Franklin Graham is urging Americans to remember the nation’s brief but profound return to faith in the days that followed and to "turn back" to God once again.
Speaking as the country hits the 25th anniversary of the day Islamic terrorists struck New York City, Washington, D.C., and the skies over Pennsylvania, Graham reflected on the searing images that still define that morning. According to Fox News, he told the outlet, "September 11 is a day I’ll never forget," recalling his time at Ground Zero as president and CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA) and Samaritan’s Purse. "It’s impossible to describe the tremendous amount of pain that I witnessed at Ground Zero in the aftermath. There were so many who were in shock and grieving," he said, adding, "It is still hard to fathom the depths of evil that caused so much destruction."
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Graham’s message, rooted in a distinctly Christian and patriotic worldview, is that the spiritual clarity Americans briefly embraced after the attacks has faded — and must be recovered. As the nation marks 25 years since the day that changed the world, he said his prayer is that the United States will once again recognize its dependence on God, not on government or political movements, for ultimate security and hope.
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September 11, 2026
"As we observe the 25th anniversary of this day when our world changed forever, my prayer is that America will recognize our need for God like we did after 9/11," Graham said. He recalled how, in those days, "Churches were full. People gathered to pray in public places."
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For Graham, that moment stands in stark contrast to a present era in which secularism, identity politics and big-government solutions have increasingly crowded out faith from public life. He pointed back to his late father, the renowned evangelist Rev. Billy Graham, who addressed the nation from Washington National Cathedral during a national day of prayer and remembrance shortly after the attacks. "We’ve always needed God from the very beginning of this nation. But today we need Him especially," Billy Graham said at the time, according to his son’s statement. "We’re involved in a new kind of warfare. And we need the help of the Spirit of God."
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Franklin Graham insists that message is no less urgent today, as America faces cultural division, moral confusion and global instability. "Just as America needed the help of God then, we still need His help today," he said, underscoring a conviction that no policy agenda can substitute for spiritual renewal.
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Those themes anchor BGEA’s new 30-minute program, "A Day That Changed Our Lives Forever," hosted by Graham and built around testimonies of survivors who say faith and hope emerged from the ruins of that dark day. The special does not merely revisit the horror of the attacks; it highlights how individuals encountered God in the midst of chaos and loss.
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Among the featured voices is Genelle Guzman-McMillan, the last person pulled alive from the rubble of the World Trade Center. Guzman-McMillan spent 27 hours entombed beneath the collapsed towers, unable to move and uncertain whether she would live to see her family again.
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As she lay trapped, she said her thoughts turned to her late mother and to her own spiritual condition, prompting her to cry out to God for forgiveness and a second chance. At one point, she said the physical and emotional agony became unbearable, and she pleaded for a sign from heaven.
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"God, are you listening to me? Please show me a sign," she recalled saying. Then, she said, something happened that defies her understanding of the physical world.
"And then someone grabbed me by my hand," Guzman-McMillan says in the special. "He told me his name is Paul."
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She said this man, Paul, held her hand in the darkness and spoke words of calm and reassurance. "You’re gonna be fine. Help is on the way. I’m not gonna let you go," she recalled him saying.
As the sounds of rescuers’ radios drew closer, Guzman-McMillan said Paul urged her to keep shouting so they could locate her. Eventually, she heard a rescuer call out, "I see her."
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"I just knew I was going to go home," she said. "I am the last survivor, buried for 27 hours. I myself couldn’t believe that I survived it."
To this day, Guzman-McMillan believes the mysterious figure who held her hand was not an ordinary first responder. She is convinced he was "an angel looking out for me."
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"I wasn’t hallucinating, I wasn’t dreaming," she said. "I knew the conversation that I had."
"Something happened under that rubble," she added. "I found Jesus that day."
The program also shares the story of Sujo John, then a young professional and father-to-be working on the 81st floor of the North Tower, while his pregnant wife worked on the 71st floor of the South Tower. After he escaped the collapsing building, he spent agonizing hours believing his wife had perished.
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Then his cellphone rang, and he braced for the worst. "I picked up that call thinking this is going to be the worst news of my life," he recalled.
Instead, he heard his wife’s voice; she had been late to work by just minutes, a delay that likely saved her life. "She thought I was dead," he said, describing how they arranged a meeting place and ran toward each other. "We both survived."
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Graham also reflected on his own experience in New York in the days after the attacks, where he saw sidewalks and fences plastered with photographs of the missing as families searched desperately for answers. Confronted with such grief, he began calling pastors and urging them to come to the city to comfort and pray with those who were mourning.
That effort eventually led to the creation of the Billy Graham Rapid Response Team, which BGEA says has grown into an international network of thousands of crisis-trained chaplains. These chaplains now deploy to communities around the world, offering spiritual and emotional care in the wake of tragedies and disasters that government agencies and secular nonprofits are ill-equipped to address at the soul level.
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Graham hosts "A Day That Changed Our Lives Forever," which airs on Fox News Channel at 12:30 a.m. ET, aiming to remind viewers not only of what was lost, but of what many found in the ashes: a renewed awareness of God and the fragility of life. For Graham, that memory is not merely historical; it is a call to a nation that has drifted from the faith that once filled its churches and guided its public life.
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Twenty-five years on, his appeal is straightforward and unapologetically rooted in the belief that America’s strength ultimately comes from above, not from Washington. "My prayer for our nation is that we will turn back to the God of Heaven who has brought us to this day and sustained us every step of the way."
