Graham Criticized Over Romney Remarks

Last Updated on August 13, 2012

When the son of the legendary Rev. Billy Graham essentially said that Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney shouldn’t be kept from the White House because he is a Mormon, it was only a matter of time before the Religious Right went on the attack.

Rev. Franklin Graham told CBN News that the fact that Romney is a Mormon doesn’t bother him.

“I think when we are voting for president we need to get the person who is absolutely the most qualified. You can have the nicest guy and he can be a Christian and just wonderful but have absolutely no clue as to how to run a country, you don’t want that. You want somebody who understands Washington, who understands government, who understands how to bring people together so that we can move this country forward.

I don’t know how, from a common sense standpoint, one could argue with that.

But a professor of government at Regent University thinks it was unwise of Graham to have said it:

“We can understand the political nature of the statement; we can understand the constitutional nature of the statement. But from a practical standpoint of his being a religious leader, that statement I think was unwise because he didn’t have to make it.

So because he didn’t have to state his honest feelings on the matter, he should have refrained from being honest, kept his mouth shut and just have toed some party line?

How is that being a leader?

It’s frustrating when I hear some of my fellow Christians say that they don’t think they can vote for Romney because of his religious views.

It’s also illogical.

Being a Christian and being an American sometimes means being&nbsp stuck between two different points of view.

We should want to honor God in all that we do. But we accept (for the most part) that we have to allow others to honor their beliefs so that we continue to have the freedom to do so ourselves.

We expect&nbsp justice, some even demand capital punishment, depending on the crime, but the Bible instructs us to “turn the other cheek.”

Some Christians campaign vehemently against abortion, arguing that all life is sacred, some of these same people get all bent out of shape when any of their tax dollars go to support the needy once they’re born, despite Jesus’s teachings that when you do something for “the least of these,” you are doing it for Him.

If you believe that electing a Christian is the number one priority, and that to not do so means that you are “abandoning God,” or worse, that God will abandon the US without a Christian in office, then I’d ask you to explain&nbsp Jimmy Carter’s presidency.

Carter, surely, was the most devoutly religious man elected in the 20th century. He may well be the most religious man ever to hold office. During his presidency, he brokered a historic peace agreement in the Middle East, an accomplishment that would earn him a Nobel prize. In his “retirement” years, he spends a good deal of time building homes for needy families through Habitat for Humanity.

But his presidency was marked with a horrible economy, a gas shortage, and hostages in Iran that resulted in a landslide for Ronald Reagan in 1980.

So how, exactly, could God allow anything to go wrong during Carter’s presidency since he’s such a standout Christian?

I don’t believe that a president who is a Christian will automatically make&nbsp a better president than a non-Christian who is able to lead with morals. As difficult as it is for some Christians to accept this, it’s&nbsp true: there are moral people out there who happen not to be Christian.