The Rev. Franklin Graham has asked people to set aside Sunday, June 2 as a special day of prayer for President Donald Trump.
Graham, though, has been criticized for politicizing prayer.
"President Trump's enemies continue to try everything to destroy him, his family and the presidency," Graham, president and CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Samaritan's Purse, wrote on Facebook. "In the history of our country, no president has been attacked as he has. I believe the only hope for him, and this nation, is God."
Graham, son of legendary evangelist the Rev. Billy Graham, who died in 2018, said the nation is on the edge of a precipice.
“Time is short. We need to pray for God to intervene. We need to ask God to protect, strengthen, encourage, and guide the president.”
By Saturday afternoon, the post had been shared by more than 144,000 Facebook users.
As with most social media, comments were both positive and negative.
One person wrote: “God bless our president ... our prayers are with you EVERYDAY.”
Another wrote: “He needs to be impeached. A total disgrace. That's what I pray for.”
The prayer call comes just weeks before Trump is expected to kick off his 2020 campaign during a rally in Florida.
The call was heartily supported by Richard Land, president of Southern Evangelical Seminary in Charlotte, North Carolina, the city where Graham’s association also is based.
“Franklin sent out an appeal saying he felt really convicted that we need to pray, especially for the president and this was a time of real crisis in our country, which I think is true,” Land said.
In 2012, Land got in trouble for racially charged statements he made around the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, the unarmed teen who was killed by a neighborhood watch volunteer in Florida in 2012. Land later apologized for the comments.
The list of roughly 300 clergy, Christian musicians and faith leaders supporting the effort includes several in Georgia such as Mark Hall, frontman for the Grammy-winning Casting Crowns, and Pastor Johnny Hunt of First Baptist Church Woodstock.
Neither Hunt nor Hall were available for comment.
First Baptist Church of Atlanta has not formally signed on with Graham’s call to prayer.
However, Anthony George, senior associate pastor at First Baptist Church of Atlanta, said the church “wholeheartedly” supports any call to prayer for a sitting president and his family.
In a statement, he cited Scripture that calls for people to pray for their leaders and those in authority.
“Our members prayed fervently for President Obama during his presidency, and we pray just as fervently for President Trump,” George said. “ We are especially grateful for the emphasis President Trump, Vice-President Pence, and the administration have placed on protecting religious liberty, the most sacred of our nation’s founding ideals, and on the sanctity of human life as the creation of Almighty God. “
Others weighted in as well, though perhaps not in the way Graham expected.
Critics have said Graham is playing partisan politics with prayer.
The Rev. Shanan E. Jones, founding pastor of The Gathering Baptist Church in College Park, was amused that Graham would call Trump the most attacked president in U.S. history, citing Abraham Lincoln, James A. Garfield, William McKinley and John F. Kennedy, all of whom were assassinated while serving in office.
He also wonders if Graham were so vocal about garnering prayers for the previous occupant of the White House, President Barack Obama.
Graham helped promote the birther conspiracy and once seemed to cast doubt on whether Obama was a Christian. He later apologized.
Still, Jones plans to pray for Trump.
“It is my obedience to Scripture and not to Franklin Graham that I frequently pray for President Trump to be strengthened,” Jones said. “ I pray for God to strengthen Mr. Trump's comprehension of the presidency, his humility, his honesty, his compassion, his notion of wielding power and his faith in the God of Love instead of a god of money, hateful character assassination, personal aggrandizement and the politics of division.”
Worshippers in Episcopal churches in Atlanta always include the president, leaders of the nations and those in authority at each Eucharist (the primary weekly worship service).
Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta Bishop Robert C. Wright said people should be against hate categorically.
He said it’s unfortunate that Graham has made his faith a “utility of the White House. Faith, as a general matter, is bigger than any president or any leader.”
While Episcopalians pray for all presidents, however, “I wish that Rev. Graham would call the country to pray for justice. I think that’s more in keeping with both old and new Scripture teachings.”
And while Graham specifically asked Christians to offer intercessions on behalf of Trump, other faith communities may add their voices as well.
"Praying for the soul of Donald Trump is not the same thing as praying for the success of his policies, which often contradict the basic values of every faith tradition,” said Edward Ahmed Mitchell, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ Georgia chapter.
"It's not easy to pray for a man who has vilified, endangered and targeted my faith community, but Islam calls upon me and other Muslims to 'repel evil with good' when we can," he said. "I therefore pray for the president even as I counter and pray against many of his policies."
