Franklin Graham Says American Christians Are Being 'Bullied Into Silence' After Atheist Group Demands Air Force General Be Court-Martialed for Thanking God
The Rev. Franklin Graham has said that atheist groups are attempting to "bully Christians into silence" after the Military Religious Freedom Foundation called for an Air Force general to be court-martialed for giving credit to God at a National Day of Prayer event.
"Are Christians the only group of people who cannot identify themselves publicly in this country? Are we the only voices who cannot speak?" Graham asked in a Facebook post on Monday.
"I guess this group would've tried to court martial George Washington when he prayed at Valley Forge! Come on —whose civil liberties are really being infringed on here? They want to bully Christians into silence," he added.
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The Air Force Times reported last week that Maj. Gen. Craig Olson has been heavily criticized by the MRFF, which said that he should be "aggressively and very visibly brought to justice for his unforgivable crimes and transgressions" by a court-martial.
Olson, who is the program executive officer for C3I and Networks at Hanscom Air Force Base, Massachusetts, credited God for his career success in a speech at a National Day of Prayer Task Force event on May 7.
"He put me in charge of failing programs worth billions of dollars. I have no ability to do that, no training to do that. God did that. He sent me to Iraq to negotiate foreign military sales deals through an Arabic interpreter. I have no ability to do that. I was not trained to do that. God did all of that," Olson said.
He further asked the audience to pray for Defense Department leaders who he said "need to humbly depend on Christ." The general also asked for prayers for troops preparing to deploy so they can "bear through that by depending on Christ."
MRFF head Mikey Weinstein argued in a letter to Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh, that airmen are not allowed to endorse a specific faith.
"Olson's highly publicized, sectarian speech is nothing less than a brutal disgrace to the very uniform he was wearing and the solemn oath he took to support and defend the United States Constitution," Weinstein wrote.
"This public address was his, and the USAF's, 'contribution' to this scathingly sectarian 2015 version of the [task force's] annual shame spectacle and display of Christian supremacy and exceptionalism held in the Cannon House Office Building on Capitol Hill."
Graham has spoken out against what he called "anti-Christian bias" in America on a number of occasions, and in an Easter message back in April warned that such "bias and intolerance" is changing America.
The Evangelical said that "in America, there has recently grown an ugly, anti-Christian bias and intolerance that is changing our nation from the inside out, opening doors for all kinds of discrimination and loss of religious freedom that we hear about daily in the news."
