It was a disappointment and a shame that Rev. Franklin Graham spoke – and prayed – at the Republican Convention on Thursday night. Not only did he cross the line of separation between church and state, he endorsed GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump, and implied that Trump was a latter day Messiah.

For Christians, this is blasphemous as well as absurd. It is evident that he did not learn from his father, Rev. Dr. Billy Graham, who warned in a 2011 interview with the magazine Christianity Today, “I ... would have steered clear of politics. I am grateful for the opportunity God gave me to minister to people in high places; people in power have spiritual and personal needs like everyone else, and often they have no one to talk to. But looking back, I know I sometimes crossed the line, and I would not do that now.”

Franklin Graham more than crossed the line at the convention. The seduction of power drew him to a place where he did not belong and his political endorsement illustrated the wisdom of the non-establishment clause in the first amendment of the United States Constitution and the subsequent separation of church and state. Separation protects each from being corrupted by the other.

Rev. Bruce Shipman

Groton