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NEWS:
Franklin Graham on Islam
August 9, 2002 Episode no. 549
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MARY ALICE WILLIAMS: A prominent American Muslim group is accusing evangelist Franklin Graham of "smearing Islam." The Council on American-Islamic Relations criticized him for comments about Islam in his new book, THE NAME, released this week. Graham heads his father's group, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, as well as his own relief agency, Samaritan's Purse. His new book focuses on what he calls controversy that continues to surround the name of Jesus. In it, he also discusses Islam and the September 11th attacks. Kim Lawton sat down with Franklin Graham on the day his book was released.
KIM LAWTON: Franklin Graham isn't shy about asserting his belief that the Qur'an sanctions violence against non-Muslims.
FRANKLIN GRAHAM: The Qur'an does teach it. It is there. You can read it for yourself. And these verses from the Qur'an are not taken out of context, it's there. So we just don't want to admit [it], in this country. We would like that everything was in a bubble and everybody's nice and everybody's happy. I'm sorry, we don't live in that kind of world. This nation has been attacked, we've been attacked by men who claim to worship Allah. We have been attacked by a people, a group, in the name of Islam, and the clerics, the religious leaders of Islam have not denounced it.
LAWTON: Graham believes Christians need to more clearly spell out the differences between their faith and Islam.
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GRAHAM: Many people after 9/11 said that "The Muslims, they worship the same god we do, they just have their way to God. Christians have their way to God. But it's the same God." No, it's not. Now they recognize Jesus, but they don't recognize his deity. They've even taken excerpts out of the Old Testament and New Testament, and thrown it into the Qur'an, to sprinkle a few Bible verses throughout to give it validity. But the Qur'an is not the word of God. The Holy Bible is God's word.
LAWTON: Some Muslim groups say that's intolerant -- it's intolerant of their faith.
GRAHAM: This whole notion of tolerance. They say, "Well, you Christians are narrow-minded. You say Jesus is the only way. You're not tolerant of other religions." Well, the other religions are not tolerant of us. I'm not putting down their faith system; it's just not what I believe. And I don't accept their way as truth. They don't accept my way.
That's fine. But don't ask me to believe that their way to God is a valid way. I don't believe that.
WILLIAMS: In a statement responding to Graham, the Council on American-Islamic Relations said all major American Muslim groups have condemned the September 11th attacks. The group added, "Defamatory attacks on other faiths can only lead to a spiral of distrust and intolerance that will divide our society along religious lines." For more of Kim Lawton's interview with Franklin Graham, log on to our Web site at PBS.org.
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Revisit R & E host Bob Abernethy's June 22, 2001 interview with Harvard religion professor Diana Eck on diversity, tolerance and what Christians can learn from people of other faiths.
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