The Ben Shapiro Show - Franklin Graham | The Ben Shapiro Show Sunday Special Ep. 90

00:00:00.000 God can use this to get our attention as the world, not just a nation, but the world, to look to Him and to put our faith and trust in Him.

00:00:10.000 On March 20th, Italy had 47,000 COVID-19 cases with over 4,000 deaths.

00:00:15.000 More than half of those deaths came from the Lombardy region, where the town of Cremona is located, just outside of Milan.

00:00:21.000 That's the day Samaritan's Purse came to Cremona. 0.97

00:00:24.000 Samaritan's Purse is a non-denominational evangelical Christian organization providing spiritual and physical aid to hurting people around the world.

00:00:32.000 In 36 hours, Samaritan's Purse had a 68-bed field hospital set up in the Cremona Hospital parking lot, aiding the coronavirus relief.

00:00:40.000 Then, come April 1st, they also set up a field hospital in the middle of Central Park in New York City, the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak in the United States.

00:00:49.000 My guest today is Franklin Graham, president and CEO of Samaritan's Purse, and the son of world-famous evangelical Billy Graham, who's considered to be one of the most influential Christian leaders of all time.

00:01:00.000 Carrying on that legacy, Franklin has become a Christian leader in his own right, meeting privately with five U.S.

00:01:05.000 presidents and world leaders from Europe, Africa, Asia, and Latin America, as well as responding to global crises in over 100 countries through Samaritan's Purse.

00:01:14.000 He's also the president and CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelist Association.

00:01:17.000 On this Easter Sunday, we talk about the inspiring stories of hope from the coronavirus pandemic, Franklin's thoughts on how the Trump presidency has been going, his father's legacy, and the age-old question of why bad things happen to good people.

00:01:29.000 Franklin Graham, thanks so much for stopping by the Ben Shapiro Show Sunday specials.

00:01:44.000 So I have a lot I want to get to with you, discuss your father's legacy and where you stand on President Trump.

00:01:48.000 We'll talk politics, but obviously we have to start with the situation with regard to coronavirus.

00:01:52.000 First of all, how's your family dealing with all of this?

00:01:55.000 I hope that you're doing okay.

00:01:56.000 We're all doing fine.

00:01:59.000 Doing the work God has called us to, Ben.

00:02:00.000 We don't slow down, we just keep going forward.

00:02:02.000 Well, I definitely appreciate your work, and we're going to get to that in just a second.

00:02:05.000 I want to ask you, there are a lot of religious people in the United States who right now are deeply troubled by all of the calls by state and local governments to shut down churches.

00:02:13.000 There are people who work with me here at Daily Wire who have been upset that the government has deemed churches non-essential for purposes of shutting them down and shutting down mass gatherings right now.

00:02:23.000 As a religious person, what's your perspective on the government telling people to stay home from church?

00:02:28.000 Christians ought to do. 0.99

00:02:29.000 I mean, we're approaching Easter season.

00:02:30.000 Well, first of all, I think we need to obey those that are in authority.

00:02:34.000 That's what the Bible teaches, and so I think it's very important that we do that.

00:02:39.000 The churches are not shut down.

00:02:41.000 I think more people are attending online services than they did when you were meeting in person.

00:02:48.000 There's something about this virus that has put fear and anxiety in people's hearts, so I think just more people are online, and they're participating that way.

00:02:58.000 So the church needs to continue to be the church, but I just would encourage pastors across the country to obey those that are in authority, and I think that's what the congregations would expect us to do.

00:03:11.000 Yeah, I mean, as an Orthodox Jew myself, I've been encouraging people to stay home from synagogue, which has been a tall order in some sectors, and it seems to me that actually it's a fairly large-scale desecration of God's name when there's video and pictures of people going en masse to religious institutions in violation of government edicts that are specifically designed to prevent massive loss of life.

00:03:33.000 You know, and we do have to be careful, Ben, because this is a very infectious and it's a deadly virus, especially those that have underlying health issues.

00:03:44.000 This could be a death sentence.

00:03:45.000 And so we just have to be extremely careful.

00:03:48.000 But I don't think we should stop doing the work that God has called us to do.

00:03:53.000 But we do need to be careful.

00:03:55.000 I think practicing social distancing, these types of things, is wise.

00:04:01.000 Of course, as Samaritan's Purse, we're at work.

00:04:04.000 Some of my people are working from home.

00:04:06.000 The essential people have to come to the office.

00:04:08.000 So we're still working.

00:04:10.000 We haven't missed anything.

00:04:13.000 We just have to work a little differently than we're used to doing.

00:04:17.000 So let's talk about some of the things that Samaritan's Purse is doing around the country and around the globe in order to combat coronavirus.

00:04:22.000 It really is an amazing organization.

00:04:24.000 What you guys have been doing in order to help people is truly incredible.

00:04:26.000 What are some of the things that Samaritan's Purse has been doing, not only in the United States, but abroad?

00:04:30.000 Well, about three weeks ago, we sent an emergency field hospital to Cremona in northern Italy, outside of Milan, about 50 miles out of Milan.

00:04:40.000 This is the epicenter for the coronavirus in Italy.

00:04:44.000 And we've got a 68 Bedfield Hospital.

00:04:46.000 We're working in conjunction with a local hospital.

00:04:49.000 But we have about 70 personnel there right now.

00:04:54.000 These are doctors and nurses and technicians that are working in that hospital trying to save life in Northern Italy.

00:05:03.000 And that is a very important place for us to be, because the Italians were not getting any assistance from anybody in the world.

00:05:11.000 And I think when we showed up, it gave them a ray of hope that somebody's listening, somebody cares, and they're here helping us.

00:05:21.000 And so, of course, as a Christian organization, Ben, we always feel that we should respond in Jesus' name.

00:05:26.000 That's what we do.

00:05:28.000 And as Christians, we want people to know that God loves them, that God hasn't forgotten them.

00:05:32.000 He hasn't turned his back on them.

00:05:34.000 And then just last week, we got a call from New York City asking if we'd be willing to put a hospital there.

00:05:38.000 And we've always kept two hospitals in stock in our warehouse.

00:05:44.000 These are the same hospitals that the U.S.

00:05:46.000 military, basically the same, that the U.S.

