Franklin Graham Decries Total ‘Absence of God’ in Democrat Convention

Celebrated Christian pastor Franklin Graham denounced the total absence of God in this week’s Democratic National Convention, calling on Americans to bring God back into public life.

“In watching some of the Democratic National Convention on television this week, it has been interesting to see the absence of God,” Rev. Graham wrote on his Facebook page early Friday. “I don’t believe America’s finest hours will be in front of us if we take God out of government and public life.”

Graham went on to assert that it is God “who set the standards we are to live by,” noting that much of U.S. law has its roots in the Ten Commandments, including our laws against murder, theft, and perjury.

“It is God who said, ‘You shall not murder,’” he wrote. “It is God who said, ‘You shall not steal.’… It is God who said, ‘You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.’”

“God created us and this earth we live on. Who do we think we are to try to rewrite the rules and run things apart from Him? Who do we think we are to try to take Him out of everything?” Graham asked.

“When One Nation Under God becomes One Nation Apart from God, expect the consequences,” Graham wrote, citing American pastor Dr. Tony Evans. “That’s true in our individual lives and for our nation.”

Rev. Graham’s indictment of the Democrat Party echoes a growing perception that the Democrats have a serious God problem, which has left religious believers out in the cold.

Last fall, the Pew Research Center revealed that more than twice as many Americans view the Democrat Party as “unfriendly” toward religion than the Republican Party, while fewer than one in five U.S. adults said the Democrats are “friendly” toward religion.

Pew found that nearly a third (31 percent) of all U.S. adults believe that the Democrat Party is actually unfriendly to religion, while only 13 percent said the same of the Republican Party. On the other hand, more than half of Americans (54 percent) said that the Republican Party is friendly to religion, while only 19 percent said the same of the Democrats.

Yet conservatives, Christians, and research centers are not the only ones concerned with the Democrats’ abandonment of religion.

Last year, Professor Peter Beinart of the City University of New York, a liberal political commentator, noted with concern in an essay in the Atlantic that white Democrats are invoking God far less than their predecessors and tend to refer to religious faith negatively rather than positively.

Past Democrat candidates like Bill Clinton, Al Gore, John Kerry, Barack Obama, and even Hillary Clinton all invoked God in their presidential announcement speeches, Beinart noted, and yet the leading Democrat presidential candidates for 2020 avoided any mention of God except to warn Americans how religion can be used to divide people.

The Democrats’ reluctance to mention God reflects a new demographic reality in the party, Beinart suggested. Since more and more white Democrats claim no religious affiliation, God talk is no longer met with approval.