Shop Our Affiliates!

Click Here
The Jim Bakker Show

Franklin Graham doesn’t hold back at NRB and warns “There’s a storm coming and we all need to be prepared”

Deuteronomy 28:43-53 43 “Foreigners who live in your land will gain more and more power, while you gradually lose yours. 44 They will have money to lend you, but you will have none to lend them. In the end they will be your rulers. 45 “All these disasters will come on you, and they will be with you until you are destroyed, because you did not obey the Lord your God and keep all the laws that he gave you. 46 They will be the evidence of God’s judgment on you and your descendants forever. 47 The Lord blessed you in every way, but you would not serve him with glad and joyful hearts. 48 So then, you will serve the enemies that the Lord is going to send against you. You will be hungry, thirsty, and naked – in need of everything. The Lord will oppress you harshly until you are destroyed. 49 The Lord will bring against you a nation from the ends of the earth, a nation whose language you do not know. They will swoop down on you like an eagle. 50 They will be ruthless and show no mercy to anyone, young or old. 51 They will eat your livestock and your crops, and you will starve to death. They will not leave you any grain, wine, olive oil, cattle, or sheep; and you will die. 52 They will attack every town in the land that the Lord your God is giving you, and the high, fortified walls in which you trust will fall. 53 “When your enemies are besieging your towns, you will become so desperate for food that you will even eat the children that the Lord your God has given you.

Important Takeaways:

  • Franklin Graham at Christian media convention: Every ‘demon from hell’ has been ‘turned loose’ in society
  • In his keynote address at the opening session of the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) International Christian Media Convention here on Monday night, Rev. Franklin Graham minced no words regarding faith in today’s society.
  • He told all those gathered, “There’s a storm coming, and we’ve all got to be prepared.”
  • Graham also said that “every demon from hell” has been “turned loose” in our culture today.
  • “The world has deteriorated so quickly,” he said from the stage. “We cannot be deceived and we can’t be fooled. We need to get ready and be prepared.”
  • [He] began his remarks by commenting on data protection, referencing those who run faith-based businesses.
  • “Who owns the [data] cloud?” he said. “Amazon.”
  • “We’re living in a cancel culture, and [big corporations] want to destroy Christian organizations,” he also said. “They want us to shut our mouths. They don’t want to hear from us.”
  • Graham urged Christian organizations to prepare to defend themselves against the growing cancel culture in business, insurance, banking and technology, and challenged them to continue sharing the hope of Jesus Christ in the face of increasingly difficult circumstances.

Read the original article by clicking here.

Franklin Graham: Call to Prayer for our Nation

1 Thessalonians 5:17 Pray without ceasing

Important Takeaways:

  • Franklin Graham: America Is ‘Spiraling in a Heap of Confusion and Lies’
  • Prominent evangelist Franklin Graham urged Americans to return to prayer Thursday, insisting the nation’s problems stem from having “turned our back on God.”
  • “Our country is spiraling in a heap of confusion and lies,” Rev. Graham wrote to his 10 million Facebook followers.
  • “As a nation we have turned our back on God and His Word, and we are seeing the results. Violence, crime, and suicide are rampant,” he declared.
  • The only solution to the nation’s escalating problems is a return to God, Graham asserted, in his remembrance of the National Day of Prayer, an annual observance designated by the U.S. Congress and held on the first Thursday of May.
  • The National Day of Prayer was established by President Harry S. Truman in 1952 as part of the public reaction to the threats occasioned by the Korean War, mandating that each subsequent president sign a yearly proclamation urging all Americans to pray on this day.
  • Franklin Graham insisted that our hope “isn’t in politicians and programs — our hope is in God.”

Read the original article by clicking here.

University of Cambridge research student claims Jesus had a Trans body. Franklin Graham warns of false teachers

Franklin Graham

Romans 1:28 “And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.”

