Credit: Abbie Rowe. White House Photographs, Wikipedia, Public Domain
We are in the political season, and the Christian Post reports that the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA) has sent a cease and desist letter to “Evangelicals for Harris” (EFH)
Why, you ask?
The BGEA has told EFH to stop using video of Billy Graham’s sermons in their ads opposing Donald Trump.
The BGEA claims that the usage of this footage by the political action committee is a copyright infringement. EFH responded by stating “limited use of Billy Graham’s speech falls squarely within the fair use protections afforded by Section 107 of the Copyright Act.”
Evangelicals for Harris are using brief clips from Billy Graham’s sermons and subtly implying from an Evangelical perspective that Trump is not fit for office.
The BGEA said that using Billy Graham’s sermons in such a fashion goes against everything the famed evangelist stood for as he ministered to both Republican and Democratic presidents .
“It may be worth noting that, in all of his years of ministry and across relationships with 11 U.S. presidents, Billy Graham sought only to encourage them and to offer them the counsel of Christ, as revealed through God’s Word,” said a BGEA spokesperson. “He never criticized presidents publicly and would undoubtedly refuse to let his sermons be used to do so, regardless of who is involved.”
Through much of his ministry, Billy Graham was actively involved in the political process and often met with presidents. But later Graham expressed regrets over his political involvements.
Franklin Graham who took over BGEA in 2000 has favored Trump in the US presidential race. CP reports that when Evangelicals for Harris started using Billy Graham clips, Franklin stated that his dad actually voted for Trump before he died in 2018.
In response to this criticism, EFH founder, Rev Jim Ball, said, “Franklin has placed his hope in a man and a darkness we saw manifest when police lines were overrun at our nation’s Capitol on January 6, in Springfield this past month, and in the spirit of fear and anger fed at every Trump rally Franklin attends. Our hope is not in any man or woman but in Christ alone.”
While, EFH’s ads will not necessarily convince evangelicals to vote for Harris, they have the potential of convincing Christians to not vote at all, which may be their secondary goal.
A recent study by Arizona Christian University’s Cultural Research Center (CRC) has found that upwards of 41 million self-professing Christians are planning not to vote in this year’s election, Christian Headlines reports.
This includes 32 million who are regular church attenders.
According the CRC survey, there were several reasons why Christians were not interested in voting. A significant percentage, 68%, said they were not interested in politics.
In addition to this:
- 57% said they didn’t like either Donald Trump or Kamala Harris,
- 52% did not believe their vote would be significant, and
- 48% believe the election results would be manipulated.
According to CRC director, Dr. George Barna, based on the 2022 election results, the 32 million church-attending Christians who are planning not to vote could profoundly impact the election results.
“The 32 million Christians who regularly attend church services but are not likely to vote represent a far larger margin than the combined number of votes that decided the 2020 election in key battleground states,” Barna noted.
Like it or not, politics are important, which is why Paul encouraged Christians to pray for our governments and leaders so as Christians we can “live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness” (1 Timothy 2:2).
So I expect that if given the opportunity to choose our leaders, Paul would similarly encourage us to vote for politicians that give us the freedom to live our lives as we choose.
OpentheWord.org 
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