00:05:49.000 military uses.

00:05:50.000 We have military, former military doctors that work for us.

00:05:53.000 So we go to the same vendors.

00:05:55.000 And we buy the same hospitals that the U.S.

00:05:57.000 military does.

00:05:59.000 We make them a little different for our applications, but they have operating theaters, they have intensive care units, they have laboratory, we're able to do the sterilizations, everything that a hospital would do.

00:06:14.000 We can do it.

00:06:14.000 But for the coronavirus, it's for respiratory, so we don't need operating theaters for the respiratory care.

00:06:21.000 So we mix it up a little bit differently.

00:06:23.000 We bring in, of course, more ventilators than you would normally.

00:06:26.000 And that's what we've got set up in Corona.

00:06:29.000 And then now in New York City, when they were asked this last week, we set a team up there.

00:06:36.000 Over the weekend, we were given Central Park, right across from Mount Sinai, Hospital of the East Meadows, that's 98th and 5th Avenue.

00:06:46.000 And so we've set up, and actually today, I mean the last three days we've been putting the hospital together.

00:06:51.000 Today we received our first patient, so they believe that we'll be full maybe before the end of this day, I don't know.

00:07:00.000 We're there to serve the people of New York, anyone who comes, it doesn't matter who they are, Ben, we're going to help them, we're going to love them, we're going to care for them, and we're going to give them the best medical care that we possibly can.

00:07:11.000 We're not going to give anything less than best.

00:07:14.000 I read an article, maybe you read it too, about a person there in New York who lost a loved one in the hospital, and the wife was distraught because she could not be in the hospital with her husband as he died.

00:07:28.000 And so she said he died alone, and how sad and how much remorse she had that her husband died alone.

00:07:36.000 Well, I hope and pray no one dies in our hospital, but if they do, I can promise you, Ben, they're not going to die alone.

00:07:41.000 Our doctors and nurses will surround them, be praying for them, holding their hand until they take their last breath.

00:07:48.000 And I just want all relatives to know, if they come to our hospital, we'll take care of them, and we're going to show them compassion and love, the same that the Lord Jesus Christ would.

00:07:57.000 I mean, one of the things that's amazed me is not only the good work that you guys are doing, but also some of the reaction to that good work.

00:08:03.000 So, naturally, Twitter, which is just a repository of all stupidity, known to man, there's a bit of an issue today and over the last few days about Samaritan's Purse being behind the hospital. 0.96

00:08:13.000 people in New York shocked to learn, some radicals in New York shocked to learn that Samaritan's Purse is a Christian organization that has a Christian view of particular biblical edicts, including the fact that Samaritan's Purse believes that homosexual activity is a sin. 0.98

00:08:26.000 And somehow they were suggesting that this invalidates Samaritan's Purse doing their work in New York.

00:08:31.000 I just love for you to clarify that Samaritan's Purse is not, in fact, telling people who are gay, lesbian, transgender that they can't show up to the hospital if they have coronavirus.

00:08:39.000 No, everybody's welcoming.

00:08:41.000 And if a gay or transgender person showed up at the hospital, we'd show them the same love and compassion and give them the same world-class health care that we give to anybody else that comes.

00:08:51.000 But we are Christians.

00:08:53.000 We are not equal opportunity employer.

00:08:56.000 We don't do that.

00:08:58.000 The doctors and nurses, we're all Christians, and what motivates us is our faith in Jesus Christ, and that's what we have in common, and that's what makes us go forward.

00:09:12.000 And so we use that compassion and that love and that concern that Christ showed for people, we use that to show the people that come to us.

00:09:20.000 So, for anybody, it doesn't matter who you are, we're going to treat you the same.

00:09:25.000 We do not discriminate as it relates to the people that we help.

00:09:28.000 And we've been doing this, Ben, for 50 years.

00:09:30.000 Samaritan's Purse is 50 years old this year, and there has never been an accusation that we refused to help anybody because they did not believe the same way we believe.

00:09:41.000 We just don't do that.

00:09:43.000 Well, Franklin, I want to ask you about sort of the lack of tolerance for people who disagree with you, with many Christians, the Samaritan's Purse in just one second.

00:09:51.000 But before we get to that, I want to take a moment to give a shout out to all our advertising partners who help make this show possible.

00:09:57.000 We are super grateful that they decide to work with us, and we definitely appreciate our listeners going out and patronizing our sponsors and keeping all of this going.

00:10:05.000 Really appreciate both our listeners and our advertisers.

00:10:07.000 We're all trying to get through this together.

00:10:09.000 You, me, my show's advertising partner.

00:10:11.000 So let's stick together and get through this thing.

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00:11:13.000 So Franklin, I want to talk about the lack of tolerance that seems to exist on one side of the aisle.

00:11:17.000 So you mentioned Samaritan's Purse is a Christian organization, that it has its viewpoint on biblical sin, and that that viewpoint hasn't changed, and that it has obviously very Christian views.

00:11:27.000 This has led to a radical amount of intolerance from the other side of the aisle, which suggests that in certain situations you should be shut down.

00:11:35.000 I noticed that there was a story that Prior to all of this, you had a book tour planned in the UK, and that you had a bunch of sites shut down for the book tour, specifically because you are, quote-unquote, discriminatory.

00:11:46.000 What seems to be amazing to me is that there are a lot of people who seem to care very deeply about what you think of them, when, last I checked, there is no need to.

00:11:54.000 You are not a person who is actually legislating morality.

00:11:56.000 You're not a member of the government.

00:11:58.000 You are just running a private organization.

00:12:00.000 You're entitled to your religious viewpoints.

00:12:03.000 Why do you think it is that there's so much blowback Whenever Samaritan's Purse does something publicly, whenever you do something publicly, based on your view of biblical sin.

00:12:12.000 Well, I think, Ben, the blowback isn't really so much against me, I think it's against God.

00:12:18.000 The view that I have is what the Bible teaches.

00:12:22.000 And the Bible teaches that marriage is between a man and a woman.

00:12:26.000 That's what I believe.

00:12:28.000 And so I hold to my religious beliefs.

00:12:31.000 I don't compromise those.

00:12:33.000 I'm not going to change them.

00:12:34.000 That's just what the Bible teaches.

