Saeed Abedini, the pastor who spent four years in an Iranian prison for his faith, has said he was simply "cleaning the church as Jesus cleaned the temple" by launching a series of Facebook attacks against several evangelical leaders, including Franklin Graham and George O. Wood.
"This week was for cleaning the church as Jesus cleaned the temple. Next week maybe won't be like this week," Abedini said in a Facebook post on Tuesday.
He added, "MOST OF BORN AGAIN CHRISTIANS DO NOT GO TO ANY CHURCH IN AMERICA BECAUSE OF THESE ISSUES THAT I SHARED LAST WEEK. When Jesus comes back it would be very worse than that."
As reported, Abedini first attacked Graham, the leader of Samaritan's Purse who campaigned for the persecuted pastor's release with Abedini's wife, Naghmeh, while Abedini was in prison.
"As number one face of persecuted church in the world today, I have this hard responsibility to speak about the serious problems that I see to help church of God even if I lose everything," Abedini began his Facebook post.
After Abedini released from prison, Graham offered the family room at the Billy Graham Training Center in North Carolina so the couple could work on their broken marriage.
However, when Abedini refused, Graham allegedly backed away. In February, Naghmeh revealed her former husband "rejected counseling for anger and abuse and has filed for a divorce."
Abedini, who is now jobless and separated from his wife, said he believes the evangelist exploited his story to appear in national media.
"Today, I can call Franklin Graham hypocrite," Abedini wrote. "He stood against God in my life."
He also alleged that Billy Graham's son "has about 1000,000 $ salary and so many planes and private jets and every time he flies his gas price is just 10,000$ means tides of 300 teachers with 3000$ salaries and he flies a lot with his jets."
"He tries to show he is helping persecuted a lot and he has some speech about them but this kind of life style shows he doesn't have any idea of life of persecuted churches," Abedini said.
"This kind of people ask others to come to repentance nationally but first themselves needs to start the real repentance which starts with changing their life-style."
In a statement, Mark DeMoss, a spokesperson for Graham, said Graham did whatever he could to draw attention to the plight of this pastor and said the evangelist does not intend to address any other comments made by Abedini or his estranged wife but will continue to pray for them.
"Mr. Graham is no longer in communication with Saeed or Naghmeh - having exhausted efforts to help them be reconciled - and he does not intend to respond to future comments from either of them. However, Franklin still requests prayer for Saeed, Naghmeh, and especially their children who don't understand the adult issues they are facing."
Graham was not the only religious leader to find himself on the receiving end of Abedini's ire. In another Facebook post, the former pastor turned his attention to Wood, the General Superintendent of the General Council of the Assemblies of God, accusing him of being "deceived by the spirit of Jezebel."
Two months before Abedini was released from prison, Naghmeh revealed troubles in the couple's marriage in two emails sent to her supporters. The emails, which said she had suffered abuse during much of the marriage, which began in 2004.
After revealing her husband's abuse, Naghmeh's reportedly received support from many, including Wood. In his Facebook post, Abedini said he called Wood to share his side of the story and demanded Wood repent for his compassion toward Naghmeh. When Wood refused, Abedini accused him of having the Spirit of Jezebel.
In turn, Wood wrote he had nothing to repent of and then wrote that he was ending the correspondence, Charisma News reports.
The Idaho Statesman notes that in 2007, Abedini pleaded guilty to domestic abuse in Ada County Magistrate Court. He received a 90-day suspended sentence and was placed on probation for a year.
