My Enemy, a.k.a. Franklin Graham

I found myself, without any prior intention, participating in a conversation with the excellent Piers Morgan and two religious enemies, one Jewish and one Christian. There is not much to say about the Jewish participant. He belongs to the type that speaks so fast, so no one notices he has nothing to say, a balloon full of compressed air. But Franklin Graham, the evangelical preacher, is an entirely different story. Less noise, far more power. A skilled marketer of nonsense to the masses, with real influence over millions, direct access to American centers of power, and a microphone that reaches every place where people are searching for meaning, preferably cheap. I listened to him and at some point an uncomfortable thought arose. He knows exactly what he is doing. He knows he is not faithfully reading Scripture but using it cynically. Therefore, I have no choice but to stand against him. Because in the face of such power one must speak plainly, without unnecessary courtesy: You are shallow, you are hollow, and you are dangerous.

Before I explain these three claims, I must define the foundation on which my critique rests. The religions and cultures I know, those that emerged from the Bible, are not traditions of obedience to power but of confrontation with it. Speaking truth to power is not a marginal idea. It is the axis around which the entire biblical story turns, from Genesis to the last prophet - Malachi. Abraham did not accept the decree against Sodom. He argued and bargained with God face to face. Moses did not yield when God decreed destruction upon Israel after the sin of the golden calf. The prophets, each in his time, never stood alongside the political power of their era but against it. Not in the king’s court but at its gate. Courageous critics, unafraid for their own lives, without a trace of flattery or concern for reputation. The name of the nation, Israel, does not mean servant of God or flatterer of God. It means one who wrestles with God. This is an identity defined by the ability to stand before the greatest power and refuse to surrender truth and moral conviction. Because they understood that even the Judge of all the earth might fail to do justice, and it was their task to hold even God to account when necessary. Once this is understood, Graham’s opportunism becomes clear and his true face is revealed. He continues no biblical tradition. He betrays it. And he is not alone. Alongside him stand the messianic rabbis of religious Zionism and their enterprises of occupation and oppression. He and they have traded all their values for stolen real estate and dubious messianism. Together they threaten the future of the Jewish people and the peace of the world.

You are shallow

Because you read Scripture the way one reads a fast food menu. The food is over processed and greasy to the point of risking health, and you take what is served, consume too quickly and too much, and discard everything that requires thought. You tell us about David who learned to fight, about a God who listened to him, about victories God sanctioned. It is all written, but in your partial and manipulative way. Because you stop precisely where the story becomes uncomfortable. When David asks to build a house for his God, the house he dreamed of all his life, he is refused in terms that leave no room for argument. “You have shed much blood and have waged great wars; you shall not build a house to My Name, because you have shed much blood on the earth in My sight” (1 Chronicles 22:8). This is the most important verse in David’s story. It dismantles every fantasy of military sanctity. It is the moment the Bible states something simple and piercing. There are things you cannot carry from the battlefield into the sacred. Political violence, even when justified, perhaps even necessary, leaves the leader stained and disqualified until his final day. Even the greatest biblical warrior dies with blood on his hands and is denied the building of God’s house. This is the biblical principle you should have taught. War and peace cannot dwell together. But you took David of the sword and discarded the king who sinned and was wrapped in remorse because he was denied the temple. You abandoned the mission of the true biblical religious figure and chose the most shallow populist position, irresponsible demagoguery. In the White House prayer you delivered on Easter eve, you could have been Nathan the prophet and said to the king, “Why have you despised the word of the Lord, by doing evil in His sight? Now then, the sword shall never leave your house, because you have despised Me” (2 Samuel 12:9). Nathan did not shout, did not argue, did not bring evidence. He stood with courage and spoke truth to power. And you stood there and blessed the atrocities. Not a prophet. A hired court cleric.

And the prophets more broadly offer you no comfort either. They do not speak about enemies but about the home. Pope Leo, in his Palm Sunday sermon, cited one of the boldest verses in Hebrew prophecy: “When you spread out your hands in prayer, I will refuse to look at you; even if you offer countless prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are covered with blood” (Isaiah 1:15). Isaiah does not speak to Assyrians or Babylonians. He speaks to the local hypocritical believers and corrupt priests and tells them there is no religious ritual that grants moral immunity to wrongdoing. You cannot offer sacrifices while committing injustice. This is true prophecy, inward critique, moral repair. With you Saint Graham, how convenient, the blood is always someone else’s, always an enemy, this time Iran. The prophets did not operate this way, which is why their words endured for millennia. Yours will not endure a generation, no matter how many millions you invest in marketing them. Because they are not words of truth. They are political propaganda in the service of corrupt power.