00:12:36.000 And so that's what I believe.

00:12:38.000 And again, for the gay community out there, I love them and care for them.

00:12:44.000 I want them to know the truth.

00:12:46.000 I want them to know what God says.

00:12:48.000 I want them to know what His Word has to say, because it's important that we live our life in accordance to His Word.

00:12:57.000 So, I don't condemn anybody.

00:13:02.000 God is the one who condemns. 0.65

00:13:05.000 We're all going to have to stand before God one day and give an account to Him for how we've lived our lives.

00:13:10.000 And so I just want to warn people, I want people to know the truth, but I certainly do not condemn anybody and I'm willing to help each and every person that comes across my path in life.

00:13:22.000 That's who I am and that's what I do.

00:13:25.000 So I want to talk a little bit more about some of the good actions that you've been taking.

00:13:28.000 You founded the Billy Graham Rapid Response Team.

00:13:30.000 Can you talk a little bit about the role of the team in the midst of this crisis and what they've been doing?

00:13:34.000 These are chaplains, Ben, and this came as a result of 9-11.

00:13:39.000 I was asked by Rudy Giuliani, the mayor at that time, to come to a prayer vigil at The Pile.

00:13:45.000 Uh, the fire trucks still had, uh, the, uh, the water poured on the piles.

00:13:51.000 You could still smell the stench of the rotting bodies and the smoke coming up out of the pile.

00:13:56.000 And to me, it minded me a little bit, maybe what hell would be like.

00:13:59.000 It was a terrible scene and they stopped everything for a few minutes to have a prayer, a vigil.

00:14:05.000 And I realized while I was in New York that there were not enough.

00:14:10.000 Pastors, doctors, chaplains, people who could pray with those that were suffering.

00:14:17.000 You had 3,000 some people that died that day, and there were just not enough people to deal with the grief that New York was going through.

00:14:24.000 There were not enough churches or synagogues to hold the funeral services.

00:14:29.000 Some churches were holding five, six, one that actually did ten in one day.

00:14:33.000 I don't know how they did it, but funeral services.

00:14:37.000 So it was an incredible amount of grief, and there just weren't enough pastors there.

00:14:42.000 We put together a team of chaplains.

00:14:46.000 And went up there and just went out to Chelsea Piers where they had the makeshift memorial.

00:14:51.000 People were there putting pictures and flowers and we just started talking to people and praying with people.

00:14:56.000 Then we went to the hospitals, people standing outside looking for a loved one, started praying with them.

00:15:01.000 And we had a tremendous ministry, but we went down to the pile and we wanted to go have a prayer with the first responders.

00:15:08.000 No, if you can't come in, you're not credentialed.

00:15:11.000 And credential, how did you get credential?

00:15:13.000 One of our chaplains was an FBI chaplain.

00:15:16.000 I had no clue that the FBI had chaplains.

00:15:18.000 And he had a badge, FBI.

00:15:20.000 So he showed that to the guard at the gate.

00:15:23.000 Is this credential good enough?

00:15:25.000 Oh yes, you can come in.

00:15:27.000 And after that, I thought, okay, we need to find out how we can get credentialed.

00:15:30.000 And we did the training with Homeland Security through FEMA and so forth.

00:15:33.000 Went through all the boxes, checked all the hoops.

00:15:36.000 And now we have hundreds, we have over a thousand chaplains here in the United States that have been credentialed, that have had special training for crisis situations like we're facing right now.

00:15:48.000 So in New York, we've got chaplains with us that are alongside our doctors and nurses that are willing to pray with people that want it.

00:15:54.000 We don't force somebody to listen to a prayer.

00:15:56.000 But if somebody said, would you please pray for me?

00:15:58.000 Absolutely.

00:15:59.000 We're right there.

00:15:59.000 And we believe that prayer is a part of what we do, a very important part.

00:16:06.000 As our doctors and nurses are trying to save life, But to have chaplains praying for the doctors and nurses and then to pray for the patients is very important.

00:16:16.000 So we've got chaplains there with us.

00:16:18.000 And so our work is, of course, it's a spiritual work.

00:16:22.000 It's not just physical, but it's spiritual as well.

00:16:25.000 Let's talk for a second about where this particular crisis stacks up next to other crises.

00:16:28.000 So obviously, you've been doing this for quite a while, and you've dealt with a number of crises, not only in the United States, but abroad.

00:16:33.000 How does COVID-19 stack up against the other crises that you've seen in your tenure?

00:16:37.000 There's never been a crisis like this in my lifetime.

00:16:39.000 This has changed the whole world.

00:16:41.000 The whole world, Ben, is on lockdown.

00:16:44.000 Every country in the world is right now locked down.

00:16:49.000 And it's frightening.

00:16:52.000 No question about it.

00:16:53.000 There's something, it's a tsunami of virus that has swept the globe.

00:17:00.000 And we don't know the answers to this.

00:17:03.000 We don't have an antidote.

00:17:05.000 We don't have the vaccine.

00:17:07.000 And the fear that is in people's hearts is incredible.

00:17:13.000 And I just, as a Christian, I don't fear.

00:17:16.000 I'm not worried about what's going to happen tomorrow.

00:17:19.000 I gave my life to Jesus Christ when I was 22 years old, when I confessed my sin and I asked Christ to come into my heart.

00:17:27.000 And that night God forgave me, not because I'm a good guy.

00:17:29.000 I'm not.

00:17:30.000 I'm a sinner.

00:17:31.000 But I confessed my sin and turned from those sins.

00:17:34.000 I invited Jesus Christ to live in my life.

00:17:36.000 And I don't fear what's before me.

00:17:40.000 I don't fear that.

00:17:42.000 If God wants my life to end today, so be it.

00:17:46.000 My life is in His hands.

00:17:48.000 I gave it to Him.

00:17:48.000 He can take me, spin me, use me however He wants me.

00:17:52.000 But the world right now is gripped in fear, and I've never seen anything like it.

00:18:01.000 Not only is it a pandemic, but it's a worldwide crisis.

00:18:05.000 We've never seen this in my lifetime.

00:18:08.000 You mentioned your own sort of journey to faith and your faith experience at 22.

