Franklin Graham: World silent on Christian genocide

Franklin Graham, the CEO of both Samaritan's Purse and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, is asking why the world is silent while ISIS carries out genocide against Christians.

"It is genocide," he wrote Monday in a post on Facebook on a topic he has previously addressed.

"And the world seems largely silent about it."

He continued: "Genocide perpetrated by the Islamic State against Christians, Yazidis, and other religious minorities of Syria and Iraq. And their methods are unimaginably cruel and heinous. Just a few days ago it was revealed that three Assyrian Christians were executed on September 23, which is the Muslim 'Feast of Sacrifice,' and they say they'll kill more hostages."

Several times, Graham has brought President Obama's name into a discussion of problems with Islam.

He was disinvited from a Washington event in 2010 after saying, "When you look at what the religion (Islam) does to women and women alone, it is just horrid."

Graham on Monday continued, citing a Fox News report of a new atrocity.

"And recent reports share the horror of 12 other Christians being murdered on August 28. Why were they killed? For refusing to renounce their faith in Jesus Christ. Eyewitnesses said that ISIS militants crucified a 12-year-old Christian boy and his Syrian missionary father along with two other men after mercilessly brutalizing them. They cut off the boy's fingertips to try to get his father to convert to Islam. They left their bodies hanging on the crosses for two days under signs reading 'infidels.'

"On that same day, ISIS militants publicly raped two Christian women in front of a crowd and then beheaded them along with six others when they refused to convert to Islam. 'They have every intention of spreading that bloodshed around the world, including America,'" Fox News reported. "Pray for an end to this horrendous evil in the name of religion."

WND has reported when Graham peppered Obama with questions about his ties to Islam, his Christian baptism and whether he accepts Jesus as his savior.

"I can confirm Rev. Graham did indeed ask Obama about his personal faith. Because it was a private meeting, it is up to Obama if he wants to release any more information," Graham's spokesman, Jeremy Blume, told WND at the time.

Obama's campaign for president at one point issued a statement, "Senator Obama has never been a Muslim, was not raised as a Muslim, and is a committed Christian."

But as WND reported, public records in Indonesia listed Obama as a Muslim during his early years, and a number of childhood friends claimed to the media Obama was once a mosque-attending Muslim.

Obama's campaign several times has wavered in response to reporters queries regarding his childhood faith.

Commenting on a Los Angeles Times report quoting a childhood friend stating Obama prayed in a mosque – something the presidential candidate said he never did – Obama's campaign released a statement claiming he "has never been a practicing Muslim."

Widely distributed reports at the time noted that in January 1968, Obama was registered as a Muslim at Jakarta's Roman Catholic Franciscus Assisi Primary School under the name Barry Soetoro. He was listed as an Indonesian citizen whose stepfather, identified on school documents as "L Soetoro Ma," worked for the topography department of the Indonesian army.

In Obama's autobiography, "Dreams from My Father," he acknowledged studying the Quran and describes the public school as "a Muslim school."

"In the Muslim school, the teacher wrote to tell mother I made faces during Quranic studies," wrote Obama.

And during the same time period, in a free-ranging interview with the New York Times, Obama described the Muslim call to prayer as "one of the prettiest sounds on Earth at sunset."

The Times' Nicholos Kristof wrote Obama recited "with a first-class [Arabic] accent" the opening lines of the Muslim call to prayer.

In 2012, Graham said he couldn't say for certain Obama is Christian.

"You have to ask him. I cannot answer that question for anybody. All I know is I’m a sinner, and that God has forgiven me of my sins," Graham said. "You have to ask every person. He has said he’s a Christian, so I just have to assume that he is."

Two years later, WND reported Graham noted Obama's apparent lack of understanding of Islam.

"In his speech, the president made this baffling comment about Islam: 'Islam teaches peace. Muslims all over the world aspire to live with dignity and a sense of justice. And when it comes to America and Islam, there is no us and them – there is only us, because millions of Muslim Americans are part of the fabric of our country,'" Graham wrote in a commentary for Decision magazine at the time.

But he said that just doesn't line up with the facts.

Obama, he asserted, doesn't understand Islam.

"Even President Bush in the previous administration called Islam a peaceful religion. Both men have done a great disservice to the American public by not understanding Islam and its teaching in the Quran," Graham wrote.

"Islamic terrorists are indiscriminately and brutally killing all who stand in their way, as evidenced by the gruesome, demonic images of recent beheadings of American and British journalists. For Muslims, peace comes only through submission to Islam. When they speak of peace, they mean submission to their religion," he said.

He said then: "Mr. President – followers of a peaceful religion do not cut off the heads of innocent people in barbaric fashion. … Mr. President – believers in a peaceful religion do not kidnap 300 young schoolgirls as Boko Haram did in northeastern Nigeria in April and reportedly [sell] them to men to be sex slaves. … Mr. President – men who practice a peaceful religion do not detonate bombs on an American street during a marathon race to kill and maim innocent people. … Mr. President – no one who belongs to a peaceful religion would even consider hijacking airlines and flying them into buildings occupied by thousands of innocent people beginning their workday. … Mr. President – no peaceful religion would tolerate, let alone practice, female circumcision, require a women to have her husband's permission to leave her home and take up employment, and restrict her ability to receive justice."

Earlier this year, Graham told a Fox News audience Obama was understating Islam's ties to terror.

"His mother was married to a Muslim. His father was a Muslim," Graham said. "Then she married a man from Indonesia. He was raised in Indonesia. Went to Islamic schools. I assume she was a Muslim. So his whole life, his experiences have been surrounded by Islam. He only knows Islam. And he has given a pass to Islam."