Posted on 04/23/2010 8:20:36 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
The Army rescinded its invitation to Franklin Graham to speak at the Pentagon for the National Day of Prayer over concerns about his remarks about Islam.
Army spokesman Col. Tom Collins said Thursday that Graham’s comments about Islam were “not appropriate.”
"We're an all-inclusive military," Collins said, according to The Associated Press. "We honor all faiths. ... Our message to our service and civilian work force is about the need for diversity and appreciation of all faiths."
Graham is under fire for past comments he made about Islam. He called Islam a “very evil and wicked religion” after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and more recently made disparaging remarks about the Muslim faith in an interview with CNN’s Campbell Brown in December 2009.
“True Islam cannot be practiced in this country,” Graham said to Brown. “You can’t beat your wife. You cannot murder your children if you think they’ve committed adultery or something like that, which they do practice in these other countries.”
The Military Religious Freedom Foundation, on behalf of Muslim military personnel and defense department staff, demanded in a letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates that Graham be disinvited as a speaker at the prayer event. The group took issue with his comments on Islam and his ties to conservative Christian group the National Day of Prayer Task Force.
Graham, son of famed evangelist Billy Graham, is the co-honorary chair of the task force.
Earlier this week, Collins noted that the military was not responsible for inviting Graham to speak at the Pentagon’s National Day of Prayer event. The National Day of Prayer Task Force and the Pentagon chaplain’s office had invited him.
Graham, though still standing by his earlier remarks, has tried to clarify and soften his tone by saying he has Muslim friends and loves the people of Islam. The humanitarian group he heads, Samaritan’s Purse, works in some predominantly Muslim countries.
“It’s (Muslim world) a part of the world I love very much,” Graham said, according to CNN. “And I understand it. But I certainly disagree with their teaching.”
Graham has met several times with Sudan’s notorious Muslim president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, the leader who is widely held to be responsible for the Darfur genocide. Despite believing that Islam is an “evil and wicked” religion, Graham said he meets with Bashir in hopes of leading him to Christ.
In response to withdrawal of the invitation, Graham said he regrets the Army’s decision and he would continue to pray for the military troops.
The fallout between Graham and the Army is the latest controversy surrounding the National Day of Prayer. Last week, a federal judge in Wisconsin ruled that the prayer day is unconstitutional because it amounts to a call for religious action.
Lawmakers and Christian groups have called on President Obama to direct the Justice Department to appeal the decision. The Obama administration said Thursday it will appeal.
The 59th annual National Day of Prayer will be observed on May 6. President Obama said he still intends to issue a proclamation this year to recognize the prayer day.
Islam teaches that all other faiths are false and that infidels should be subjegated, at best, or killed!
They can now open the gig to Major Hassan. He’s a qualified Army backup chaplain. And he won’t diss Islam.
Graham is completely correct.
Islam’s “holy” books proclaim that Mohammed, their “prophet”, is the perfect man, a standard to which all Moslems should aspire.
Let’s have a look at Mohammed.
He was a pirate, a thief, a plunderer, a warrior, a murderer, an executioner, a torturer, a trucebreaker, a slave trader, a slave owner, a Jew-hater, a rapist, an adulterer, a polygamist, and a pedophile, and a despotic tyarant and overall genocidal lunatic.
But I don’t expect organizations infected with the political correctness of the cultural revolution to speak the truth.
Seems to me Billy Graham and Jesus has been a fixture to American presidents since, like ... Eisenhower
The country is doomed. The inmates are running the insane asylum.
May God help us...
Jesus saves. I pray He saves us from this.
You believe, or you don’t.
I stand behind and support Franklin Graham. Any mention as to how to support him in his stance ?
Exactly. Many of the Muslims with cozy positions in the Pentagon have undoubtedly said far worse things about Christians and Jews.
And to add insult to injury, they are liars. Islam IS an evil religion. There are Christians and Jews who do bad things, but not because their religions tell them to do so. Islam is different. Allah actually tells them to go out and kill, rape, and enslave the infidels. And most Muslim clerics are quite clear about that—because it’s right there in the Koran.
OKAY....I have major problems with Obomba’s comments about CHRISTIANITY....can we DROP HIM????
Allahu Fubar!
Perhaps the pentagram should invite KSM to speak instead.
He seems much more in line with the current regime anyway...
This country may be doomed...but it could also be that things are lining up as they should, clear sides are being taken, lines drawn.
Enemies are in plain sight now, maybe this is a good thing...for us, and a bad thing for them.
Here are a few other candidates for elimination:
George Washington — “I now make it my earnest prayer that God would have you, and the State over which you preside, in his holy protection...that he would most graciously be pleased to dispose us all to do justice, to love mercy, and to demean ourselves with that charity, humility, and pacific temper of mind, which were the characteristics of the Divine Author of our blessed religion, and without an humble imitation of whose example in these things, we can never hope to be a happy nation.”
“While we are zealously performing the duties of good citizens and soldiers, we certainly ought not to be inattentive to the higher duties of religion. To the distinguished character of Patriot, it should be our highest glory to add the more distinguished character of Christian.”