Important Takeaways:

  • ‘Repulsive and Shameful’: Franklin Graham Unleashes After Man’s Sermon Purportedly Claiming Jesus Had ‘Trans Body’
  • Evangelist Franklin Graham held little back this week when he publicly rebuked a University of Cambridge research student’s purported claim Jesus has a “trans body,” calling the utterance “repulsive” and a “heresy.”
  • Joshua Heath spoke about depictions of Jesus in art.
    • “In Christ’s simultaneously masculine and feminine body in these works, if the body of Christ as these works suggest the body of all bodies, then his body is also the trans body,” Heath reportedly said.
  • Franklin Graham wrote:
    • “This is repulsive and shameful,” the evangelist wrote. “To insinuate that Jesus Christ, the Holy Son of God, is transgender or to sexualize in any way His sacrificial death on the Cross for the sins of mankind is utter heresy.”
    • He said it should be no surprise why some were so disgusted and in tears after the “blasphemous message,” and offered a dire warning.
    • He added, “People don’t need messages from the pulpit that are trying to interpret art like this speaker was — people need the truth of the Word of God that has the power of God to change hearts and lives for eternity!”
    • Graham concluded with 2 Peter 2:1, a verse that decries false teachers and warns of their “destruction.”

Read the original article by clicking here.

Age of Moral Chaos and Confusion “determine your own truth” according to poll: 39% reject absolute morality

2 Thessalonians 2:3 “Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction”

Important Takeaways:

  • ‘What a Lie’: Franklin Graham Reacts to Shocking Pastoral Survey, Lambastes ‘False Teaching… Leading People & Churches Astray’
  • Evangelist Franklin Graham reacted this week to shocking survey data showing more than one-third of senior pastors purportedly believe “good people” can earn their way to heaven, with Graham lambasting some of the findings as “false teaching.”
  • At least one-third of respondents also said they believe the Holy Spirit isn’t a person and is instead a “symbol of God’s power, presence, or purity,” with at least the same proportion preferring socialism over capitalism.
  • Perhaps most stunning, though, is the 39% figure Graham cited, as that’s the percentage of evangelical pastors who reject the idea of absolute morality and believe individuals get to “determine their own truth,” as The Christian Post reported.

Read the original article by clicking here.

Reverend Graham takes stand against Biden’s use of ‘God’ to defend Abortion

Deuteronomy 27:25 “‘Cursed be anyone who takes a bribe to shed innocent blood.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’

Important Takeaways:

  • ‘It’s Murder’: Franklin Graham Opposes Biden’s Use of ‘God’ to Defend Abortion Rights
  • Franklin Graham said: “Biden said that the right to an abortion comes from being a ‘child of God.’ Mr. President, that is just not true,” Graham tweeted. “Being a child of God does not give you the right to take the lives of the innocent. Abortion is a sin— simply put, it‘s murder.”
  • Biden made his controversial remarks Wednesday while lambasting a draft Supreme Court opinion indicating the justices could overturn Roe v. Wade
  • “As I said when this hit…this is about a lot more than abortion,” the president said. “I hadn’t read the whole opinion at that time.”
  • Biden then spoke about the origination of rights
  • “This reminds me of the debate I had with Robert Bork. Bork believed the only reason you had any inherent rights is because the government gave them to you,” Biden claimed. “I said, ‘I believe I have the rights that I have not because the government gave them to me, which you believe, but because I’m just a child of God, I exist.’”

Read the original article by clicking here.

Evangelical Pastor Franklin Graham backs Ron DeSantis in battle with Disney

Ephesians 6:13 “Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm.”

Important Takeaways:

  • ‘Disney’s morals are in the gutter’: Evangelical Pastor Franklin Graham says Disney ‘flaunts sin’ as he backs Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in battle over so-called ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law
  • Evangelical pastor Franklin Graham has blasted Disney for having its morals ‘in the gutter’ while backing Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in his battle with the firm.
  • Graham said: ‘What has happened at Disney is moral failure. Walt Disney had a vision for wholesome family entertainment. He was committed to the family.
  • ‘The morals of the corporate leadership of Disney today are in the gutter, and they want to redefine family counter to God’s original design and flaunt sin.’
  • ‘Thank God for Governor Ron DeSantis who is willing to take a bold stand. We need more leaders like him. God bless him and the Florida legislature.’
  • The House passed the measure with a 68-38 vote after the Senate backed the bill by 23-16 the day before

Read the original article by clicking here.

My Response To Christianity Today – Franklin Graham

Christianity Today released an editorial stating that President Trump should be removed from office—and they invoked my father’s name (I suppose to try to bring legitimacy to their statements), so 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. I have not previously shared who my father voted for in the past election, but because of this article, I feel it is necessary to share it now. My father knew Donald Trump, he believed in Donald Trump, and he voted for Donald Trump. He believed that Donald J. Trump was the man for this hour in history for our nation.

