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Billy Graham

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Have you seen Bugged (1996)?

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Franklin has been cruising on his father's legacy even though at least two outrages should have removed him from the spotlight.

Darrell Lucus at Loud, Liberal, Christian:

For almost half a century, the religious right has told all and sundry that there is an intolerable bias against Christians in this country. As most of us know, Donald Trump tapped heavily into that sentiment to convince over 70 percent of white evangelicals to vote for him in all three of his presidential bids. The belief that he would put an end to this supposed persecution was a big reason the nation’s so-called moral guardians rallied to Trump’s standard even though many of them knew he was a bully, a boor, a buffoon, and a gangster. With few exceptions, many of them remained at his side even after January 6 and his theft of classified documents added “traitor” to that list. Anyone who grew up in the Bible Belt as I did knows that any talk of persecution is a myth. In much of that region, Christianity is so heavily ingrained that people actually look down on you if you aren’t saved. Moreover, why is much of the right working overtime to make it so you have to be a Christian to honestly take an oath of office in this country? To my mind, though, the strongest evidence that there really is no bias against Christians in this country is the continued influence of Franklin Graham. For almost two decades, he has used the legacy of his father, Billy Graham, to carry water for the religious right.

It initially appeared that Graham had bottomed out during Barack Obama’s second run for president, as well as during his second administration. After being universally shredded for appearing to question Obama’s faith, he seemingly walked those attacks back—only to join the chorus of right-wing evangelicals questioning the faith of those who voted for Obama. He then claimed voting for Obama would risk the wrath of God—after having his father’s ministry issue voter guides that urged a vote for “Biblical values.” When the electorate didn’t do so, Graham claimed God would crash the economy as punishment. But Graham took it to another level when he became one of Trump’s most shameless enablers. As most of us know, after the “Access Hollywood” tapes came out in 2016, \he dismissed hearing Trump revel in degrading women as far less important than who would choose Supreme Court justices. Five years later, he claimed the Republicans who voted to impeach Trump for Jan. 6 had done so in return for “thirty pieces of silver.” He has claimed that both of Trump’s wins were divinely inspired. Graham’s willingness to condone two of Trump’s worst depravities would be more than enough to prove that the only thing he shares with his father is a full name (Billy’s full name was William Franklin Graham Jr.; Franklin’s real name is William Franklin Graham III). He forgot that his father spent the rest of his life regretting getting too close to Richard Nixon. The elder Graham’s reputation and ministry were both nearly destroyed in the wake of Watergate, and he was so chastened that he remained fervently apolitical for the rest of his life. I’m reminded of how Billy Graham became a powerhouse in the Christian world in the first place. His rise began in 1949, when during a crusade in Los Angeles, aging media baron William Randolph Hearst sent a two-word telegram to his newspapers—”Puff Graham.” That is, churn out positive stories about the then-young evangelist. It turned him into a national figure at one stroke. But if you ask virtually any non-Trumpified Christian who has been paying attention, it has long been past time to give the opposite treatment to Franklin Graham. If you will, it’s time to deflate him.

[...] While the younger Graham’s willingness to enable Trump would be enough in and of itself to show that he should have been deflated years ago, it turns out Franklin has done something that makes his willingness to bow and pray before the orange god he helped make look minor league by comparison. How do you get more depraved than carrying water for a crime boss president? Quite easily, it turns out—by throwing a domestic violence survivor under the bus. Namely, Naghmeh Panahi, the ex-wife of former Iranian-born persecuted pastor Saeed Abedini. For much of the second half of the Obama administration, Saeed and Naghmeh were the faces of persecuted Christians around the world. Saeed had been thrown into an Iranian prison in 2012 on trumped-up charges of violating national security. All available evidence suggested that Saeed’s real “crime” was converting from Islam to Christianity—which is almost tantamount to treason in Iran. [...]

However, she told The Post, the scales started falling off when Abedini berated her over Skype in the fall of 2015 and she stopped speaking to him. While at a conference in North Carolina, she sat down with longtime pastor David Chadwick, who told her that she had actually been a victim of long-term abuse. Graham, on the other hand, responded in just about the worst way possible. When he saw Panahi’s email, he called her and asked her, “Naghmeh, are you cheating on him?” It was the start of some of the most ham-handed victim-shaming and victim-blaming I’ve ever seen.

Not long after Abedini was released in January 2016, Graham wagged his finger at Panahi for taking her two kids and moving in with her parents in Boise. He told Panahi that her kids “need their father [and] they need you,” and warned that “a broken home” could potentially “destroy their lives.” He suggested that she and Abedini “get away from both [your] families” and reconcile. Being a domestic violence survivor myself, this drove me up the wall. How could anyone with an iota of decency, let alone someone purporting to be a “man of God,” offer such Iago-like advice? [...]

All of this puts Franklin’s dismissive attitude about the “Access Hollywood” tapes in a disturbing light. I’d wondered how any man of God could be okay with having a president brag about how he could treat women any way he pleased—even “grab ‘em by the pussy.” Well, it turns out that just months before, that same man of God threw a survivor who was a sister in Christ under the bus and openly sided with her abuser. While I have my concerns about Roys’ ethics, she left no doubt that Graham was a heartless bully long before Panahi’s interview with The Post. So how was Graham even in a position where he could even think anyone could listen to him when he took his potshot at the Republicans who voted to impeach Trump? If possible, Graham dug another hole in September 2024. He was on hand for a press conference in Valdosta, Georgia where Trump falsely claimed Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp hadn’t been able to reach Joe Biden to discuss the impacts of Hurricane Helene on Georgia. In truth, Kemp said that he’d spoken with Biden after missing him earlier, and Biden promised to give Georgia any help it needed. When Graham’s niece, Jerushah Duford—a prominent Christian speaker in her own right—saw her uncle in Georgia, she was floored. The next day, Duford revealed she had been scrambling to rescue her mother and Graham’s older sister, Gigi Graham Tchvidjian—and couldn’t understand why her uncle wasn’t there to help.

[...] In the absence of something I haven’t heard or seen, the only explanation I can think of is that since Graham is a man of God, he gets a pass. Sorry, that isn’t okay. A secular public figure would never be allowed to get away with publicly throwing a domestic violence survivor under the bus in this way. Nor would he be allowed to get away with putting a political rally above helping his family. Both together? Franklin Graham has forfeited any right to say anything to anyone about anything, and we should have no qualms about deflating him.

Great column from Darrell Lucus on why Trump hack “pastor” Franklin Graham’s standing in evangelical world should be deflated.

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