“...it would be peculiarly improper to omit, in this first official act, my fervent supplications to that Almighty Being who rules over the universe, who presides in the councils of nations and whose providential aids can supply every human defect, that His benediction may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the people of the United States a Government.” (In his Inaugural Speech, April 30, 1789)
“...it would be peculiarly improper to omit, in this first official act, my fervent supplications to that Almighty Being who rules over the universe, who presides in the councils of nations and whose providential aids can supply every human defect, that His benediction may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the people of the United States a Government.” (In his Inaugural Speech, April 30, 1789)
Alexis de Tocqueville — “The Americans combine the notions of Christianity and of liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive the one without the other; and with them this conviction does not spring from that barren traditionary faith which seems to vegetate in the soul rather than to live.” (Democracy in America, Volume I Chapter XVII (1835)
Benjamin Franklin — “...serious religion, under its various denominations, is not only tolerated, but respected and practiced. Atheism is unknown there; Infidelity rare and secret; so that persons may live to a great age in that country without having their piety shocked by meeting with either an Atheist or an Infidel. And the Divine Being seems to have manifested His approbation of the mutual forbearance and kindness by which the different sects treat each other, and by the remarkable prosperity with which He has been please to favor the whole country.” (John Gould Curtis, American history told by contemporaries .... Volume 3, p. 26)
Daniel Webster — “If there is anything in my thoughts or style to commend, the credit is due to my parents for instilling in me an early love of the Scriptures. If we abide by the principles taught in the Bible, our country will go on prospering and to prosper; but if we and our posterity neglect its instructions and authority, no man can tell how sudden a catastrophe may overwhelm us and bury all our glory in profound obscurity.”
“Finally, let us not forget the religious character of our origin. Our fathers were brought hither by their high veneration for the Christian religion. They journeyed by its light, and labored in its hope. They sought to incorporate its principles with the elements of their society, and to diffuse its influence through all their institutions, civil, political, or literary.”
Theodore Roosevelt — “No other book of any kind ever written in English—perhaps no other book ever written in any other tongue ever so affected the whole life of a people as this authorized version of the Scriptures has affected the life of the English-speaking peoples.”
A thorough knowledge of the Bible is worth more than a college education.”
“To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.”
“There is not in all America a more dangerous trait than the deification of mere smartness unaccompanied by any sense of moral responsibility.”
“A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car; but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad.”
Calvin Coolidge — “They [the Founding Fathers] were intent upon establishing a Christian commonwealth in accordance with the principle of self-government. They were an inspired body of men. It has been said that God sifted the nations that He might send choice grain into the wilderness
... Who can fail to see it in the hand of Destiny? Who can doubt that it has been guided by a Divine Providence?”
Woodrow Wilson — “America was born a Christian nation. America was born to exemplify that devotion to the elements of righteousness which are derived from the revelations of the Holy Scripture.”
General Douglas MacArthur — “The United States is a pre-eminently Christian and conservative nation.”
“Are we going to continue to permit the pressure of alien doctrines to strongly influence the orientation of foreign and domestic policy, or regain trust in our own traditions, experience and free institutions, and the wisdom of our own people?”
“Are we going to preserve the religious base to our origin, our growth and our progress, or yield to the devious assaults of atheistic or other anti-religious forces?”
“In short, is American life of the future to be characterized by freedom or by servitude, strength or weakness? The answer must be clear and unequivocal if we are to avoid the pitfalls toward which we are heading with such certainly. In many respects it is not to be found in any dogma of political philosophy, but in those immutable precepts which underlie the Ten Commandments.”
“We all dream of of the day when human conduct will be governed by the Decalogue and the Sermon and the Mount.
Dwight D Eisenhower — “The purpose of a devout and united people was set forth in the pages of The Bible … (1) to live in freedom, (2) to work in a prosperous land… and (3) to obey the commandments of God… This Biblical story of the promised land inspired the founders of America. It continues to inspire us.”
Ronald Reagan — “If we ever forget that we are One Nation Under God, then we will be a Nation gone under.”
Compare with others: http://peacebyjesus.witnesstoday.org/quotes_compare.html
As shown by its heavenly rewards - unlimited drunkenness and promiscuity.
THe nation will lose God’s protection. Individuals will still have it, but as a nation, when our top people say stuff like this, it’s just a slap in the face of God.
If we were still a smart nation, our top people would understand that America, founded as a Christian nation, and still mostly Christian to varying degrees, we can be a Christian nation and still have no problem with people in other PEACEFUL religions. You don’t have to downplay, ignore, and/or give up part of your national identity and culture, that is obviously there, just to appear to accept other religions. That’s one of the strengths of Christianity, we can live with people in other religions without saying “convert or die” like SOME others. We don’t burn their houses down, we don’t machete them to death, we don’t bury them in the ground and stone their head or behead them. We may share the Gospel with them, we may have Christian broadcasting, and churches across the land, but to say this is torture or the same thing as the horrendous violence against Christians around the world is ridiculous and clear lying.
God-given wisdom ignored, no longer present in our top folks.
....NO muslim should ever be allowed into the military.
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