For Christianity Today to side with the Democrat Party in a totally partisan attack on the President of the United States is unfathomable. 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. 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? They want readers to believe the Democrat leadership rather than believe the President of the United States.

Look at all the President has accomplished in a very short time. 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 to ignore that, to say it doesn’t count? 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? Christianity Today feels he should be removed from office because of false accusations that the President emphatically denies.

Christianity Today said it’s time to call a spade a spade. 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? 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.

Reverend Billy Graham Goes Home

Evangelist Billy Graham speaks to members of the media at a news conference in New York, U.S. June 21, 2005. REUTERS/Mike Segar/File Photo

By Kami Klein

Reverend Billy Graham, considered to be the world’s greatest evangelistic force, is now in the embrace of His Loving Father in Heaven. Throughout his life He was regarded by contemporaries as humorous, non-judgmental, sincere, innocent and accepting. This powerful voice advised twelve Presidents and his wisdom earnestly sought by influential world leaders and royalty throughout the world.  This champion was a lion who’s heart wished only to give God’s biblical word to all who sought salvation, and he roared God’s message for over seven decades leading millions to Christ.    

Born on November 7, 1918, in Charlotte, North Carolina, Billy Graham was preaching at an L.A. revival and was a guest on Stuart Hamblen’s radio show in 1949. The publicity made Graham a superstar and he began broadcasting his sermons globally by eventually incorporated the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA). Graham began broadcasting his sermons over the radio during a Christian show called Songs in the Night. Once a week he also hosted a program called The Hour of Decision, a program ABC initially transmitted to 150 stations before reaching its peak of 1,200 stations across America.

The Era of  television brought his ministry to new heights although it was Billy Graham’s live crusades that would bring hundreds of thousands of people to his meetings. To listen to Billy Graham “live” brought the Holy Spirit directly to your heart and it spoke to Millions. Billy Graham has preached the Gospel to more people in live audiences than anyone else in history—nearly 215 million people in more than 185 countries and territories—through various meetings, including Mission World and Global Mission. Over 3 million accepted Christ!  Hundreds of millions more have been reached through television, video, film, and webcasts.  

In 1943, Billy married Ruth McCue Bell. Ruth was the daughter of a missionary, and lived with her family in China until she turned 17. After graduating with a bachelor’s in anthropology, Graham and Bell were married on August 13, 1943. They would eventually raise five children together, Franklin Graham, Anne Graham Lotz, Gigi Graham, Ned Graham and Ruth Graham.  

During his Ministry, Graham was awarded the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation Freedom Award, the Congressional Gold Medal, the Templeton Foundation Prize for Progress in Religion, the Big Brother Award, the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion, and the Speaker of the Year Award. Additionally Graham was recognized by the National Conference of Christians and Jews for promoting understanding between faiths, and bestowed with the Honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empir

 In 1992, Graham announced that he was diagnosed with hydrocephalus, a disease similar to Parkinson’s Disease. His son William Franklin Graham III was chosen to take over BGEA upon his father’s retirement. Billy and his wife Ruth eventually retired to their home in Montreat, North Carolina, in 2005. In 2007, Ruth Graham passed away from pneumonia and degenerative osteoarthritis. Though filled with grief, Billy Graham was determined to continue his mission and it wasn’t until his 95th birthday that Reverend Billy Graham gave his last public sermon. In it, Graham spoke with the strength of his years, warning of a cultural slide in American Society saying that the nation is in great need of “a spiritual awakening.”

“There’ve been times I’ve wept as I’ve gone city to city and I’ve seen how far people have wandered from God,” he told viewers of the television tribute to his ministry called “The Cross”.

One of the most talked about Crusades of Billy’s life occurred in 1958. Billy Graham led an evangelistic campaign in his home town of Charlotte, North Carolina that lasted from September 21 to October 25. The meetings, which were held at the joint invitation of most of the churches in the city and the surrounding area, were held in city’s Coliseum, with overflow crowds watching the meetings on closed circuit television in the Ovens Auditorium next door. Total attendance for the five weeks was 423,387 people, of whom 17,653 came forward for salvation. Below is an excerpt from one of his sermons during that time which is as relevant today as it was then.  