00:18:12.000 What prompted you to move toward conversion to Christianity or embrace of Christianity in your early 20s?

00:18:19.000 Well, of course, Ben, I grew up in a Christian home.

00:18:22.000 Right.

00:18:23.000 And my father, of course, an evangelist.

00:18:25.000 My mother grew up in a missionary family in China.

00:18:30.000 And so we went to church every Sunday.

00:18:34.000 We were involved in the church.

00:18:35.000 We did those types of things.

00:18:38.000 But your parents cannot choose Jesus Christ for you.

00:18:42.000 And it doesn't matter how much they loved me, that was a choice I had to make.

00:18:45.000 And I was 22, and I think, Ben, I just got to the point in my life where I was sick and tired of just being sick and tired.

00:18:52.000 You could go to parties, you could date, you could do things, you could have fun, but the next day you wake up, there would be an emptiness in your life.

00:19:01.000 And you realize that you were searching for something, but you didn't know what you were searching for.

00:19:06.000 And there was just this overwhelming emptiness.

00:19:08.000 And one night I just got on my knees and I said, I've sinned and I'm sorry.

00:19:13.000 Forgive me.

00:19:15.000 I believe Jesus Christ is your son.

00:19:18.000 I believe that he took my sins to the cross, that he died on that cross, he was buried for my sins, and that you raised him to life.

00:19:25.000 And I would like to invite him to come into my heart and to my life.

00:19:30.000 And if he could just take the pieces of my life and put it together and make sense of it, you can have it.

00:19:35.000 I prayed that prayer, Ben, in a minute.

00:19:37.000 And that night, God forgave Franklin Graham.

00:19:40.000 I'm still a sinner, but I've been forgiven, Ben.

00:19:43.000 And I know that one day, when I stand before God, He will welcome me Not because of what I did, but because of what Jesus Christ did on my behalf when he took my sins and died in my place, and I accepted that by faith.

00:19:59.000 The Bible says, by grace are we saved through faith.

00:20:02.000 It's not of works, lest any man should boast.

00:20:05.000 If you could work for your salvation, people would brag about it.

00:20:08.000 It's just part of human nature.

00:20:09.000 You know, let me tell you what I had to pay.

00:20:11.000 Let me tell you what I had to do.

00:20:12.000 But when you come to God, it's by His grace and it's through faith, and there's nothing else.

00:20:19.000 Let's talk about the fact that Easter is obviously about to be upon us.

00:20:24.000 It's the Passover season in the Jewish community.

00:20:26.000 It's a holy time of year for Jews and Christians alike.

00:20:29.000 It's also the roughest time I've ever seen in my lifetime, and that holds true for Christians, Jews, and everybody else. 1.00

00:20:36.000 The fact is there are going to be a lot of people suffering going into Easter, a lot of people suffering during the Passover season.

00:20:43.000 What do you think people should be meditating on and thinking about during the Easter season?

00:20:48.000 Well, first of all, there's no community that has probably suffered more in modern history than the Jewish community, and that they know what pain and sorrow and they know what suffering is all about. 1.00

00:21:02.000 And this Easter season, much of the world is experiencing pain and sorrow like they've never seen before.

00:21:10.000 The estimates for the people that may die in this country are staggering.

00:21:16.000 And we know that in the months ahead, it's going to probably get worse, not better.

00:21:22.000 And so I think this Easter season, it's a time for us to pause as a country, to pray and to ask God for his help, his mercy, his blessing.

00:21:35.000 And I think it's important that we turn to God.

00:21:36.000 As a nation, Ben, we've turned our back on God.

00:21:40.000 We have thrown his laws out the window and they say they don't matter.

00:21:45.000 And our politicians have done that.

00:21:48.000 People have been idolatry.

00:21:51.000 God hates idolatry more than anything else.

00:21:53.000 And our country has been consumed with idolatry.

00:21:56.000 And sports becomes idols.

00:22:00.000 Musicians become idols.

00:22:02.000 Our hobbies become our idols.

00:22:04.000 Our work becomes our idols.

00:22:07.000 And we have just shoved God back into a closet.

00:22:10.000 And it's like we don't want him unless there's a crisis.

00:22:14.000 And this is a great time.

00:22:16.000 For us as a people, as a nation, to turn to God and call upon Him and ask Him for help.

00:22:23.000 I want to ask you in one second about the sort of correlation between people doing bad things and God's response to us, whether we can actually see that in day-to-day life or whether it's just incumbent on us to seek God regardless of the treatment that we're receiving from nature or from the world.

00:22:40.000 I want to get to that in just one second.

00:22:41.000 First, can I talk about a quick way for you to save money while being at home?

00:22:45.000 Has there ever, like in human history, been a better time to avoid the post office?

00:22:48.000 Like, you may like the post office, but we're trying to social distance here and carrying packages to the post office.

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00:23:58.000 So, let's talk about one of the messages that you just talked about, Franklin, and that is the idea that we should be turning to God during times of crisis, that America has turned her back on God.

00:24:07.000 I certainly agree with you in terms of a lot of moral standards, that we've become obviously a more secular, atheistic country.

00:24:13.000 I think I, along with a lot of other people in modern life, are pretty uncomfortable with the idea that when bad things happen, that that represents God's punishment on us, just because there's not a one-to-one correlation.

00:24:22.000 We see too often good things happening to bad people and bad things happening to good people.

00:24:26.000 So I was wondering if maybe you could clarify on that a little bit.

00:24:28.000 Do you think that, you know, we live in sort of a world where pandemics happen and that's a punishment from God?

00:24:34.000 Or do you think that we live more in a world where it's incumbent on us to do the right thing regardless of whether we're receiving good or bad in our own eyes, not from God's eyes, but in our own eyes from the world around us?

00:24:45.000 Well, first of all, God loves us.

00:24:48.000 He cares for us.

00:24:50.000 And that's true.

00:24:50.000 If someone can't remember anything else we say on this program, I want them to remember that God loves you, and He does.

00:25:00.000 And bad things do happen to good people.

00:25:05.000 We live in a fallen, broken world.

00:25:07.000 When Adam and Eve, the first couple, God put them in a perfect world, the Garden of Eden.

00:25:14.000 And he didn't want bad things to happen, but he set down the rules, and man chose to disobey.

