After Donald Trump’s victory in the 2024 election, Franklin Graham offered his thanks to God. “I thank God that @realDonaldTrump won this election!” he wrote on X. “This win is historic in many ways. Millions and millions of people were praying, and I believe God heard their prayers.” He declared the president’s win a win for various issues, including unborn children {despite Trump’s more permissive stance on abortion), the economy, farmers, and national security, amongst other things. Graham has expressed his support for the former president throughout the election, framing his opposition as anti-God. “America is under attack by an immoral, anti-God agenda that would like to change our country foundationally forever. The choice is clear, and you are responsible for how you vote,” he warned  prior to the election.

Despite his support, Graham has been clear that he believes America is in dire need of change. But he doesn’t think Trump will be the one to fix the country. Just before the election, he told CBN “God’s the only one who can fix this country.” He added, “Donald Trump’s not going to be able to fix it. There’s other problems he can address and I think fix, but what we’ve done is we’ve turned our back on God as a nation, and we have accepted things — moral issues that politicians have made political, like abortion, homosexuality, these types of things the church has kind of caved on.”

He stated Americans needed to have their hearts changed. “Our country, I believe, is doomed unless we repent of our sins. And call upon the name of the Almighty God and His Son, Jesus Christ, and turn from those sins.” Worse, Graham lamented, the church has participated in the growing sinfulness of the nation. “We should be embarrassed,” he said. “We should never accept it within the church, and, unfortunately, in many churches have accepted sin, and the practice of sin within this congregation.” Arizona Christian University revealed in a recent American Worldview Inventory that only 6% of professing Christians hold what could be considered a Christian worldview, while the majority fall into “syncretism,” a mixture of beliefs drawing from various philosophies.

Robert Bortins, CEO of the Christian educational curriculum Classical Conversations, lamented the growing cultural Christianity of the nation based on the data. “This data clearly shows that although many people identify as Christians, most have no idea what it means to actually be a Christian,” he wrote. “These people could be referred to as cultural Christians, which are individuals that claim to be Christian but instead are shaped and molded by the world rather than by God’s holy Word. As a result, America’s spiritual health has been cursed by cultural Christianity.” The solution, he wrote, was to pursue CS Lewis’s so-called First Principles. “CS Lewis said that as Christians we need to act on what he called First Principles. God is the first thing and the world and its possessions are second things. For example, when we strive for the world, we end up losing everything in the end. However, when we strive for God, we get God and everything else for eternity. So, if you put second things first you will miss out on God and in the end, you will eventually lose everything you have gained in the world (Matthew 6:33).”