Gazing down at the thousands of people gathered for Revival, Reverend Billy Graham spoke out with kind authority…

“God, looking down from heaven one day, saw this earth in its turmoil and strife and sinfulness, saw us in our lost condition, saw us in our sins. And the Bible says that God said, “I love you. I love you. I love you. I want to save you.”

But how could God? He fills all of space. He is the mighty God of creation that flung those billions of stars out into space. So God did something that astounded the universe. God became a man. That’s who Jesus Christ was. He was God. And when I see Jesus making the blind to see, I see God. When I see Jesus feeding the five thousand, I see God interested in the hunger and the desires of men. When I see Jesus dying on the cross,

I see God in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself. I see the nails in His hands. I see the spike in His feet. I see the crown of thorns on His brow. I hear Him say, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” [see Matthew 27:46]. In that terrible moment, Jesus was separated from God in a mysterious way that none of us understood. And now God said, “This is my Son, in whom I am well pleased. Believe in Him. Receive Him. And I will save you.” [See Matthew 17:5.]

But Jesus didn’t stay on the cross. They put Him in the tomb, and on the third day He rose again. And I do not offer you this afternoon a dead Christ. I offer you a risen Christ, a Christ that is at the right hand of God the Father, and who is someday going to come to judge the quick and the dead [see Acts 10:41,42]. I offer you a triumphant Christ who is going to win.

A lot of people say, “Do you think communism is going to win the world?” They might win it temporarily, but it will only be temporarily. Because the Bible says that Jesus Christ is going to establish His kingdom, and the church shall someday triumph. Someday those of us who know Christ shall reign.

Reverend Graham passed away at his home in Montreat, North Carolina, on February 21, 2018, at the age of 99. Although his health had been in decline in recent years, he reportedly died of natural causes.

At the end of the broadcast for “The Cross”, Graham invited viewers to become followers of Jesus as he know doubt would do the very same today, on his day of entering heaven….

“Today, I’m asking you to put your trust in Christ,”

He would pray this prayer for all of us, would you please take a moment to pray together with us now?

Dear God, I’m a sinner. I’m sorry for my sins. I want to turn from my sins. I believe Jesus Christ is your Son. I believe He died for my sin and that You raised Him to life. I want to trust Him as my Savior and follow Him as Lord from this day forward. Jesus, I put my trust in You and I surrender my life to You. Please come into my life and fill me with Your Holy Spirit. I pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.

 

Today, Heaven did indeed receive one of Christ’s greatest warriors!

 

Billy Graham, preacher to millions, adviser to U.S. presidents, dies at 99

By Bill Trott

(Reuters) – U.S. evangelist Billy Graham, who counseled presidents and preached to millions across the world from his native North Carolina to communist North Korea during his 70 years in the pulpit, died on Wednesday at the age of 99, a spokesman said.

Graham died at 8 a.m. EST (1300 GMT) at his home in Montreat, North Carolina, according to Jeremy Blume, a spokesman for the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.

According to his ministry, he preached Christianity to more people than anyone else in history, reaching hundreds of millions of people either in person or via TV and satellite links.

Graham became the de facto White House chaplain to several U.S. presidents, most famously Richard Nixon. He also met with scores of world leaders and was the first noted evangelist to take his message behind the Iron Curtain.

“He was probably the dominant religious leader of his era,” said William Martin, author of “A Prophet With Honor: The Billy Graham Story.” “No more than one or two popes, perhaps one or two other people, came close to what he achieved.”

Graham found himself at times in controversy over his disapproving stand on gay rights, as well as a over a secretly recorded conversation with Nixon in which the cleric complained that Jews had too much influence on the U.S. media. In the later years of his career he intentionally muted his political beliefs to focus on the Gospel.

Graham was no longer a close associate of presidents in recent years but many former U.S. leaders paid tribute on Wednesday. President Donald Trump said on Twitter: “The GREAT Billy Graham is dead. There was nobody like him! He will be missed by Christians and all religions. A very special man.”

In a rare trip away from his home in his later years, Graham had celebrated his 95th birthday on Nov. 7, 2013, at a hotel in Asheville, North Carolina, where some 800 guests, including Trump, business magnate Rupert Murdoch and television hostess Kathie Lee Gifford paid tribute.

The event featured a video of a sermon that his son Franklin said was Graham’s last message to the nation. Graham had been working for a year on the video, which was aired on Fox News. In it, he said America was “in great need of a spiritual awakening.”