00:25:21.000 And Adam and Eve disobeyed God, and as a result of that, sin came into the world.

00:25:26.000 And that's the fall of man.

00:25:28.000 And so we're living in a broken world, a sin-filled world, and it's where we are.

00:25:35.000 But that's why Christ died for our sins, so that we don't have to pay the debt of sin, which is death, He's willing to give us eternal life if we're willing to trust Him.

00:25:44.000 But while we're here on earth, we're going to have pain, we're going to have sorrow, we're going to have death, but we can have that hope of eternal life with Christ one day if we'll turn and repent of our sins.

00:25:58.000 So, yes, bad things happen, and this coronavirus Whether that's God's judgment or not, how do I know?

00:26:06.000 I mean, I'm not—He hasn't told me.

00:26:09.000 But at the same time, I think maybe God can use this to get our attention as the world—not just the nation, but the world—to look to Him and to put our faith and trust in Him.

00:26:20.000 So I wanted to ask you, since everybody is trying to hunker down right now, you've obviously seen an enormous number of inspirational acts.

00:26:27.000 You've talked about some of them already from the folks who work for Samaritan's Purse during this crisis.

00:26:31.000 I was wondering if maybe you could give me some instances of sort of inspirational things that people are doing right now to help out their fellow man in the name of God.

00:26:38.000 Well, there was a man in New York.

00:26:42.000 A very wealthy fellow, young guy, and he saw us outside on Central Park working.

00:26:48.000 He just came back.

00:26:49.000 Can I help you volunteer?

00:26:50.000 He picked up a shovel.

00:26:52.000 He started shoveling mulch to help.

00:26:54.000 We had to have some walkways because the grass was turning into mud.

00:26:58.000 And he worked 13 hours shoveling.

00:27:01.000 And, again, a very wealthy guy, and he just came out to volunteer.

00:27:05.000 It's people like that that just come from different walks of life, these doctors and nurses that are willing to put their life on the line to save the life of other people.

00:27:15.000 It's incredible.

00:27:16.000 And it's not just the doctors and nurses, but it's like this fellow, a young guy who had a lot of money, but he had some time on his hands, and he was bored sitting at his home.

00:27:25.000 He said, can I help?

00:27:26.000 And he picked up a shovel.

00:27:27.000 And that's, those type of people inspire me.

00:27:31.000 I'm just so thankful.

00:27:33.000 And America has some wonderful people, good people.

00:27:38.000 And I think we, the media sometimes, we focus too much on the stars.

00:27:44.000 We focus too much on the Hollywood people whose lives for the most part are empty and broken and have very little to give.

00:27:53.000 But you take a young guy like that, that's just an example of one of many who have stood up and have said, here I am, use me.

00:28:04.000 So can you tell us a little bit more about where Samaritan's Purse got started for folks who don't know the background of the organization at all?

00:28:09.000 Well, it was started by a man by the name of Bob Pierce back in 70, excuse me, 50 years ago this year.

00:28:17.000 And he just wanted to help Churches, he wanted to help people around the world that were less fortunate.

00:28:26.000 And he ran it for about the first 10 years, and he had leukemia, and he asked if I would take it over.

00:28:33.000 And at that time, the organization was very small.

00:28:35.000 He had three secretaries.

00:28:37.000 And when I took over the organization, the three secretaries quit.

00:28:42.000 So for a while, it was just me.

00:28:46.000 And God has brought an incredible team of people over these last 40 years that I've been running it, an incredible team of men and women.

00:28:55.000 And I've learned one thing.

00:28:57.000 I went to business school.

00:28:59.000 One thing I learned is hire people that are smarter than you.

00:29:03.000 And at the end of the day, they're going to make you look good.

00:29:05.000 So I've always tried to find people that are a lot smarter than Franklin Graham.

00:29:09.000 And I'll tell you that that's paid off because we get the job done.

00:29:15.000 And it's not Franklin Graham, but it's just this incredible team of people.

00:29:18.000 So I wanted to ask you about your growing up.

00:29:19.000 So you mentioned earlier, obviously, your father is the most prominent evangelist of the last century.

00:29:24.000 So what was it like growing up in a home with Billy Graham?

00:29:27.000 Well, I think the Billy Graham that the world saw on television or the big stadiums was the same Billy Graham.

00:29:34.000 We, the children, saw at home there wasn't two Billy Grahams, there wasn't my mother Ruth Graham, there wasn't a different person when the cameras were turned off.

00:29:43.000 They were the same.

00:29:44.000 And we saw that consistency in their life.

00:29:46.000 And my father was a very humble person.

00:29:49.000 If you approached him on the sidewalk, if he was walking down New York's Fifth Avenue Somebody recognized me and said, oh, Dr. Graham, can I shake your hand?

00:29:59.000 He would be kind of, oh, shucks, you want to shake my hand?

00:30:01.000 OK, well, what's your name?

00:30:03.000 And he'd stand there and talk to him.

00:30:05.000 And that's just the way he was.

00:30:08.000 And so I'm very grateful for that.

00:30:09.000 But he had a very deep faith.

00:30:12.000 He believed the Bible and he'd be the first one to say, I don't understand it all, but I believe it all.

00:30:18.000 And he had just a very simple faith.

00:30:21.000 And God gave him an incredible What do you think distinguished the message that he was promulgating from some of the other messages that were being promulgated by different evangelists, or maybe the sort of new wave of evangelists, some of the televangelists that you see on TV?

00:30:40.000 He was such a popularizer of the Bible.

00:30:43.000 What was different between what he did and what so many others have tried to do?

00:30:47.000 Well, I can't speak for other people.

00:30:50.000 My father certainly wouldn't want me to.

00:30:53.000 My father just took the calling that God gave him, and he used that to the best of his ability.

00:31:00.000 Before he did anything, he would pray about it.

00:31:03.000 If he felt God called him to go to England to preach, or go to Eastern Europe to preach, go to Russia to preach, he prayed about it.

00:31:11.000 And if God laid something on his heart, he did it.

00:31:16.000 And he would be criticized.

00:31:18.000 I remember when he went to Eastern Europe, there were a lot of people on the far right accused him of being used by the communists.

00:31:25.000 And I remember my father smiling and saying, well, maybe I want to use them.