You are hollow

Because this entire mechanism is wrapped in grand language with nothing behind it. When you stand in the White House and compare Trump to Queen Esther, it is embarrassing. Before I elaborate, it must be said that many within the evangelical world itself know this. Not all of the movement you claim to represent stands behind you. Because this entire mechanism is wrapped in grand language with nothing behind it. When you stand in the White House and compare Trump to Queen Esther, it is embarrassing. Before I elaborate, it must be said that many within the evangelical world itself know this. Not all the movement you claim to represent stands behind you.

John Stott, whom the New York Times described as the man evangelicals would choose as their pope if they could elect one, publicly opposed Christian Zionism and called it anathema to the faith. Ron Sider, one of the most important Christian theologians of the twentieth century, opened his landmark study of evangelical political engagement with the blunt verdict that Christian political activity is a disaster, because Christians have failed to subject their political commitments to the lordship of Christ and instead succumbed to partisanship and corruption. Jim Wallis, who has dedicated his life to proving evangelicalism can be a moral conscience, called the White Christian nationalism you represent by its true name, heresy.

And they are not alone. When you chose your path, you chose it against a rich internal tradition of Protestant Christianity that knew how to be a conscience. Your choice is not fate. It is a cynical and malicious decision..

And now to the Book of Esther. Your choice of it is not accidental. When you stand in the White House and compare Trump to Esther, you do not just embarrass yourself. You reveal yourself. Anyone who knows the story knows Ahasuerus was not a model of moral kingship, and Esther arrived at the palace under circumstances you would not print in your church bulletin. You chose to compare President Trump to a biblical sex slave. One may ask why. A psychological slip or a hint of coercion. It does not matter, because the choice of Esther reveals a deeper problem than a clumsy analogy.

Tucker Carlson, not my ideological ally, asked the simplest and most devastating question. Why did you choose Esther and not Jesus. The answer is obvious. Because Jesus cannot be recruited into this war. He did not enter Jerusalem on a war stallion as a conqueror but on a donkey, in humility. He did not organize an army, did not justify the killing of innocents, did not bless kings who went to unnecessary and arrogant wars. He did the opposite. He accepted suffering and refused violence even in the face of viciousness and cruelty against him. And so you bypass him entirely and search for another text. But in your eagerness you chose one that exposes you. The Book of Esther is the only book in the entire Bible in which the name of God does not appear even once, not by name, not by title, not by hint. Traditional Jewish interpretation struggled with this absence for generations and asked whether the book belongs in the sacred canon at all. Some see in this absence a profound theological statement, that God refused to be present in a story that ends in massacre, in which human beings (The Jews) massacred seventy-five thousand Persians, as if in the name of survival. Even if they were persecuted and acted out of justified fear, God withdraws and hides from them. He leaves responsibility for the acts entirely with the slayers. You, who came to the White House to represent God, chose the most prominent place in Scripture where God is silent and absent. This is not just irony. It is the essence of the entire story.

You are dangerous

Because shallowness and hollowness never remain as words only. Someone always translates them into policy, money, and wars. You speak to millions who do not check you, do not open a Bible, and do not imagine you are deceiving them. They believe you. Though faith is the most fragile thing a person has, and when it is corrupted, the damage is deeper than any wound. When God becomes a justification for war and a mechanism for legitimizing power, religion becomes the mistress of power, betrays its purpose, and collapses. From a courageous force that stands against power, it becomes its servant. And the one responsible for turning religion into a tool of domination is not a religious man. He is a court submissive Flunky. You Are that Man.

I am not merely an observer of a talented charlatan. I am also a target of your theology. That is why I stand against you. Because there is one thing you do not say publicly, though it is the backbone of your theology. The Christian vision of redemption you sell requires Jews in the land of Israel as a necessary condition for its fulfillment. Your Jew is a temporary Jew, one whose role is to appear on stage, play his part, and ultimately dissolve into another faith. Your enthusiastic political support and that of your followers is not generosity. It is my annihilation. And the Jewish fools who admire you and cooperate with you are the kapos of our time.

You want us here in the land of Jesus, fighting, killing, and being killed, holding every inch of land until the last drop of blood, ours of course. Only then can your story end according to the violent script you fantasize about. Jesus returns, the Jews recognize him, convert, and we all become Franklin Graham. We, the Jews, are not the heroes of this story. We are the cannon fodder, the fuel, the necessary sacrifice for an ending in which we disappear as Jews forever. This is not love of Israel. It is the slaughter of Israel. Once this is understood, all the warm embraces, the prayers in the White House, and the biblical quotations wrapped in Israeli flags reveal their true meaning. You are a slick and sweet enemy, dangerous precisely because of the sweetness of your smile and the softness of your voice, a spiritual enemy in the fullest sense of the word.

Unlike you, I do not call for your obliteration, nor for the conversion of your beliefs. I invite you to a confrontation. Anywhere you choose, in any format you prefer. You, the Bible, and me. One Bible on the table, Mr Graham. Are you coming?