‘Poised and Ready’
The evangelist who called Islam ‘wicked’ is ready to
bring humanitarian aid to Muslims in Iraq.
By Deborah Caldwell
Franklin Graham, son of the Rev. Billy Graham and one
of the nation’s most outspoken critics of Islam, said
Wednesday he has relief workers “poised and ready” to
roll into Iraq to provide for the population’s
post-war physical and spiritual needs.
Graham, who has publicly called Islam a “wicked”
religion, said the relief agency he runs, Samaritan’s
Purse, is in daily contact with U.S. Government
agencies in Amman, Jordan, about its plans.
The group’s main objective is to help refugees and
people who have lost their homes or are sick and
hungry as a result of the war, Graham told Beliefnet.
“We realize we’re in an Arab country and we just can’t
go out and preach,” Graham said in a telephone
interview from Samaritan’s Purse headquarters in
Boone, N.C.
However, he added, “I believe as we work, God will
always give us opportunities to tell others about his
Son….We are there to reach out to love them and to
save them, and as a Christian I do this in the name of
Jesus Christ.”
Graham didn’t seem concerned that the public presence
in Iraq of Samaritan’s Purse—which has put out a press
release about its activities—could prompt
already-skeptical Muslims worldwide to view the war as
a crusade against Islam. “We would not go in and
participate in something that would embarrass our
administration,” he said. But he added, “We don’t work
for the U.S. Government, so we don’t get our
permission from them.”
Some Muslims were outraged that Graham would be
allowed to help with Iraq’s humanitarian effort.
"Franklin Graham obviously thinks it is a war against
Islam,” said Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council
on American-Islamic Relations. “This is a guy who gave
the invocation at President Bush’s inauguration and
believes Islam is a wicked faith. And he’s going to go
into Iraq in the wake of an invading army and convert
people to Christianity? Nothing good is coming of
that.”
A spokeswoman for the U.S. Agency for International
Development said Wednesday night she could not comment
on short notice.
Meanwhile, officials from the Southern Baptist
Convention, the nation’s largest Protestant
denomination, are also planning a large relief effort
in Iraq once the war ends. The International Mission
Board has already sent about $200,000 in hunger funds
and $50,000 in general relief funds to its workers in
Amman, Jordan.
“This is not just a great opportunity to do
humanitarian work but to share God’s love,” said Sam
Porter, state disaster relief director for the Baptist
General Convention of Oklahoma. “We understand that
the individual people of Iraq have done nothing to
hurt us. We want to help them to have true freedom in
Jesus Christ.”
On Wednesday, Graham was unusually guarded in his
comments about Islam, saying only that “when people
ask, I let them know I don’t believe in their God. But
I respect their right to believe whatever they want to
believe.” Two months after September 11, however, he
called Islam a “very evil and wicked religion.” Last
summer he said Muslims hadn’t sufficiently apologized
for the terrorist attacks–and he challenged Muslim
leaders to offer to help rebuild Lower Manhattan or
compensate the families of victims to show they
condemn terrorism.
That comment followed a string of remarks about Islam
and Muslims, as Graham promoted his book, “The Name.”
In it, Graham wrote that “Islam–unlike
Christianity–has among its basic teachings a deep
intolerance for those who follow other faiths.” Then,
in an interview with Beliefnet, he reiterated his
opinion, saying, “I believe the Qur’an teaches
violence, not peace.” In an indirect criticism of
President Bush, Graham at the time told Beliefnet that
after September 11, “there was this hoo-rah around
Islam being a peaceful religion–but then you start
having suicide bombers, and people start saying, ‘Wait
a minute, something doesn’t add up here.’”
In the midst of this verbal battle, one Muslim group
in New York called him “bigoted, hateful and
divisive.”
But Graham is only the most significant leader of a
widespread and rapidly growing effort by conservative
American Christians to criticize Islam—and attempt to
convert its followers. Since 1990, the number of
missionaries in Islamic countries has quadrupled.
Mission experts estimate they have spoken to or given
Christian material to at least 334 million people in
that time. Groups such as Youth With a Mission and the
Southern Baptist Convention’s International Mission
Board, sponsor two-week jaunts to places like
Kyrgyzstan to convert Muslims to Christianity.
Five years ago, the Southern Baptist Convention
reorganized its International Missions Board to focus
on the part of the world where Muslims live. That
year, the Convention published a prayer guide for use
when praying for the conversion of Muslims. They
followed with similar prayer guides aimed at Hindus
and Jews two years later. Two years ago, Southwestern
Baptist Theological Seminary even created a master’s
degree program to help students minister to Muslims.
Donna Derr, an official for Church World Service, a
mainline Protestant and Eastern Orthodox aid group,
finds this activity worrisome.
She said the 2,000-year-old Christian churches in
Iraq–whose members are a tiny minority in a vast
Muslim population–have worked extraordinarily hard in
the last decade to “develop their place” in the
community. She said Christians and Muslims are working
together in a way they never did before.
“I would hate to see the tenuous balance that has been
created made unbalanced by the entry into Iraq by
peoples who may have less sensitivity,” she said. “Our
military activity has created one chasm. We don’t want
to see our humanitarian assistance create another
chasm.”
But Graham said Samaritan’s Purse has worked closely
with Christians in Iraq since 1991. He first went to
Baghdad 30 years ago. “I know exactly what the
situation is, and I’ve briefed my people very well on
it,” he said.
At this point, said Richard Land, president of the
Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious
Liberty Commission, American Christians should stop
worrying about whether Muslims think America is
anti-Islam.
“What doesn’t look that way to the Muslim world?”
Besides, he said, “they’re the ones declaring holy
war, not us. They’re the ones trying to convert people
by force. They’re the ones killing people in the name
of religion, not us.”
But Hooper, from the Council on American-Islamic
Relations, said evangelical groups bent on converting
Muslims often go into countries emphasizing
humanitarian concerns to obscure their proselytizing
agenda. “They go after them when they’re most
vulnerable and hope they can get them to leave their
faith. It’s a very despicable practice.”
He warned this could undermine the Bush
administration’s efforts to portray the war as a move
toward liberation, not a war against Islam. “If it
becomes generally known it’s going to be a public
relations disaster for the Bush administration,” he
said.
Even Michael Cromartie, director of evangelical
studies at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and an
ally of evangelical groups, cautioned that charities
like Samaritan’s purse “need to be soberly aware of
the perception problems this might bring in light of
the geopolitical situation.”