Franklin Graham to Newsmax: 'We Have Turned Our Backs on God'
Thursday, 15 Nov 2012 11:20 AM

By Todd Beamon and Kathleen Walter

The Rev. Franklin Graham charged in an exclusive Newsmax TV interview that America is in a deep economic quagmire because “we have turned our backs on God.”

“The more we turn our backs on God, the bigger our problem becomes,” Graham, the son of world-renowned evangelist Billy Graham, tells Newsmax in a wide-ranging interview. “I didn’t hear any of the candidates say that we needed to call our nation to prayer. I didn’t hear any of the candidates say that we needed to ask God for help.


“We still think that we can work our way out of this problem – and I don’t think we can,” Graham added. “I don’t have confidence in the Republican Party right now, and I don’t have confidence in the Democratic Party.

“I don’t believe there is leadership in Washington that can solve this problem. We just deal with it as issues for the day, and it kicks the can further and further down the road. We need God’s help to solve this problem – we can’t go without God.”

Last week’s election results, which sent President Barack Obama back to the White House for another four years, put the nation further along a “path of destruction,” Graham said.

“There is no question that America has been a nation that has been blessed by almighty God. There is no other nation in the history of mankind that has done what his nation has done – and it’s because of God’s hand and his blessing.

“In the last four years, we have begun to turn our backs on God,” Graham reiterated. “We have taken God out of our education system. We have taken him out of government. You have lawyers that sue you every time you mention the name of Jesus Christ in any public forum.

“What has happened is we have allowed ourselves to take God out everything that we do – and I believe that God will judge our nation one day.”

And, “maybe God will have to bring our nation to our knees – to where that we just have a complete economic collapse” to do that, Graham said. “Maybe at that point, people will again call upon the name of almighty God.”

Graham is the president and CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. The association’s tax-exempt status is under threat from a complaint filed with the Internal Revenue Service by the Freedom From Religion Foundation.

The foundation, based in Madison, Wis., contends that the Graham association’s “vote biblical values” ad campaign during the election season violated IRS rules regarding religious groups and political campaigning, according to news reports.

“It’s ridiculous,” Graham charged. “The African-American churches do this all the time. Candidates go to their churches and stand in the pulpits and give political messages and sermons. Why can’t we do the same?

“We didn’t tell anybody how to vote for a candidate. We told them how to choose candidates – and made that plural – who backed Biblical principles. There are a lot of Republicans, Tea Party people, Democrats that we focused these ads on.

“We wanted people to remember that, as they were going into the voting booth, that there were political decisions, no question, but there also were moral issues,” Graham added. “At every level, we need to think about who we are voting for and encourage Christians, especially, to vote for candidates who support biblical values.”

The move by the Wisconsin group, Graham said, reflected a broader push by the far left.

“They want to shut the mouths of evangelicals. They want to shut the mouths of Christians.

“One hundred years ago, political leaders in every community were the pastors. They were the voices that were heard. They were the voices that had the influence. Politicians know that and the government knows that – and they are trying to shut the mouths of especially evangelicals.

“I’m going to continue to speak out,” Graham vowed. “I’m not afraid. I’m not worried.”

While the US has as many as 35 million evangelicals, Graham said, “It’s hard to pin down what it means to be an evangelical today. It’s been diluted quite a bit. It is a powerful voting bloc, no question, but they’re liberal as well as conservative – and they’re made of Latinos, blacks, whites.

“It is a unique group of people and, this time, many of them did not vote,” he added. “They stayed away from the polls. I don’t agree that they turned out in record number. I don’t think they did.”

And they did not vote because “There was not a candidate that they just got excited about,” Graham said. He called GOP candidate Mitt Romney “a very good man, and I like the man very much – but I don’t think he was exciting or charismatic enough. And, of course, the Mormon issue was an issue for many people. Not for me, but for many people that was, unfortunately.”

And, now that Obama has another term in the White House, “I would encourage everyone to pray for the president,” Graham said. “That’s our duty. God commands that we’re to pray for those in authority. The election is now over. The president is our president. We need to get behind him. We need to rally behind him. We need to bathe him in prayer.

“Not that we have to support positions that would be immoral positions or wrong positions,” Graham cautioned. “I’m not saying that you have to agree with the position, but you have to understand that he is our leader, he’s our president – and God commands that we are to pray.

“I would recommend everyone to pray for this man. He needs our prayers.”

In other comments in his exclusive Newsmax interview, Graham said:

David Petraeus was right to step down as CIA director because of an extramarital affair. “He is a man of honor, a man of integrity. He made a great big mistake. He knows he did. He has not blamed anybody else. He has taken full responsibility, and he has stepped aside. That’s the honorable thing to do. I respect him for that.”
He hopes President Obama truly addresses Iran and its threat to Christianity in his next term. “In his speeches, he certainly has talked tough. But the Iranian people, they need to be free. They want to be free from these ayatollahs, from these fanatics. There are many wonderful Iranian people, but that country is being held prisoner by radical Islam.”
His father, the Rev. Billy Graham, turned 94 the day following the election. The elder Graham backed Romney. “He likes the president personally. But it’s the people around the president, and it’s the radical left, that have taken over the White House. This is a concern to my father – and we just prayed that, again, that God, the Lord, will work in the president’s heart and will change his heart on some of these issues.”
© 2012 Newsmax. All rights reserved.


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This guy sounds like a nut case.

this statement seems ,,,,intellectually dishonest

'In the last four years, we have begun to turn our backs on God,'



'begun' In the last four years? really? interesting,,,

Let's all join hands and pray for a better economy.
Let's pray for the Iranian people to be free even if we have to kill every last one of them.

Good Lord.

