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Like no president before him, Trump was attacked, Graham said. Democrats, Republicans, media, even powers and principalities beyond the human realm. His presidency was in danger, the country at a crossroads.
Graham has therefore decided to do what the evangelists do: pray, preferably with many other people. After calling evangelical allies, he announced his intention to name Sunday, June 2, "special day of prayer" to protect Trump from his "enemies".
"We are on the brink of a precipice," Graham said. "Time is running out, we must pray for God to intervene, we must ask him to protect, strengthen, encourage and guide the president."
In some ways, the "Pray For Trump" day seems destined to elicit positive media coverage from the president, bringing the tale of a presidency at risk to a group led by Trump's most loyal bloc: the white evangelicals. Graham himself has no public events scheduled on June 2, apart from a prayer that he will publish on Facebook and an appearance on Fox News television. .
Sunday's event is an almost perfect incarnation of Trump's political evangelicalism: it mixes Christian nationalism, the idea that the United States has a special place in God's plans and that Trump is his agent; social media, where it is difficult to separate basic football support from that of Russian robots; and this has seriously angered Christians who say that Graham and others have sold their souls for a mess of political lenses.
Some have accused Graham of "personalizing" the prayer and turning it into a pro-Trump propaganda tool.
"He does so much to discredit Christian witness," said Peter Wehner, an evangelical who served two Republican presidents at the White House.
Praying for politicians is commonplace in American churches, often occupying a place in services between sermon and potluck announcements. But Graham's idea is more political – and more partisan, some Christians say. It's also a significant escalation of public support for white evangelicals at Trump at a critical time in his presidency.
Just this week, special advocate Robert Mueller spoke publicly for the first time of his 22-month investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 election. Since then, calls to the Congress to dismiss the president grew up, even within Trump's own Republican party.
Graham said the White House was aware of his plans but would not say he had talked to Trump about them.
As of Thursday, 185,000 people enjoyed the announcement of the Facebook event on Facebook and 46,000 people shared it. More than 300 conservative Christian leaders are committed to leading prayers for the chief executive.
Graham, son of the famous evangelist Billy Graham and chairman of the Evangelical Samaritan's Purse Advocacy Group, has many followers on social media, where he regularly shares his support for Trump and other politicians preservatives. (On the other hand, he questioned President Obama's Christian faith.)
But the evangelist said that he had never organized such an event before.
Because of his charitable work and his family name, Graham has an immense influence on American evangelicals, said John Fea, author of "Believe Me: The Donald Trump Gospel Path".
"What he says politically will influence the number of American evangelicals who will vote and pray."
But Fea is one of the evangelical critics of Graham's pro-Trump prayer event.
The historian notes that Graham ended his message on Facebook with a dark biblical warning about all the spiritual forces aligned against contemporary Christians.
"It's a code verse," says Fea. "This sends a clear message to his followers that there is something at work here beyond politics." He says America is attacked spiritually and equates the attacks on Trump to that. "
Fears of alienating millennia with partisanship
Graham said that he did not agree with all of Trump's policies and that God was ordering Christians to pray for their lay leaders. "If he is a good president, he benefits all Americans of all races and all genders." Graham acknowledged, however, that Trump had been a particularly caring protector of his evangelical base, calling him "the most pro-Christian president of my life."
But other evangelicals have noted the evidence: Trump's actions as president will not benefit everyone.
"Nothing in the call to prayer calls on Trump to repent for his many lies, for his support for ruthless dictators around the world, for his obstructions of reasonable congressional oversight, or for authorizing cruel treatment inflicted on asylum seekers at the border "Warren Throckmorton, a professor of psychology at Grove City College in Pennsylvania and a keen observer of evangelical politics.
When asked how he would respond to critics who claim that Trump and his evangelical allies actually pose a threat to the church, Graham refused to engage in the issue. "I would not even answer to someone like that, I do not think it's good at all."
But there is some evidence that high partisanship in American Christianity has diverted many millennia of organized religion.
Michele Margolis, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania, said it was too early to detect a "Trump effect" among contemporary Christians.
But she said that events such as Trump's Sunday prayers strengthen ties between the Republican Party and the religious right, which will have lasting consequences for both.
"There are religious leaders who worry about downstream effects in 15 or 20. They do not think that there will be a political exodus from evangelism, but there are a lot of Evangelicals, especially younger ones, who really care about the environment. " and immigration and workers' rights. "
Margolis, the author of "From Politics to Churches: How Partisanship and the Political Environment Shape Religious Identity", recently spent six weeks interviewing pastors and other chiefs religious in Alabama.
Some pastors told him that some members of their church were threatening to come out of their churches never praying for Obama on a Sunday morning, said Margolis. But they are happy to pray for Trump and will probably do it this weekend.
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