With his steely features and piercing blue eyes, Graham was a powerful figure when he preached in his prime, roaming the stage and hoisting a Bible as he declared Jesus Christ to be the only solution to humanity’s problems.

In his heyday Graham had a thunderous, quick-burst speaking style that earned him the nickname “God’s Machine Gun.” Through his “Crusades for Christ,” Graham sowed fields of devotion across the American heartland that would become fertile ground for the growth of the religious right’s conservative political movement.

MEDIA MASTERY

His influence was fueled by an organization that carefully planned his religious campaigns, putting on international conferences and training seminars for evangelical leaders, Martin said.

Graham’s mastery of the media was ground-breaking. In addition to radio and publishing, he used telephone lines, television and satellites to deliver his message to homes, churches and theaters around the world.

Some 77 million saw him preach in person while nearly 215 million more watched his crusades on television or through satellite link-ups, a Graham spokeswoman said.

Graham started meeting with presidents during the tenure of Harry Truman. He played golf with Gerald Ford, skinny-dipped in the White House pool with Lyndon Johnson, vacationed with George H.W. Bush and spent the night in the White House on Nixon’s first day in office.

George W. Bush gave Graham credit for helping him rediscover his faith and in 2010, when it was difficult for Graham to travel, Barack Obama made the trip to the preacher’s log cabin home in North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains.

Graham’s ties to the White House were mutually beneficial. His reputation was enhanced as preacher to the presidents, while the politicians boosted their standing with religiously inclined voters.

“Their personal lives – some of them – were difficult,” Graham, a registered Democrat, told Time magazine in 2007 of his political acquaintances. “But I loved them all. I admired them all. I knew that they had burdens beyond anything I could ever know or understand.”

Graham’s reputation took a hit because of Nixon after the release of 1972 White House tapes in which the two were heard making anti-Semitic comments. Graham later said he did not remember the conversation and apologized.

In the early half of his career, Graham often spoke his mind on social and political issues of the day, including his strong anti-communist sentiments. He dismissed Vietnam War protesters as attention-seekers and, while he eventually refused to hold segregated revival meetings, he did not take an active role in the 1960s civil rights movement.

But Graham’s politics were not as overt as those of some religious leaders who came after him, such as Pat Robertson, who ran for president in 1988, and Jerry Falwell, co-founder of the Moral Majority, an organization whose purpose was to promote Christian-oriented politics.

As he grew older, Graham said he felt he had become too involved in some issues and shifted to a middle-of-the-road position in order to reach more people. He did, however, dive into the gay marriage issue in 2012 when he came out in support of a state amendment to ban same-sex marriages in North Carolina. He also met with Republican Mitt Romney in October 2012 and told him he supported Romney’s run for the presidency.

FROM FARM TO PULPIT

William Franklin Graham was born on Nov. 7, 1918, into a Presbyterian family and was known as Billy Frank while growing up on a farm near Charlotte, North Carolina. As a teenager, he said he was mostly preoccupied with baseball and girls until he was moved by God after hearing a fiery revivalist in Charlotte.

After attending Bob Jones College, Graham ended up at a Bible school in Florida, where he would preach at his first revival, and was ordained in 1939 by a church in the Southern Baptist Convention. He received a scholarship to Wheaton College near Chicago, where he met Ruth Bell, whose parents were missionaries in China. They married in 1943.

Rather than work from a home church, Graham went on the road, preaching in tents and building a following. His breakthrough came with a 1949 Los Angeles tent crusade that was scheduled for three weeks but extended to eight because of the overflow crowds he attracted.

The success of the Los Angeles campaign and the fame it brought Graham was attributed to media magnate William Randolph Hearst, who had liked Graham’s style and anti-communist stance so much that he ordered his newspapers to give Graham a boost.

Graham eventually outgrew tent revivals and would preach at some of the most famous venues in the world, such as Yankee Stadium and Madison Square Garden in New York and London’s Wembley Stadium. He delivered sermons around the globe, including in remote African villages, China, North Korea, the Soviet Union, East Germany, Czechoslovakia and Hungary.

Liberals accused him of giving credibility to abusive governments while fundamentalist Christians criticized him for going to godless countries and promoting peaceful relations with them. Graham said he simply saw the trips as apolitical opportunities to win souls for Christ.