00:31:30.000 And he was just very forceful, very strong, and he had a great team of people around him that supported him and helped him.

00:31:41.000 And he certainly would want me to make sure people understood it was the team.

00:31:46.000 It wasn't just Billy Graham, but it was the team.

00:31:48.000 You mentioned earlier the phrase, sort of, simple faith.

00:31:51.000 There are a lot of people in today's world who seem to think that they are too sophisticated for faith, or who have been told that faith is unsophisticated, that faith requires you to ask no questions, that faith is easy, and they find themselves struggling with faith.

00:32:05.000 What would you say to people who think that faith is too simple?

00:32:09.000 And what should the proper approach to faith be?

00:32:11.000 What kind of questions are worthy of asking?

00:32:13.000 Well, Ben, I mean, there are a lot of skeptics out there, and they think faith is a crutch.

00:32:21.000 And, you know, I don't know what I can do to change their beliefs.

00:32:25.000 But, you know, Ben, just take this whole notion of evolution.

00:32:32.000 And that somehow we started off as a tadpole and got more and more and more sophisticated as time passed over the millions of years, and all of a sudden we are who we are today.

00:32:46.000 And there are millions of people that believe that, and I think it takes a lot more faith to believe that.

00:32:54.000 Uh, because there's no evidence whatsoever of, uh, of, of where we came from tadpoles or whatever, some lower species.

00:33:03.000 But as a pilot, uh, I have a little, a single engine, uh, Piper Super Cub made in 1956.

00:33:10.000 And I can park that out on the runway.

00:33:12.000 And I can tell you right now, a million years from now, it's not going to be a 747.

00:33:15.000 Uh, there are engineers behind it that developed it and, uh, put these things together.

00:33:21.000 And there's a, uh, it goes by a design.

00:33:24.000 And the human body has a design, and it's unique.

00:33:30.000 When you look at our propulsion system, when you look at our electrical system, the pneumatic systems that our bodies have is incredibly designed.

00:33:40.000 And there was a design, but it just didn't happen.

00:33:43.000 There's a creator.

00:33:44.000 And the Bible says that God created the heaven and the earth and everything in it.

00:33:48.000 And Ben, I just believe it.

00:33:49.000 But you have to accept it by faith.

00:33:51.000 You just have to believe it.

00:33:53.000 And I just believe it.

00:33:55.000 And sometimes the people that have the most sophistication, the most expertise, the higher the PhD or the learning, sometimes it's those people that are the hardest ones to reach.

00:34:08.000 It has always seemed to me that arguments like this sort of argument from design, it's a response to an argument that simply misses the point of God, which is that God can do whatever he wants, and that even if God wanted to evolve human beings from a tadpole, even if you believe that evolution happens through simply natural selection and random mutation, why wouldn't God be able to design it that way?

00:34:27.000 There's sort of this bizarre disconnect where if There's a naturalistic explanation, therefore nobody stands behind nature.

00:34:34.000 I've never fully understood the idea that if nature has laws, if nature has rules, that there can't be any designer for those laws or rules.

00:34:43.000 That somehow nature operating according to certain constructs is somehow a disproof of God rather than a proof of His presence and a mind at work.

00:34:50.000 The world in which we live, everything is set into motion.

00:34:54.000 And our universe is set on a certain motion.

00:34:59.000 We're so many miles from the sun.

00:35:02.000 If we were just a few miles further or closer, we may not be able to live on this planet.

00:35:08.000 We live in a very delicate sphere of atmosphere.

00:35:11.000 And if you go Five miles straight up.

00:35:15.000 I don't know where you live, but I'm sure you could have a vantage point somewhere where you can look and see five miles.

00:35:21.000 It's not that very far.

00:35:22.000 And you go straight up five miles, you're not able to sustain life.

00:35:27.000 You can't breathe at 25,000 feet.

00:35:32.000 We live in a fragile envelope here on Earth, and we need to preserve it, take care of it.

00:35:38.000 God made it.

00:35:39.000 He created it.

00:35:40.000 And I just have to believe Him by faith, Ben.

00:35:43.000 I don't believe that somehow we just appeared out of nowhere.

00:35:49.000 God designed us, and He designed this world, and He designed this whole sphere in which we live, and He put the stars in place.

00:35:58.000 And all of that was a part of God's handiwork, and I just believe it.

00:36:03.000 And I know that He loves us, and He made us And He knows everything about us individually.

00:36:09.000 He knows our life.

00:36:11.000 He knows our problems.

00:36:12.000 And the amazing thing is that we can talk to Him anytime, anyplace, anywhere.

00:36:16.000 I can talk to God.

00:36:18.000 And He wants to hear our concerns.

00:36:22.000 And I think it's perfectly fine with God for us to call Him in the middle of the night.

00:36:27.000 He's not asleep.

00:36:29.000 He's not some God that has to have sleep.

00:36:31.000 He's there.

00:36:32.000 Just call His name.

00:36:33.000 He's there.

00:36:34.000 And He will hear.

00:36:36.000 If we put our faith and trust in His Son, Jesus Christ, He's going to hear us.

00:36:43.000 Jesus said, I'm the way, the truth, and the life.

00:36:46.000 No man comes to the Father but by me.

00:36:47.000 There's not multiple roads to God.

00:36:50.000 There's only one path to God.

00:36:53.000 And that goes through the cross because Jesus is the only one in history to take the sins of mankind.

00:36:58.000 No other person ever claimed to say, I took your sins, I died in your place.

00:37:02.000 Nobody's ever claimed that.

00:37:05.000 Only one, that's Jesus Christ.

00:37:07.000 He said, I took your sins and I died in your place.

00:37:10.000 And I laid my life down and I took it back again.

00:37:14.000 And he's alive and he's alive forever.

00:37:17.000 And the Bible says he's coming back.

00:37:19.000 And I believe that could be soon.

00:37:22.000 Something that is eminently true and has been proved true over the course of the last several decades is that the decline in church in the United States, the rise in secularism has had some pretty dire social effects.

00:37:32.000 I'm going to talk about that with you in just one second.

00:37:34.000 First, let's talk about the fact that you're spending an awful lot of time online right now because you can't go outside.