Mark Twain: The War Prayer.

“O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle — be Thou near them! With them — in spirit — we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it — for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.

What Franklin says is wrong with Iran>>>>
"They want to be free from these ayatollahs, from these fanatics. There are many wonderful Iranian people, but that country is being held prisoner by radical Islam.”

What Franklin says is wrong with USA>>>>>
“In the last four years, we have begun to turn our backs on God,” Graham reiterated. “We have taken God out of our education system. We have taken him out of government."
So isn't Franklin saying USA needs to do what Iran has done ??????

Franklin sounds like a confused soul :(
but he makes perfect sense if you follow his $$$$$$
As president of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Samaritan's Purse, he receives two full-time salaries and two retirement packages. Last year his total compensation from the two Christian ministries was $1.2 million.

I believe the world would be a better place if we could not mix money, religion and politics together..... But it would be difficult to reverse a long historical trend......

Et tu msharmony?

"dishonest"?

Careful, I wouldn't be too quick to apply the lie detectors.

Think about it.

It has only occured in the last 4 yrs
that a leader of our nation has so boldly challenged the authority of God's Word -->
in the arena of the American people... laughing at it's alleged implications.

I'd say he drew a line in the sand.

And the nation has allowed and embraced his definition of the uselessnes of the Holy Bible.
and yet have, in contrast, become sympathetic and respectful of the koran.

us turning our backs has certainly not happened in the last four years

,,did divorce rates and adultery begin in the last four years,,,?

did we take prayer out of school in the last four years?

did the constitution only in the last four years say we should not abridge nor RESPECT any religion?

how far people will go to pretend we have so drastically changed in JUST THE LAST FOUR YEARS

astounds me


this president hasnt LAUGHED at anything just because he hasnt lead the nation on a pulpit,,,


,,yes,, dishonest,,,

Your being far to kind.

I cringe when I think some people actually believe this stuff.

Et tu...

Devotion to a man who will publically challenge and ridicule the
Word of God is proof that a line has been drawn
and the "rainbow bridge" has been crossed by many.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=Hi-V_ilJu0w&feature=endscreen

continuing to repeat it doesnt make it true,,,,

its sad, out of all the sin in our country, that a shift in the perception of ONE Marks the 'beginning' of turning our backs on God


newsflash, long before people reelected the president, shows with homosexual characters and foul acting adults have ranked amongst americas FAVORITES

promiscuity and casual sex have been rampantly spreading and accepted by MOST Adults as long as its 'consentual'

speech about or celebration of God has been slowly silenced in all types of public arenas where they once existed because our CONSTITUTION was interpreted by Supreme Court to demand that it does,,,


there is no magic point four years ago or two weeks ago where americans BEGAN to turn their backs,,,,

And without critiquing the sacred "Four Years" of Obama.

America has turned it's back on God!

There has been a line drawn.

Not between parties but between leaders.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3HiI6C78MI&feature=related

This is the age of Aquarious beginning December 21, 2012.

The old time Religion is on the way out. Truth will be revealed. Religions will fall.

It is all false religious doctrines that will be unveiled. Uncluding Christianity and the Catholic Church.

wow 'faith should bring us together'


yeah,, quite the line drawn there,,,,,amazing,,,

''be conscious of God and always speak the truth'

'whomever kills one innocent is as if he has killed all mankind'

,,these same lessons are in the BIble, are they less true because they are in the Quran?



would people be feeling so threatened if Romney had read from the book of mormon?

aknowledging the faith of others is not the same as drawing a line, its INCLUSION,, not EXCLUSION




and truth is truth whatever book its read from

Totally different authors...totally different source of "truth".

The man in that video is appeasing one god and rejecting the True and Living One.

This news piece is obviously directed to Bible-believing Christians
which are being lovingly repremanded by a man of God, Frankin Graham,
for not trusting that One and Only -Truth-giver,
whom many of us fail to put above all earthly wisdom.

Are we wiser than God?



"No man can serve two masters:
for either he will hate the one, and love the other;
or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other.
Ye cannot serve God and mammon." Matthew 6:24,



A man may do some service to two masters, but he can devote himself to the service of no more than one.
God requires the whole heart, and will not share it with the world.


Ps...I would not be conversing with you on this topic
had I not been at one time convinced that you were a bible-believing Christian.

I am a bible believing christian, and I am not happy with the presidents view on the issue of marriage


I dont believe that having knowledge of or reciting from a book has anything to do with 'rejecting' God

seems to me, finding Gods message is not only in the Bible is a source of spreading God and not rejecting him


but I also dont believe that truth becomes less true because of the source it comes from


I think it preposterous and egotistical to imply with a straight face that 'turning our backs' on God has only begun in the last four years,,,

So the focus is the 4yrs? (speaking of "red herrings")

Truthfully, looking for the phrase "4yrs" was like trying to find "Waldo". But good for you...you found it.

And I agree "4yrs" amounted to dishonesty.

only ten sentences in

I think the most objectionable part is trying to tie americas 'immorality' with their choosing this president

americans voted on many issues, same sex marriage was barely one of them, being that is still a 'state' decided issue,,

the president must represent the people, I would much rather he supported civil unions that afford the same cIVIL right to same sex couples without making them the SAME as heterosexual

but in the end, acceptance of homosexuality is but one of the many sins becoming more rampant in america decade after decade

I can understand the dissapointment, I cant understand trying to link it to one mans election,,,,

I agree that Franklin Graham jumped the shark with his "last four years" remark.

All religion is doomed. Accept it.

Praying for God to take care of an economic crisis is pointless. I mean, the guy can't manage money, every time I've been to church they tell me he's broke and needs to borrow some from me.