Franklin Graham: Some Administration Officials Are ‘Anti-Christ’
Some of the people working in the Obama administration and in the White House are trying to “completely secularize our military” and are “hostile to Christians,” to the point that they “are anti-Christ in what they say and in what they do,” said Christian evangelist Franklin Graham, the son of world-renowned preacher Rev. Billy Graham.
Franklin Graham made his comments during a Mar. 24 interview with Tony Perkins, the president of the Family Research Council, which published an updated report on religious persecution in the U.S. armed forces this month.
During the interview on Washington Watch Weekly, Perkins asked Graham, “I would have to believe you’re also tracking, in fact I know you’re tracking because you were a part of it – when you were scheduled to speak at the Pentagon a few years ago they disinvited you – are you concerned about this intense religious hostility that we see manifesting in our nation’s military?”
Graham said, ““No question. And my son just got back from his seventh [military] tour this weekend. So, I love the military. There has been huge pressure on the chaplains in our military – and our chaplains have been a wonderful thing for the military. But there is a move to get rid of the chaplains in our country, and to completely secularize our military. Actually, they are hostile to Christians.
“A lot of this is coming from this administration and is being pushed by people within the White House,” said Graham. “And when I say White House, I’m not saying the president, because I’m not sure how much of this he’s aware of. But it’s people that work for him that have power, that are sitting in offices, and they are hostile to Christ.”
“They are anti-Christ in what they say and in what they do,” said Graham. “And they are pushing this agenda into the military. It’s scary.”
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The White House, seen from the South Lawn in Washington, D.C. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
Earlier in the interview, Perkins had briefly discussed religious liberty in the military and spoke of moral decline in America. He had also asked Graham, “what will it take for America to come back to our moral principles?”
Graham said, “This is a good question. When you look at scripture, when Israel turned their backs on God – and that’s what we as a nation have done and are doing – there was usually some type of calamity. There was a famine, there was a persecution from their neighbors, nations would come in and overrun them and destroy them.”
He continued, “And it’s, kind of, when they were beaten down to the ground, that they would turn their hearts toward God once again. And they would cry unto the Lord, and He would hear them and He would deliver them. And I don’t know what’s going to have to happen in this country, but my prayer is that America will wake up before that [persecution] happens.”
Franklin Graham is president and CEO of the international Christian aid group Samaritan’s Purse. He also oversees the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, started by his father Billy Graham, who is 95 years old and perhaps the most well-known Christian evangelist of the last 50 years.
Franklin Graham, 61, is married, has five children, and lives in Boone, North Carolina. In addition to his Christian ministry work, he also often speaks on cultural and political issues. He has been a strong critic of radical Islam.
In their updated report, A Clear and Present Danger: The Threat to Religious Liberty in the Military, the Family Research Council says there has been “a growing hostility to religion within the armed services in the last decade. Unfortunately, pressures to impose a secular, anti-religious culture on our nation’s military services have intensified during the Obama administration. This pressure exists across the armed services, bit it has become extremely acute in the United States Air Force. The Air Force has had the great misfortune to be targeted by anti-Christian activists.” CNSNews