Rev. Franklin Graham: President Obama was ‘Born a Muslim’

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rev-franklin-grahamOn the heels of a new poll suggesting that nearly one in five Americans incorrectly believes that President Obama is a Muslim, one of the nation’s most prominent evangelical leaders has weighed in with a seemingly lukewarm endorsement of the president’s Christian faith.

The Rev. Franklin Graham waded into the discussion with his own controversial explanation of why people wrongly believe the president is a Muslim. Graham, who prayed with Obama in a session with his father, Billy Graham, earlier this year, was asked whether he has any doubts about Obama’s self-avowed Christian faith.

“I think the president’s problem is that he was born a Muslim, his father was a Muslim. The seed of Islam is passed through the father like the seed of Judaism is passed through the mother. He was born a Muslim, his father gave him an Islamic name,” Graham told CNN’s John King in a televised interview that aired Thursday night.

“Now it’s obvious that the president has renounced the prophet Mohammed, and he has renounced Islam, and he has accepted [Yoshke]. That’s what he says he has done. I cannot say that he hasn’t. So I just have to believe that the president is what he has said,” Graham continued, adding that “the Islamic world sees the president as one of theirs.”

The president himself has written that his father, Barack Obama Sr., was already a confirmed atheist by the time he was born. His father divorced his mother when Obama was 2 years old, and he had little contact with his father during his childhood.

White House spokesman Bill Burton reacted to Graham’s comments at a White House briefing today in Martha’s Vineyard, Mass., saying simply that the president is a committed Christian and that Franklin Graham is entitled to his opinion.

Poll Shows More Americans Wrongly Believe Obama Is Muslim

Confusion about the president’s beliefs appears to be growing among the population, according to a new poll from the nonpartisan Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. The poll found that 18 percent of those surveyed wrongly identified Obama as Muslim, up from 11 percent in March 2009. At the same time, the number of Americans who said they believed, correctly, that Obama is Christian has declined from 48 percent in March 2009 to 34 percent today. But 43 percent of Americans now say they don’t know what Obama’s religion is at all.

The Pew poll was conducted between July 21 and Aug. 5, before Obama weighed in on the controversial plan to build an Islamic center near the site of the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center.

The misinformation continues to exist despite the president’s own declarations of his Christian faith and the statements of his spiritual advisers.

“The president is, obviously, Christian. He prays every day,” Burton said Thursday aboard Air Force One.

“He communicates with his religious adviser every single day,” Burton said. “There’s a group of pastors that he takes counsel from on a regular basis. His faith is very important to him, but it’s not something that’s a topic of conversation every single day.”

Burton said the president has talked “extensively” about his faith in the past and “you can bet he’ll talk about his faith again.” But “making sure Americans know what a devout Christian he is” is not the president’s top priority.

How Does Misinformation Spread?

The poll indicates that groups who have shown the most willingness to believe the wrong notion that the president is a Muslim include conservative Republicans, 34 percent of whom believe Obama is Muslim. Eighteen percent of independents said the president is a Muslim, up from 10 percent in March 2009.

“I think the reality is that false beliefs spread like gossip more than actual information,” said Andrew Perrin, an associate professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Perrin’s research has shown that a false perception can spread quickly if people’s friends and neighbors also have heard or believe a similar idea.

“False beliefs propagate when people think others believe them, and when they have a supportive source that wants them to hold it,” Perrin said.

Perrin has found that even direct denials of the false information do not always solve the problem.

“In my own research, when [people] get reliable information that discounts these beliefs, they tend to cling to those beliefs more,” Perrin said.

{ABC News/Matzav.com Newscenter}


11 COMMENTS

  1. Polls show that Americans rightly believe that the President is a Muslim. There’s nothing incorrect about it. He has a Muslim name and behaves like a Muslim because he has it in his genes, so what is he if not a Muslim? The only incorrect point is that it’s probably more than 1 in 5 who believes so. More likely 50% or more.

  2. …The seed of Islam is passed through the father like the seed of Judaism is passed through the mother…

    Wow, this g?la? admits it!

  3. According to Graham, Obama renounced Mohammad. I have to believe if this were true, there would be a lot of very angry Muslims out there. I actually think he is an atheist, which would still be a rejection of Mohammad.

  4. I am so proud that Matzav published this article with the title as it appears on abc “On the heels of a new poll suggesting that nearly one in five Americans incorrectly believes that President Obama is a Muslim”

  5. how can we forget his “moreh d’asra Rev. Wright yimach sh’mo clearly a christain and anti semite in the biggest way. remember in 2k yrs of jewish history the galochim would preach anti semitism far worse then what comes out of the mosques of today.

  6. obama is clearly a muslim. according to the koran there is a principle that a muslim can lie about his religion in order to further the cause of the jihad.
    Jews in America should be very apprehensive and begin getting passports and tickets to Israel for safety.
    by the next election which obama will win. He will begin making life difficult for jews like we saw just 40 years ago in Germany. rachman ltzlan.

  7. #8 you must not be aware that in Israel the government destroys Jewish communities and shuls and beats women and children, and assaults rabbis with tear gas and arrests them for giving haskomas on sfarim. Israel is no safe haven, except for Arabs.

  8. this fellow is a rasha ben rasha, Billy Graham is an anti-semite, who cares what he says?

    for all the groyse chachamim, Obama’s father was not a practicing muslim when he was born, he was married in a church, both his children were baptized in church, he eats chazir & drinks shnopps, yeah, he’s a real muslim all right…

  9. #8 and #9. Your ignorance is staggering and embarassing.
    Obama has not been a good president in general and for Mideast policy, specifically. End sentence. No more has to be said. He’s not a Muslim just because he was born a Muslim. He can still be bad for Israel, which he is, without adding dumb, untrue statements about him. That just ruins the credibility of those who are against Obama.

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