Billy Graham's granddaughter joins 'Evangelicals for Harris,' quotes Isaiah to blast Trump supporters
'Voting Kamala, for me, is so much greater than policies'
The granddaughter of the late Rev. Billy Graham endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris during an "Evangelicals for Harris" Zoom call Wednesday and suggested that Christians who support former President Donald Trump are causing people to turn away from Christianity.
Here's the full video of Jerusha Duford (Billy Graham's granddaughter) from the "Evangelicals For Harris" Zoom call.@JonBrownDC covered the message well (link in replies) but I figure many of you want to watch it for yourselves too pic.twitter.com/kPMX3qvjCE
— Woke Preacher Clips (@WokePreacherTV) August 16, 2024
Jerushah Duford, whose mother Virginia "Gigi" Graham Tchividjian is Graham's oldest daughter, spoke in a recorded video because she was unable to attend the virtual event, which also included speakers such as former Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., and "public theologian" Ekemini Uwan, who has claimed "whiteness is wicked" and that churches should pay global reparations to "people of African descent."
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The event reportedly reached 40,000 people as the Harris campaign attempts to court Evangelical voters despite her liberal views on issues such as abortion and sexuality.
"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 said 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 unfaithful Israelites in Jerusalem and Judah to "an oak whose leaf withers" and "a garden without water." She implied that Trump supporters are similar.
According to biblical commentator Matthew Henry, the prophet's mention of oaks in Isaiah 1:29-30 was an apparent allusion to the sacred groves where the Israelites worshiped Baal, Ashtoreth and other false gods, whose rites often included child 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 Project and whose website describes her as an "LGBTQ+ friendly" licensed professional counselor in Greenville, South Carolina. In 2020, she also penned a letter in support of Evangelicals Concerned Inc., an organization that advocates for Evangelicals to support 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 said on the Wednesday night Zoom call.
"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 note that Micah 6:8 was her grandfather's favorite verse, and that while she does not expect 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 said.
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 also 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 before. In an op-ed in 2020, she urged Christian women to reject Trump, claiming "the church honors Trump before God" and accusing Trump of tear-gassing protesters in Lafayette Park for a Bible-toting photo op in front of St. John's Church, which is a claim that a federal probe found 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 at the time. "The entire world has watched the term 'evangelical' become synonymous with hypocrisy and disingenuousness."
In 2020, she also accused Trump of trying "to hijack our faith for votes," and the next year she signed a letter blaming the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol on "Christian nationalism" while decrying it as "heretical and antithetical to the teachings of Jesus."
Duford's uncle Franklin Graham, by contrast, has been a staunch Trump supporter and blasted "Evangelicals for Harris" on Wednesday for using a clip of his father in one of their ads in a way he claimed was deliberately misleading.
The ad depicted a sermon during which Graham asked his listeners if they have 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 ad then cut to a 2015 clip showing pollster Frank Luntz asking Trump if he had ever asked 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, though 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 using anything and everything they can to promote candidate Harris. They even developed a political ad trying to use my father @BillyGraham’s image. They are trying to mislead people. Maybe 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 Today published an editorial calling for Trump to be removed from office in 2019, Graham revealed that before his father died in 2018 at 99, the last vote he cast in a presidential election was for Trump in 2016.
Aram Tchividjian, Duford's brother, responded to Graham's claim in 2019 with a sarcastic tweet suggesting his uncle was lying, 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!"
Jon Brown is a reporter for The Christian Post. Send news tips to jon.brown@christianpost.com
