While the late evangelist Billy Graham‘s granddaughter, Jerushah Duford, is encouraging people not to vote for Donald Trump, the organization that bears his name is doing the exact opposite.
That’s because the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, run by his son Franklin Graham, just issued an entire issue of its magazine into a full-on evangelistic tract for the Republican Party.
The magazine is ostensibly meant as a “non-partisan” election guide for voters, which would be legal for a non-profit group to produce, but this issue makes it clear how subscribers should vote.
The over-the-top propagandistic tone is set on the cover, which features a heroic image of Trump and a photo of Democratic presidential Joe Biden caught with a lost puppy look on his face.
Franklin Graham introduces the issue with a column under the headline, “Blessed in the nation whose God is the Lord,” a scriptural quote used often by Christian nationalists who insist the U.S. must “return” to God. Graham describes the Trump presidency as a “wonderful season of progress for the cause of religious freedom and the moral and Biblical values we hold dear,” and he warns that if Trump loses, all that “wonderful” progress could be quickly and permanently reversed.
The magazine warns that religious freedom is on the ballot, asking, “Will Christians remain free, or will the government impose a godless, immoral social agenda upon them?”
There are also a number of essays written by other Christian Right leaders making the argument that a Trump victory aligns with God’s wishes, while a Joe Biden administration would lead to sky falling.
To quote the Book of Ecclesiastes, “There is nothing new under the sun.” These are the exact same recycled concerns that the Right made against former President Barack Obama. Guess what? None of them came to fruition. Not even close. Even when something like marriage equality was legalized nationwide, evangelicals didn’t suffer as a result. That could be because 1) Most Democrats are Christian or at least religious in some form, and 2) Democrats have made religious freedom — actual religious freedom that applies to non-Christians, too — a critical part of their platform.
The Republican “platform,” at this point, is all about preserving power for white Christians at the expense of everyone else.
In lieu of actual arguments to support his position, Graham has resorted to hyperbole that will fail to convince anyone who hasn’t already swallowed the Kool-Aid.
(via Right Wing Watch)
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