If Franklin Graham's Hell Exists, He's a Shoo-in.

Today, Franklin Graham took to social media to make a bold and courageous statement about immorality.

No, he didn’t mention Donald Trump’s and the Republican Party’s incessant efforts to suppress the release of the Epstein files, or to demand they be released so that pedophiles and rapists could face accountability.

He said nothing about the fact that the President is a court-adjudicated rapist whose name is all over the Epstein flight logs.

Instead, made a moral stand about a reality TV show with a gay couple who have adopted children:

That’s what his pathetic prophetic voice has been reduced to: attacking supposed perversion, while partnering with an admitted sexual predator, who once said if his daughter were not his progeny, that he’d be dating her; a guy who boasted about forcing himself physically on women and grabbing them by the genitalia.

You know, just like Jesus would have done…

Graham has spent the past two decades disgracing his father’s ministry by tethering it to the Republican Party and Fox News in a way that would have horrified him.

Later in life, Billy Graham was open about his regrets over his earlier political affiliations during the Nixon Administration, recognizing that this kind of unholy marriage of religion and politics polluted the work he was doing; a work that, whether you agree with it or not, he truly believed in.

This has never been an issue for his son, who has been brazenly working toward theocracy, collaborating closely with the politicians who’ve been gleefully taking away healthcare, canceling free lunch for low-income children, and rounding up brown-skinned immigrants and tossing them into sweltering Florida kennels.

Franklin Graham doesn’t give a shit about “sin.”

If he did, he’d have never made his bed with a vile, foul-mouthed adulterer whose entire life and political career are antithetical to the life and teachings of Jesus. To do this, Graham has had to completely bypass Jesus’ teachings about loving the least or caring for the poor or healing the sick or welcoming the stranger. Oh sure, he has Samaritan’s Purse as a public entity that bears his name and does charitable work, but when it comes to his public pastoral leadership, to the stances he takes and the ways he leverages his voice, he has been a tirelessly devoted disciple of Donald.

If morality truly mattered to Graham, he’d be joining the other decent human beings in this nation by having the guts to take on a coordinated campaign to protect child abusers and human traffickers, because the full light of accountability would likely reveal how close he is to the fire.

Instead, Graham has continually played the culture war card, relentlessly sermonizing against the LGBTQ community to try and distract Biblically illiterate Bible Belters who lack the critical thinking abilities to realize they’re being duped.

He’s poured his entire ministry into making the phobic faithful who comprise his donor base feel like they’re faithful soldiers in the Army of the Lord, as they persecute gay couples and trans kids, despite Jesus never uttering one word about gender identity or sexual orientation.

Jesus did, however, preach explicitly against divorce, but the good Reverend never mentions this as he shills for a three-time married philanderer.

Jesus often warned his followers about the love of money and the moral dangers of wealth. Guess that’s a bit of a nuisance when the checks are rolling in.

Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount essentially reads like an explicit warning on avoiding becoming a man like Donald Trump and fighting the hateful, bloated, greedy narcissism that MAGA perpetuates, and yet, this is where Franklin has planted his flag, or rather, his cross.

Look, I don’t know if hell even exists. It’s always seemed to me to be incompatible with the character of a God who is fully loving. And I’m not in the business of condemning people to eternal damnation, either. That’s MAGA Evangelicals’ bread and butter.

What I do know from my two-and-a-half decades as a local church pastor, one who studied the Bible carefully, prayed earnestly, and took the words of Jesus seriously, is that if he were to come back here in the flesh, Franklin Graham would be one of the first tables he’d flip over.

And if hell does indeed exist, it would be constructed precisely for powerful men who feigned religion while building empires on the backs of the oppressed and powerless, and at the expense of already vulnerable, hurting people.

If the hell Franklin Graham preaches exists, I’m pretty sure he’s a shoo-in.

If the teachings of Jesus mean anything to him, he should repent of the irreparable damage he’s done to his father’s work, to the name Christian, and to millions of LGBTQ human beings he’s targeted to gain Supreme Court seats and a presidency’s power.

Most of all, he should ask forgiveness for making a repugnant monster like Donald Trump into a golden idol, one that he lacked the moral courage to tear down, even knowing children and women and the poor would suffer.

Whatever Jesus would do, it sure as hell ain’t that.

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