Cissie Graham Lynch Pledges to Defend People of All Faiths at Religious Freedom Hearing

Cissie Graham Lynch, President Trump's nominee to serve as America's ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom, told senators that defending believers of every faith would be her duty if she is confirmed. Pressed by a Democratic senator about her views on LGBT issues, Lynch, the granddaughter of the late evangelist Billy Graham, said it would be her "responsibility to protect people of all faiths," The Christian Post reported.

The exchange came Tuesday, Nov. 10, at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing for several of Trump's diplomatic nominees. Sen. Ted Budd (R-N.C.) introduced Lynch, praising her work with Samaritan's Purse and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA), and calling her a leading global advocate for women, children, marriage and the family. Budd said he was confident she is the right person for the job, according to Decision magazine, which is published by the BGEA.

Lynch has spent 16 years with Samaritan's Purse and the BGEA, ministries led by her father, Franklin Graham, that operate in more than 120 countries, Decision reported. She serves as a spokesperson and senior adviser for both organizations and served on Trump's first-term Faith Advisory Council, Religion News Service reported.

In her testimony, Lynch described standing in mass graves in northern Iraq, meeting displaced women hiding in the mountains of Sudan and sitting with relatives of the 21 Coptic Christians killed by the Islamic State on the shores of Libya. Of the victims and families she has met, she told senators, "They are not statistics". She noted that about 80 countries have blasphemy laws.

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) asked how Lynch would work to protect LGBTQ people from persecution and challenged her earlier view that LGBTQ protection laws threaten Christians' religious freedom, saying her past statements made him wonder whether she would protect everyone equally, The Christian Post reported. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) also asked how she would protect people who believe differently than she does, according to Decision.

Lynch answered that no one should ever be criminalized or persecuted for personal beliefs. She said she could never support a law like Uganda's that criminalizes people for their sexual identity, and she pointed to the case of Jack Phillips, the Christian baker whose refusal to make a cake for a same-sex wedding reached the U.S. Supreme Court, as an example of the religious freedom disputes at stake. She noted her years of work helping suffering people who do not share her Christian faith and said she has always tried to discuss divisive issues with kindness and respect. She called religious freedom a place to find common ground and said her priority would be a bipartisan mission.

Critics have raised other objections. When she was nominated in September, the Freedom From Religion Foundation Action Fund questioned whether she could represent the world's range of beliefs, citing a 2017 commentary on her website that defended Trump's first-term travel ban on seven Muslim-majority countries, Religion News Service reported. The Family Research Council praised the pick, and the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom called for a swift confirmation, Decision reported. Franklin Graham wrote at the time that "Cissie is uniquely qualified for this".

The ambassador's office was created by the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, and its holder advises the president and the secretary of state on religious liberty abroad. The post has been vacant throughout Trump's second term. Former Rep. Mark Walker (R-N.C.) was nominated but not confirmed before the end of 2025, and the Senate returned his nomination on Jan. 3; he later became the State Department's principal adviser for global religious freedom, The Christian Post reported. Rashad Hussain, the first Muslim to hold the job, served under President Biden and was confirmed 85-5, while Sam Brownback's first-term confirmation required Vice President Mike Pence's tie-breaking vote.

The need is plain. Open Doors' 2026 World Watch List found that more than 388 million Christians, about one in seven worldwide, face "high levels of persecution and discrimination for their faith," with North Korea ranked worst for a 24th straight year and nearly 3,500 Christians killed in Nigeria over the past year, OSV News reported. In China, Xianfeng Edward Cui, founder of Beijing's unregistered Jiaquan Church, was formally arrested Oct. 23 on fraud charges that his wife says relate to church members' offerings, after about 100 police raided the church on Sept. 4, the Associated Press reported. The AP noted that authorities arrested 30 leaders of China's Zion Church network in October 2025, and that its founder, Jin Mingri, was freed in July 2026 after Trump personally raised the case with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

Lynch's nomination now awaits a committee vote, for which no date has been announced. The panel has 12 Republicans and 10 Democrats, so the nomination can advance on Republican votes alone before going to the full Senate, where Republicans hold 53 seats, The Christian Post reported.

For a jailed pastor in Beijing and families grieving martyrs in Libya, Iraq and Sudan, the Senate's choice is practical: whether America will again have a confirmed ambassador whose full-time job is to speak for them.