Franklin Graham, the Christian evangelist...

...and son of Billy Graham, thinks he knows why there's all this confusion over President Obama's religion. It's really very simple:

"I think the president's problem is that he was born a Muslim, his father was a Muslim. The seed of Islam is passed through the father like the seed of Judaism is passed through the mother. He was born a Muslim, his father gave him an Islamic name," Graham told CNN's John King. "Now it's obvious that the president has renounced the prophet Mohammed and he has renounced Islam and he has accepted Jesus Christ. That's what he says he has done, I cannot say that he hasn't. So I just have to believe that the president is what he has said."

For the record, Obama's father was Barack Hussein Obama, who gave the future president his own name. President Obama has written that his father, who he rarely ever saw, was raised a Muslim but was in practice an atheist.

This line of discussion came about due to a Pew national poll showing that 18% of Americans think that Obama is a Muslim -- nearly twice the number from last year.

Graham further explained: "The confusion is, is because his father was a Muslim, he was born a Muslim. The Islamic world sees the president as one of theirs. That's why Gaddafi calls him 'my son.' They see him as a Muslim. But of course the President says he is a Christian, and we just have to accept it as that."

Got all that?