawn: "I join Congressman Kingston in his call for a thorough Congressional investigation, which will hopefully put a stop to this Administration's efforts to compel the military to do its political bidding. DOD should stand for the Department of Defense - not the Department of Disinvitation of Bible-believing Christians." Ummm ... wouldn't that make it the DODOBBC?