{"id":5788,"date":"2020-01-16T22:32:14","date_gmt":"2020-01-17T03:32:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=5788"},"modified":"2020-01-16T22:32:32","modified_gmt":"2020-01-17T03:32:32","slug":"franklin-graham-asks-america-to-decide-on-tour-stop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2020\/01\/16\/franklin-graham-asks-america-to-decide-on-tour-stop\/","title":{"rendered":"Franklin Graham asks America to \u201cdecide\u201d on tour stop"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When Franklin Graham stepped up to the podium in Plant City\non Sunday afternoon he was met with raucous cheers and chants arising from\ngenerations of uninhibited support. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Approximately 9,680 attendees flooded into the grandstands\nat the Florida Strawberry Festival grounds on Jan. 12, according to the Billy\nGraham Evangelist Association, to listen to Graham on his Decision America\nTour. It was the second stop on his six city Sunshine State tour and the\nhighest attendance his team had \u201cseen in a while,\u201d according to a\nspokesman. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the continuing controversy \u2014 or \u201cdistracting\ntension\u201d as one attendee succinctly summarized \u2014 surrounding Graham following\nhis rebuttal to an editorial in Christianity Today after the publication, which\nwas founded by his father, called for President Donald Trump\u2019s removal from\noffice, the grandstands were practically filled to capacity with Graham\u2019s\nsupporters. They came from all over, Riverview, Lakeland, Bartow and Tampa, and\nsome even camped out to ensure they got as close to the stage as\npossible. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Graham said he hoped those who attended the tour walked away\nwith the \u201csame message we\u2019ve been preaching for 70 years.\u201d He said he wants\nattendees to know God loves them, that He created them, that sin separates\npeople from God, that they can be saved and that their souls are safe and\nsecure in the hands of God. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Once he walked onto the stage, however, the majority of his\nspeech was focused on the moral state of the country. Toward the start of his\nspeech he had everyone in the audience take a long moment to pray for the\nnation\u2019s elected leaders. President Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, Nancy\nPelosi \u2014 though he added that he wasn\u2019t sure when the last time someone prayed\nfor her had been \u2014 and even for local leaders like the Mayor of Plant City and\nschool board members. There was a long moment of silence as all nearly 10,000\nattendees hung their heads and quietly prayed. You could hear a pin drop. Then\nGraham softly began a verbal prayer of his own. Loud \u201camens\u201d signified the end\nof the moment as Graham then launched into the next chapter of his\nspeech. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur country is in trouble,\u201d Graham said in an interview\nwith the Plant City Observer. \u201cWe\u2019re politically \u2014 we\u2019re broken. The\ndirection of our country is at a crossroads and people are going to have to\ndecide what they want for the future and understand what\u2019s at stake in the\nfuture. Once we lose our nation, it\u2019ll take 100 years to get it back and it may\nhave to take another revolution to get it back. So I want people to pray. This\nis an election year, I want people to vote.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Graham said that despite the fact that much of his speech is\nfocused on the upcoming election, praying for elected officials and voting as\nGod would lead you, it was not a political rally. It was said almost like a\nmantra: he doesn\u2019t tell people who to vote for, he simply tells them to pray\nand listen to God\u2019s voice. He said the only hope for the nation is God \u2014 not\nRepublicans or Democrats \u2014 and that voters need to go to the polls with his\nguidance behind their pencils. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mere minutes before the rally, while conducting an interview\nwith the gathered media, Graham reiterated a claim he has said multiple times\nsince 2016: Trump won the election due to God\u2019s favor. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think in this last election, that was God,\u201d Graham said.\n\u201cGod was behind that. People said, \u2018How could President Trump win? He offended\neverybody, he wasn\u2019t a politician.\u2019 And he did, but yet at the same time people\nvoted for him and he won the election and I think God did it, God was behind\nit.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet Graham stuck to his belief that it was not a tour\ncentered on politics, but rather a tour focused on bringing people back to God\nand back to the action of prayer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The response from the Christian community has been split.\nThe thousands in attendance showed their support for not only Graham, but his\nmessage for the future of the country. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Terry Jacobs and Ella Jefferson came over to the rally from\nLakeland. Jefferson uses a cane and the long line wrapping to the entrance was\nmore than she felt she could handle, so the duo sat in Jacobs\u2019s truck just\nbehind the grandstand with the windows down, soaking in every word. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe main reason we are here, the reason everyone is here,\nis to support the body of Christ,\u201d Jacobs said. \u201cWe are here to unite churches,\nto unite souls, to encourage pastors. The main thing is, we have such an\nawesome moment of praise and worship here and that will draw not only the\nsaved, but the nonbelievers. Even if they don\u2019t come to the Lord tonight their\nlives will be touched\u2026 And who doesn\u2019t love the Grahams?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jacobs attends Ignited Church in Lakeland and said her\npastor had encouraged the entire congregation to attend. Congregations were\nstrewn throughout the grandstands, many of whom wore their church shirts while\nthey worshiped along with Jeremy Camp prior to Graham\u2019s speech.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jacobs also agreed with Graham\u2019s push to pray for elected\nleaders. Quoting 1 Timothy 2:1-2, she said believers were called to pray for\nall men, including those in positions in authority. She said you start with the\nhead, or the President, and then work your way down to local officials, to\nleaders of your businesses and hospitals and organizations. She said you pray\nfor your family and friends, for strangers on the sidewalk, for the homeless.\nPrayer is meant to be used as an intercession, Jacobs said, and it was used in\nfull force Sunday. She prayed with someone who walked by on the sidewalk,\ntalked to a handful of people who stopped for a chat on their way into the\nrally. It was the perfect example of how \u201cbelievers should have the faith to\nbelieve God can move and work in the nation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not everyone echoes that sentiment. On Tuesday, Faithful\nAmerica, a nonprofit Christian social justice organization, began a protest\nagainst Graham\u2019s trek around Florida. The petition has more than 11,000\nsignatures as of press time and states that Graham\u2019s tour does not represent\ntheir faith. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It heavily cites many years\u2019 worth of quotes from Graham\nranging from the way he vehemently opposes LGBTQ issues to his frequent vocal\nsupport of Trump, including a quote from Graham during a podcast in November\n2019 where he said the impeachment was guided by an \u201calmost demonic\npower.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three of the locations Graham is speaking at during the tour\nin Florida are at publicly owned venues and the petition is asking city\ngovernments to rethink allowing him in their venues due to his divisive views.\nIf the governments do not cancel his rallies, the petition asks them to instead\ndonate his rental fees to pro-LGBTQ causes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The petition doesn\u2019t seem to have phased Graham as he\nprepares to head his fourth stop of the Tour at today\u2019s rally in Key\nWest. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know about the 11,000 who have signed an online\npetition, but we\u2019ve had some 25,000 attends in person, and we\u2019re only halfway\nthrough,\u201d Graham said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Franklin Graham stepped up to the podium in Plant City on Sunday afternoon he was met with raucous cheers and chants arising from generations of uninhibited support.  Approximately 9,680… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5790,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"9","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5788"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5788\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}