Franklin Graham Says Faith in God Shaped America More Than Anything Else

Franklin Graham, one of America's most prominent evangelists and the eldest son of the late Billy Graham, used a national television platform to make a sweeping argument about the country's foundational identity: that faith in God did more to shape the United States than any other force.

Graham, who has preached in all 50 U.S. states, said he believes faith in God is the value that played the biggest role in shaping the nation, in an appearance on CBS News' 60 Minutes. The segment aired on April 5, 2026.

The claim carries institutional weight behind it. Graham serves as President and CEO of Samaritan's Purse, the international Christian relief organization he has led since 1979, which operates in more than 170 countries. He also leads the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, to which he was appointed CEO in 2000 and president in 2001. Since conducting his first evangelistic event in 1989, he has preached at more than 360 festivals across all 50 states and in more than 55 countries. In 2025 alone, he preached to more than 430,000 people in Ethiopia.

But the historical record against which Graham's thesis must be measured is considerably more complicated than a single founding faith. According to Britannica, Deism influenced a majority of the Founders. The movement stood for rational inquiry, skepticism about dogma and mystery, and religious toleration. Many of the key Founding Fathers, including Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Madison, and Monroe, practiced a faith described as Deism, a philosophical belief in human reason as a reliable means of solving social and political problems. Scholars have categorized others among the Founders as "theistic rationalists," who believed in a rational creator God but placed reason as the ultimate standard. As one analysis from The Master's University put it, America's Founders were not all Christians and did not intend to create a Christian nation, but neither were they rank secularists who intended to erect a wall of separation between church and state.

The Library of Congress, through its exhibitions on religion and the American founding, has acknowledged that many Founders believed religious faith encouraged moral citizenship and public service, even as their precise theological commitments ranged from evangelical Protestantism to near-secular rationalism.

Modern demographics complicate the picture further. According to Pew Research Center's 2023-24 Religious Landscape Study, 62% of U.S. adults describe themselves as Christians, while 29% are religiously unaffiliated, including 5% atheist, 6% agnostic, and 19% who identify as "nothing in particular." A separate 2024 analysis from PRRI found that religiously unaffiliated Americans have steadily increased since 2013, reaching a new peak of 28% in 2024.

None of that demographic shift diminishes Graham's standing as a political and cultural force. White evangelical Christians have functioned as one of the most reliable voting blocs in Republican politics; CBS News exit poll data showed they made up nearly 48% of GOP primary voters in the 2016 election cycle. Graham's own platform extends to more than 11 million Facebook followers. In 2016, he launched the Decision America Tour, traveling all 50 states to call people to prayer and civic engagement. TIME magazine recognized his influence as early as 2005, naming him one of its "25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America."

His father, Billy Graham, preached to nearly 215 million people worldwide over a career spanning more than six decades, a benchmark Franklin has spent decades building toward in his own right.

Whether faith in God was the singular, defining force behind American civic identity or one element in a broader tapestry of Enlightenment philosophy, pluralism, and institutional design is a question historians have debated for generations. Graham's answer, delivered to a national audience, is unambiguous. The founding documents, the diversity of the men who wrote them, and a country where three in ten adults now claim no religion at all make the full accounting more contested.