It’s been amply established that Franklin Graham is one of the embodiments of everything that is wrong with evangelicalism. That's been especially true in the Trump era. Graham is in a class by himself among those who have prostrated themselves before the Messiah, Lord Donald Trump, The Most Merciful.
He was one of many fundies who claimed hearing Trump revel in degrading women didn’t matter as much as putting conservatives on our courts. He not only slammed the Republicans who grew a set and voted to impeach Trump a second time, but mused that the Democrats had convinced them to do so in return for “thirty pieces of silver.” That borders on blasphemy; he was likening the Repubs to Judas and Trump to Jesus.
It’s been apparent for some time that the only thing Graham shares with his father, Billy Graham, is a full name (Billy’s full name was William Franklin Graham, Jr.; Franklin’s full name is William Franklin Graham III). But if we’re to believe his niece, author and speaker Jerushah Duford, Graham may have outdone himself earlier this week. You may recall that he was on hand when Trump came to Georgia last Tuesday when Trump falsely claimed President Biden gave the cold shoulder to Gov. Brian Kemp. As bad as that was, Duford says something her uncle didn’t do that day was even worse. Duford claims that Graham couldn’t be bothered to help his sister, Gigi Graham, even though she was fighting to survive in the wake of Hurricane Helene.
Most of us may know Duford for her open and unashamed opposition to Trump. Back in 2020, she wrote an op-ed in USA Today reiterating what most of us left-leaning Christians have known for some time—those who support Trump are trampling on her grandfather’s legacy. In August, she offered a full-throated endorsement of Kamala Harris and has appeared in ads for Evangelicals for Harris.
But lately, Duford has had more immediate concerns—like caring for her mother, Gigi. For those who don’t know, Gigi is the eldest child of Billy and Ruth Graham; Franklin was Billy’s fourth child and oldest son. On Tuesday, Duford took to Twitter with a stunning claim. According to Duford, her uncle was able to go down I-85 to Georgia, but couldn’t check on his own sister in Black Mountain, North Carolina—a few hours from Franklin’s current home in Boone—even though, at the time, Gigi didn’t have any food or water.
I thought this was snark when it rolled across my Twitter feed. But Duford’s brother, Boz Tchividjian—whom most of us know as one of the leading advocates for victims of spiritual and sexual abuse in the church—chimed in to say Duford was telling the truth.
Later on Tuesday, Duford revealed that she, her siblings, and her husband were working on a way to rescue Gigi—even though she doesn’t have power either.
Until I saw this, I thought that Graham had bottomed out when he spent much of 2015 and 2016 bullying and shaming Naghmeh Panahi, the ex-wife of Iranian-born pastor Saeed Abedini, for daring to speak up about the physical and emotional abuse she’d suffered at Abedini’s hands. When Panahi reached her breaking point, Graham actually had the gall to ask her if she was cheating on her husband—a question that he apparently still believed was “a good question to ask.” If that wasn’t enough, Graham dispatched his own private jet to fly Abedini to Boise after Panahi rejected Graham’s offers to go to marriage counseling with Abedini. When Panahi found out about that, she was forced to hightail it to court to file for formal separation (they divorced in 2017) and a temporary protective order to keep him away from their kids.
But now we find out that Graham couldn’t be bothered to help his nieces and nephews rescue his own sister. We already knew that Graham was a heartless and soulless shell of a man. This only proves it. In a normal world, these gut-wrenching tweets from Duford would have spelled finis to Graham’s standing.
There’s a tangible way to make Graham find out, though. The most visible organ of the Billy Graham ministry, which is now run by Franklin, is WMIT, a contemporary Christian station in Asheville better known as “The Light FM.” From a tower 6,700 feet above sea level—the highest transmitter site east of the Mississippi—it claims at least secondary coverage in parts of seven states, including my (for now) home in Charlotte. The Light FM counts a number of businesses in the Carolinas serve as “business ministry partners.” Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t know if any business would want to be within an area code of a guy who can’t be bothered to come to the aid of his own sister, forcing his nieces and nephews to carry the load. Call and ask them—politely, of course—to drop their sponsorship of Graham’s station. It’s the most meaningful way to let it be known that what he did to his sister is unacceptable.