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00:38:38.000 Franklin, we look at the rise of secularism, and non-affiliated is the number one group of millennials.

00:38:43.000 We're watching younger people basically rejecting religion wholesale.

00:38:46.000 We're seeing organized religion in decline by statistics.

00:38:49.000 Why do you think that is, particularly given the fact that after several decades of an increasingly secular America, it is obvious that there are pretty dire social effects to exactly that sort of secularization, particularly in some of the more hard-hit Rust Belt areas, that when churches disappear, so does the social fabric, and we've seen Opioid epidemics and broken lives.

00:39:09.000 We've seen epidemics of suicide, disconnection.

00:39:13.000 But why has secularism been on the rise, despite the fact that there's been such obvious evidence of dire consequences?

00:39:20.000 Well, secularism.

00:39:23.000 First of all, let's go back to talk about the decline of the church.

00:39:27.000 I'm not sure the church is in decline.

00:39:29.000 I think there are some mainline denominations that quit preaching the Bible for some time, and people just quit attending those churches.

00:39:39.000 What you see is a rise of Bible-teaching churches, where pastors just get up and they open up the Bible and say, let's read today what God's Word says, and they start teaching the Bible.

00:39:52.000 Those churches are full.

00:39:54.000 They're packed.

00:39:55.000 People are hungry today.

00:39:57.000 They want to know the Word of God.

00:40:00.000 And secularism gives license for people to live just about any kind of wicked life they want to without any consequences.

00:40:09.000 And, of course, that's very attractive, and a lot of people go that direction and say, oh, this is going to be fun, this is going to be great.

00:40:16.000 But there's emptiness, and you're right, the suicide rate is just incredible, the problems that secularism brings, because it doesn't give answers.

00:40:27.000 It gives them this license to be free, but at the end of the day, they're not free, and they're slaves to sin.

00:40:33.000 And they want to be free.

00:40:36.000 They want answers.

00:40:37.000 They're searching and looking for something better, and they're not finding it.

00:40:41.000 And I want people to know that what they're searching for is God.

00:40:45.000 And if they put their trust in Him, He'll take that broken life, and He'll put it together just like He did mine.

00:40:51.000 And He'll use you, and He'll forgive you, and cleanse you, Give you hope for the morning, hope for the next day, and how important we need today, we need that hope for the next day.

00:41:03.000 Major media in the United States have basically blamed evangelicals for getting involved in politics.

00:41:09.000 They're very upset with religious people being involved in politics.

00:41:11.000 They say that this is religious theocracy.

00:41:13.000 It seems to me that it's precisely the opposite of what actually happened.

00:41:17.000 What actually happened is that there was a fairly wide social consensus on a wide variety of issues, and that the secular left in the 1960s basically broke those down.

00:41:24.000 And evangelical Christians, like religious people of all stripes, basically stood up on their hind legs and said, well, no, you don't get to discard those social consensuses without any sort of evidence.

00:41:35.000 When do you think it becomes incumbent on religious people to get involved in politics?

00:41:39.000 Under what circumstance do you think religious people shouldn't be involved in politics?

00:41:43.000 And how should they be involved in politics?

00:41:46.000 Well, first of all, in 2016, I went to every state capitol and held a prayer rally on the capitol steps.

00:41:55.000 I thought if I would have a few hundred join me in prayer, that would be important because I felt our country was in trouble and we needed to pray.

00:42:04.000 Instead of hundreds, it was thousands.

00:42:08.000 In some places, tens of thousands of people who showed up on the Capitol steps to pray.

00:42:14.000 And they weren't there to hear me speak, but they were there to pray for our nation.

00:42:18.000 And so these were people that cared for our country, that prayed.

00:42:22.000 I never endorsed a person in the last election, and I just encouraged people to pray the way they felt God was leading them to vote.

00:42:31.000 So I encourage people to vote.

00:42:33.000 And then I also encourage Christians to run for office.

00:42:37.000 We need the Christian voice in state politics, in the statehouse.

00:42:41.000 We need them in the local politics.

00:42:43.000 We need them on school boards, how important school boards are.

00:42:46.000 And if we could have Christians on school boards and have their voice heard, how important that would be.

00:42:52.000 And so I encourage Christians not only to vote, But to get involved politically, because the gays and lesbians have their candidates.

00:43:03.000 Muslims have their candidates.

00:43:05.000 So many people have their candidates.

00:43:07.000 And I think it's important for Christians to have candidates out there that can run and win.

00:43:13.000 And we need the Christian voice.

00:43:14.000 This is America.

00:43:15.000 This is democracy.

00:43:16.000 And we certainly have the right to have a voice at the table.

00:43:21.000 So that's kind of what we're doing, Ben.

00:43:23.000 We encourage people to vote.

00:43:24.000 Again, I don't try to tell people how to vote.

00:43:27.000 I'm a conservative.

00:43:29.000 I have conservative values, just not only politically but spiritually.

00:43:33.000 I have conservative values.

00:43:37.000 But I think we as conservatives have a right to be heard and to have a right to vote and to be part of the process.

00:43:44.000 How should Christians think about the separation of church and state?

00:43:46.000 Every time Christians get involved in politics, there are accusations that they're trying to establish a Christian theocracy, that this is the Handmaid's Tale or something like that.

00:43:53.000 How should Christians think about their involvement in politics while respecting the boundaries between church and state?

00:43:59.000 Well, I mean, I think we don't compromise.

00:44:03.000 I think that's part of the problem we've had is Christians have compromised. 1.00

00:44:06.000 We shouldn't compromise.

00:44:08.000 We should hold to what the Bible teaches and hold to those standards.

00:44:12.000 And if we have a majority, I think we have an opportunity to pass some good laws maybe in this country.

00:44:22.000 So we have that right to be a voice.

00:44:26.000 And you know, if you take a hundred years ago, The political leaders in the communities were the pastors.

00:44:33.000 If your house burned down and your family was desolate, you went to the local church and the pastor would find somebody in the community that would take you in.

00:44:44.000 They would clothe you, they would feed you, they would care for you.

00:44:47.000 But the government has taken Those type of social services upon themselves.

00:44:54.000 And they don't do nearly as good as the churches used to do it.

00:44:58.000 And what happened, the churches kind of, okay, we'll just let the government do that then.