Graham concluded his career of religious campaigns in June 2005 in New York with a three-day stand that attracted more than 230,000 people, his organization said. He turned over his evangelical association to his son Franklin, who did not shy away from politics and frequently praised Trump once he became president.

Graham’s other four children were also evangelists.

REPUTATION

Graham managed to maintain his public integrity even as other TV star evangelists such as Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart were hit in the 1980s by financial and sex scandals. To keep his reputation pristine, Graham had a policy of never being alone with any woman other than Ruth.

Graham’s closest presidential relationship was with Nixon, who offered him any government job he wanted – including ambassador to Israel. It turned out to be a painful relationship for Graham, who said Nixon and his circle misled him on the Watergate scandal.

Nixon aide H.R. Haldeman first mentioned Graham’s anti-Semitic remarks in a 1994 book, which Graham strongly denied. But when audio tapes from the Nixon White House were released in 2002, Graham could be heard referring to Jews as pornographers and agreeing with Nixon that the U.S. media was dominated by liberal Jews and could send the United States “down the drain.”

Graham, who had a long history of supporting Israel, apologized again after the tapes’ release and said he had no recollection of the conversation.

“If it wasn’t on tape, I would not have believed it,” Graham told Newsweek. “I guess I was trying to please. I felt so badly about myself – I couldn’t believe it. I went to a meeting with Jewish leaders and I told them I would crawl to them to ask their forgiveness.”

The author of more than two dozen books with titles such as “How to Be Born Again,” Graham also ran the weekly “Hour of Decision” radio program broadcast around the world on Sundays for more than 50 years.

Graham helped bring religion into the television age. He first put together a television show, which was eventually syndicated, in 1951 and began live broadcasts of his revival meetings in 1957 from New York’s Madison Square Garden.

In a 2011 Fox News interview, Graham was asked what he would do differently in his career.

“I would study more. I would pray more, travel less, take less speaking engagements,” he said. “I took too many of them in too many places around the world. If I had it to do over again I’d spend more time in meditation and prayer and just telling the Lord how much I love him.”

In addition to suffering with Parkinson’s disease for many years, Graham’s health problems in his later years included a broken hip, a broken pelvis, prostate cancer and installation of a shunt in his brain to control excess fluid. He was hospitalized in 2011, 2012 and 2013 for respiratory problems.

Graham and his wife, Ruth, who died June 14, 2007, had two sons and three daughters.

Graham’s life, in pictures – http://reut.rs/2HBz9p8

(Reporting by Ed Stoddard and Bill Trott; Writing by Bill Trott; Editing by Diane Craft and Frances Kerry)

Franklin Graham: Christians Are Being Bullied Into Silence

Rev. Franklin Graham says that atheist groups are attempting to “bully Christian into silence” after the Christian-targeting Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) demanded an Air Force general be courtmartialed for giving credit to God on the National Day of Prayer.

“Are Christians the only group of people who cannot identify themselves publicly in this country? Are we the only voices who cannot speak?” Graham asked in a Facebook post on Monday.

“I guess this group would’ve tried to court martial George Washington when he prayed at Valley Forge! Come on —whose civil liberties are really being infringed on here? They want to bully Christians into silence.”

The MRFF said that Maj. Gen. Craig Olson should be “aggressively and very visibly brought to justice for his unforgivable crimes and transgressions” after crediting God for his success during a speech at the National Day of Prayer Task Force event May 7th.

“He put me in charge of failing programs worth billions of dollars. I have no ability to do that, no training to do that. God did that. He sent me to Iraq to negotiate foreign military sales deals through an Arabic interpreter. I have no ability to do that. I was not trained to do that. God did all of that,” Olson said.

The head of the MRFF said that airmen are not allowed to endorse a faith.

“Olson’s highly publicized, sectarian speech is nothing less than a brutal disgrace to the very uniform he was wearing and the solemn oath he took to support and defend the United States Constitution,” Mikey Weinstein wrote.

“This public address was his, and the USAF’s, ‘contribution’ to this scathingly sectarian 2015 version of the [task force’s] annual shame spectacle and display of Christian supremacy and exceptionalism held in the Cannon House Office Building on Capitol Hill.

Graham said that Weinstein’s actions show “in America, there has recently grown an ugly, anti-Christian bias and intolerance that is changing our nation from the inside out, opening doors for all kinds of discrimination and loss of religious freedom that we hear about daily in the news.”

Community»