Billy Graham’s granddaughter joins ‘Evangelicals for Harris’ call

The granddaughter of the late Rev. Billy Graham endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris throughout an “Evangelicals for Harris” Zoom name Wednesday and recommended that Christians who help former President Donald Trump are inflicting individuals to show away from Christianity.

Jerushah Duford, whose mom Virginia “Gigi” Graham Tchividjian is Graham’s oldest daughter, spoke in a recorded video as a result of she was unable to attend the digital occasion, which additionally included audio system corresponding to former Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Sick., and “public theologian” Ekemini Uwan, who has claimed “whiteness is wicked” and that church buildings ought to pay international reparations to “people of African descent.”

The occasion reportedly reached 40,000 individuals because the Harris marketing campaign makes an attempt to court docket Evangelical voters regardless of her liberal views on points corresponding to abortion and sexuality.

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“I was thinking this morning that if you told me 10 years ago that I would be taking an active role in politics, I’d have laughed. But then I had to stop and realize this is so much more than politics,” Duford mentioned in her recorded video.

“In 2016, when a man bragged about assaulting women, various leaders of my faith then propped up this man as a poster boy for godly manhood and leadership,” she continued. “This broke my heart as I have watched — quite frankly, for the last eight years — people who were curious about Jesus and His teachings [have] done a 180 and walked in the other direction from my faith.”

Duford went on to reference Isaiah 1:30, which likens the rebellious and untrue Israelites in Jerusalem and Judah to “an oak whose leaf withers” and “a garden without water.” She implied that Trump supporters are comparable.

In response to biblical commentator Matthew Henry, the prophet’s point out of oaks in Isaiah 1:29-30 was an obvious allusion to the sacred groves the place the Israelites worshiped Baal, Ashtoreth and different false gods, whose rites usually included youngster sacrifice and sexual immorality.

“Isaiah talks about an oak whose leaves wither and a garden going without water,” continued Duford, who has ties to The Lincoln Mission and whose web site describes her as an “LGBTQ+ friendly” licensed skilled counselor in Greenville, South Carolina. In 2020, she additionally penned a letter in help of Evangelicals Involved Inc., a corporation that advocates for Evangelicals to help same-sex marriage.

“These things happen slowly over time. First, people professing the Lord made excuses for [Trump’s] lack of kindness, then for the name-calling. Soon it was making excuses for assault. Then it became making excuses for January 6, and now making excuses for convicted assault and 34 felonies,” Duford mentioned on the Wednesday evening Zoom name.

“The oak leaves don’t wither overnight. And I’m terrified to think of how far this turning our head the other way and making excuses will take our country — but more importantly, our witness to the world,” she added.

Duford went on to notice that Micah 6:8 was her grandfather’s favourite verse, and that whereas she doesn’t anticipate her president to be a Christian, she “will be watching for my faith leaders [to] support actions that reflect mercy, justice and humility, and for my faith leaders to rebuke actions that are the antithesis of that.”

“Voting Kamala, for me, is so much greater than policies. It’s a vote against another four years of faith leaders justifying the actions of a man who destroys the message Jesus came to spread, and that is why I get involved in politics,” she mentioned.

Duford closed her remarks by admonishing her listeners to “pray for the faith leaders in our country to take a stand for justice, mercy and humility.” She additionally urged them to “take the Evangelicals for Harris pledge on our website” and to “go perform actions of service in your neighborhood or community, and then come back and share your story with the Evangelicals for Harris campaign.”

Duford has used her relation to Graham as a platform to criticize Trump and his supporters earlier than. In an op-ed in 2020, she urged Christian girls to reject Trump, claiming “the church honors Trump before God” and accusing Trump of tear-gassing protesters in Lafayette Park for a Bible-toting picture op in entrance of St. John’s Church, which is a declare {that a} federal probe discovered to be false in 2021.

“It seems that the only evangelical leaders to speak up praised the president, with no mention of his behavior that is antithetical to the Jesus we serve,” she wrote on the time. “The entire world has watched the term ‘evangelical’ become synonymous with hypocrisy and disingenuousness.”

In 2020, she additionally accused Trump of attempting “to hijack our faith for votes,” and the following yr she signed a letter blaming the Jan. 6 riot on the U.S. Capitol on “Christian nationalism” whereas decrying it as “heretical and antithetical to the teachings of Jesus.”

Duford’s uncle Franklin Graham, in contrast, has been a staunch Trump supporter and blasted “Evangelicals for Harris” on Wednesday for utilizing a clip of his father in certainly one of their advertisements in a means he claimed was intentionally deceptive.

The advert depicted a sermon throughout which Graham requested his listeners if they’ve been to the cross to say, “Lord, I have sinned. I’m sorry for my sin. I’m willing to change my way of life.”

The advert then minimize to a 2015 clip exhibiting pollster Frank Luntz asking Trump if he had ever requested for God’s forgiveness.

“I am not sure I have. I just go on and try to do a better job from there. I don’t think so. I think if I do something wrong, I think, I just try and make it right. I don’t bring God into that picture. I don’t,” Trump replied, although he later backtracked.

“The liberals are using anything and everything they can to promote candidate Harris,” Graham wrote. “They even developed a political ad trying to use my father [Billy Graham’s] image. They are trying to mislead people. Maybe they don’t know that my father appreciated the conservative values and policies of President [Trump] in 2016, and if he were alive today, my father’s views and opinions would not have changed.”

The liberals are utilizing something and all the pieces they will to advertise candidate Harris. They even developed a political advert attempting to make use of my father @BillyGraham’s picture. They’re attempting to mislead individuals. Possibly they don’t know that my father appreciated the conservative values and… pic.twitter.com/LZe3SEm9Al

— Franklin Graham (@Franklin_Graham) August 14, 2024

After Christianity In the present day printed an editorial calling for Trump to be faraway from workplace in 2019, Graham revealed that earlier than his father died in 2018 at 99, the final vote he solid in a presidential election was for Trump in 2016.

Aram Tchividjian, Duford’s brother, responded to Graham’s declare in 2019 with a sarcastic tweet suggesting his uncle was mendacity, tweeting: “I’ll never forget that day in 2016 when my grandfather [Billy Graham], shrugged off the symptoms of Parkinson’s and hydrocephalus, got up out of bed for the first time in a year, drove down to the polling station, and cast his vote. What a glorious memory!”