00:45:02.000 And we have slowly backed up and backed up and let the government take more and more and more control of society.

00:45:08.000 And they're not doing a better job at it.

00:45:11.000 They're doing an inferior job, not better.

00:45:15.000 When a lot of the problems that we face today were handled at the local level, it was done with compassion, with love, and with the interest of the people that they were helping.

00:45:25.000 Today, it's just clinical, and the government just writes out a check and thinks that will solve it.

00:45:30.000 But the problems of this world need more than just a check.

00:45:34.000 It needs people, one-on-one interaction, people that care, people that are willing to let their voice be heard, people that are willing to To go into a community and make a difference with your life.

00:45:46.000 Invested in a community and make a difference.

00:45:49.000 So Franklin, obviously we live in an incredibly vitriolic time.

00:45:52.000 You've taken an enormous amount of abuse for expressing support for President Trump and some of the things that he's done as President of the United States.

00:45:58.000 How do you rate his overall performance as President?

00:46:01.000 Well, Ben, I support the President.

00:46:05.000 He's our President.

00:46:06.000 We don't have another President.

00:46:08.000 He's the only one we got.

00:46:10.000 And he needs our prayers.

00:46:13.000 He's had a very difficult, when he ran in 2016, most of the Republicans were against him.

00:46:19.000 I'm talking about Republican leadership.

00:46:21.000 Of course, the Democrats were against him, and somehow he won the election.

00:46:28.000 And people ask me, how did he do it?

00:46:30.000 I think it was God.

00:46:31.000 For some reason, I think God just picked Donald J. Trump.

00:46:36.000 And you say, well, he's flawed, he's a sinful person, he's this or that.

00:46:41.000 Well, we're all flawed and we're all sinful.

00:46:44.000 But somehow God chose him to be the president at this particular time in history.

00:46:50.000 And I think he's done an incredible job.

00:46:52.000 No question, the economy is the best it's ever been.

00:46:57.000 We're in the middle of the coronavirus.

00:46:58.000 We've got a lot of people out of work right now, but this is temporary.

00:47:02.000 And the economy is still very strong, and I think the president has done an incredible job with the coronavirus.

00:47:10.000 I would just shudder to think if someone else was president this time.

00:47:14.000 You know, the mess that we'd be in, but he's just...

00:47:18.000 He knows how to get people working and he's got the industry right now, uh, General Motors and people like that building, uh, ventilators.

00:47:27.000 He put the hospital ships in New York and California where the, the opposition said it would take him six weeks to do it.

00:47:34.000 He did it in one week.

00:47:35.000 Uh, he knows how to, he knows how to push buttons and make things happen.

00:47:40.000 And he is the commander in chief.

00:47:41.000 And so I certainly give him an A plus plus.

00:47:44.000 So there was a lot of controversy, obviously, in 2016, specifically surrounding President Trump's character, his personal character.

00:47:50.000 There are a lot of people, including me, who are very critical of a lot of his conduct.

00:47:54.000 I've continued to do what I call the sort of good Trump, bad Trump model.

00:47:58.000 Overall, I'm a supporter of the president at this point.

00:48:00.000 I support his re-election.

00:48:02.000 But at the same time, I'm not willing to let him get away with sort of Some of the things that he says and does, and they make me deeply uncomfortable.

00:48:09.000 How should religious people deal with the fact that, you mentioned he's a flawed character, we're all flawed characters, but how should religious people specifically deal with sort of the character flaws that are evident in President Trump without necessarily covering for those flaws, even if they are supporters?

00:48:23.000 Well, a lot of the accusation has been of the President and his lifestyle 20 years ago.

00:48:30.000 And he's not the same person he was 20 years ago, neither you and neither am I.

00:48:36.000 He's changed, and now he tweets, and he will say things that a lot of people cringe at, but he's attacked every day by the media, every single day.

00:48:52.000 And that is his one opportunity to fight back.

00:48:55.000 Twitter is his newspaper.

00:48:57.000 He doesn't have to get filtered by somebody.

00:48:59.000 He can go directly to the American people, and it's worked for him.

00:49:03.000 The American people are behind the president.

00:49:06.000 And I know a lot of the polls will show, well, Biden is ahead by two points, or, you know, someone else may be ahead by two points.

00:49:13.000 I don't believe any of that by a second.

00:49:14.000 I think if you had the election today, He would win overwhelming hands down.

00:49:22.000 He's an incredible person, and I think people have trust and confidence in him.

00:49:27.000 And so, again, I don't agree with everything he says or does, but at the same time, he is the president, and we just have to trust him and back him and help him all we can.

00:49:39.000 Well, in one second, I want to ask you about an article that now seems forever ago from the December 2019 issue of Christianity Today, which apparently, you know, obviously claimed that President Trump should be removed from office.

00:49:50.000 But if you want to hear Franklin Graham talk about that article, about Christianity Today and about the legacy of that magazine, you have to be a subscriber over at dailywire.com.

00:49:58.000 So head on over to dailywire.com and subscribe.

00:50:00.000 Well, Franklin Graham, thank you so much for stopping by the show.

00:50:02.000 I really appreciate it.

00:50:03.000 And thanks for all the amazing work Samaritan's Purse is doing for people all over the world.

00:50:07.000 Really, thank you, sir.

00:50:08.000 Thank you.

00:50:08.000 God bless us.

00:50:09.000 The Ben Shapiro Show Sunday Special is directed by Mike Joyner and produced by Mathis Glover.

00:50:20.000 Executive producer, Jeremy Boring.

00:50:22.000 Associate producer, Katie Swinnerton.

00:50:24.000 Our guests are booked by Caitlin Maynard.

00:50:25.000 Post-production is supervised by Alex Zingaro.

00:50:28.000 Editing is by Jim Nickel.

00:50:29.000 Audio is mixed by Mike Carmina.

00:50:31.000 Hair and makeup is by Nika Geneva.

00:50:33.000 Title graphics are by Cynthia Angulo.

00:50:35.000 The Ben Shapiro Show Sunday Special is a Daily Wire production.

The Ben Shapiro Show - April 12, 2020

Franklin Graham | The Ben Shapiro Show Sunday Special Ep. 90

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