Evangelical leader Franklin Graham said on the Todd Starnes Radio Show that every Christian in the nation should be offended and alarmed by recent anti-Christian rhetoric that was broadcast on ABC’s “The View.”
Joy Behar, one of the co-hosts of ABC’s “The View,” suggested last week that Christians who listen to the voice of God may be mentally ill.
“This is something reminiscent of what we saw during the second world war back in the 1930s with the rise of the Nazis. For Joy Behar to say that all Christians are mentally ill is like suggesting we need to lock them up. They need to be taken out of society because these people are a danger. These people are a threat,” Graham said on the nationally-syndicated radio show.
Graham, the president of Samaritan’s Purse and Graham Evangelistic Association, said he could not believe ABC News would permit such dangerous rhetoric to be broadcast on national television.
“Every Christian who is listening right now – whether you are a Catholic, whether you are a Protestant – Baptist, Evangelical, - whatever you may be – Pentecostal – this should scare the socks off of you,” Graham said.
Behar’s remarks were in response to a segment on Omarosa Manigault Newman, the reality television star turned White House staffer turned reality television star.
“As bad as you think Trump is, you would be worried about Pence — everyone that is wishing for impeachment might want to reconsider their life,” Omarosa said in a clip from “Celebrity Big Brother.”
“I am Christian. I love Jesus, but he thinks Jesus tells him to say things,” Omarosa told her fellow contestants.
Behar was stunned by the revelation that Vice President Mike Pence would listen to the voice of God.
“It’s one thing to talk to Jesus. It’s another thing when Jesus talks to you. That’s called mental illness, if I’m not correct, hearing voices,” Behar declared.
“We are mentally ill because we believe in God and we believe in his son Jesus Christ? I’m offended by what she said,” Graham told me.
Vice President Pence responded to Behar’s vile claims during an interview broadcast on C-SPAN.
“To have ABC maintain a broadcast forum that compared Christianity to mental illness is just wrong,” Pence saidWednesdayon C-SPAN. “It is simply wrong for ABC to have a television program that expresses that kind of religious intolerance.”
Co-host Sunny Hostin called the vice president’s Christianity “dangerous.”
“When you have a Mike Pence who now puts this religious veneer on things and who calls people values voters, I think we're in a dangerous situation. Look I'm Catholic. I'm a faithful person, but I don’t know that I want my vice president, um -- speaking in tongues and having Jesus speak to him,” she said.
Brent Bozell, the founder and president of Media Research Center, is calling on ABC News to apologize for what he called a “deplorable episode.”
“Make no mistake, the slurs against the Vice President’s faith insult millions of Christians and are unacceptable,” Bozell wrote in a letter to the network.
If there is no apology, Bozell warned that ABC News could face a grassroots uprising targeting the network’s sponsors.
“I am sure the advertisers of The View will be just as appalled as I am about the anti-Christian remarks made on the show. I hope you are able to take the appropriate action before we begin,” Bozell wrote.