"Yeah doctor. Our small tea bag group here in Waycross, we got our vigil together and took Dr. Coburn’s instructions and prayed real hard that Sen. Byrd would either die or couldn’t show up at the vote the other night.
How hard did you pray because I see one of our members was missing this morning. Did it backfire on us? One of our members died? How hard did you pray senator? Did you pray hard enough?"
- transcript of the words of a distraught caller to C Span, identifying himself as 'Abraham', from Waycross, Georgia, addressing Senator Barrasso, Republican Senator for Wyoming, inquiring about the absence from a Health Care Reform vote of Senator Inhofe, Republican Senator for Oklahoma regarding the prayer 'attack' advocated by Senator Coburn and other Republicans
"Psalm 109: 8-9 Let his days be few; and let another take his office. Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow." (King James Bible translation) popular bumper sticker /t-shirt/button/mug/ tea party protest sign slogan popular with 'prayer warriors'
You tube link: www.youtube/.com/watch?v=a9qzP8MV5nk
Luke 2:14 "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill towards men." (King James Bible translation)
My first reaction upon reading these words, and watching and listening to the video was, naturally, horror. It is perhaps a comment on my character and personality that my second reaction, following shortly on the first, was laughter. Out loud laughter. Laughing at the photos of PeopleofWalmart.com kind of tinged-with-horror-and-dismay laughter. (Caution - do not look at more than 10 pages of PeopleofWalmart.com at one time, your eyes might bleed)
On the web sites of news sources and other blogs, there are comments from other residents of the fine state of Georgia, about their fellow citizens who are 'prayer warriors', including comments about their guns. I shared with ToE, 'off-blog' my next whimsical reaction, which was to envision all of the religious iconic art that I have seen over the years of Jesus Christ, hands raised in benediction..........or maybe he's just holding them up like that so the prayer warriors don't shoot him. Because if these devout gun toting Christians can miss the target with prayer, ya gotta wonder, how straight can they shoot?
I have not been able to verify that 'Abraham' is a real person, a member of a tea party group . Yes, there are tea party members who themselves from time to time use the term teabagger, but it did raise a question in my mind as to this being a hoax. So far, I have not been able to verify this as a telephone call from a genuine tea-party prayer warrior, or not. This call took place on December 20th. There has not been significant repudiation by any of his senatorial colleagues of these prayers against Senator Byrd, to date that I have been able to find, nor have I seen any claim by Republican senators or Congressmen either that the call was a fake or a hoax. This tentatively leads me to believe it is a real, legitimate person on the recording, and that it is not an isolated participant.
On a more serious note ---- and yes, with great effort, I can regain my self-control and look at the serious side --- this concerns me. I do not as a general rule ever wish to demonize my fellow-citizens. I do not wish to demean those who hold a different view point or political association. But there are reasons to take these people seriously; they are sincere, and they are prepared to act, possibly to act in ways that defy our understanding of reason, but act none the less.
It is not only their passion for personal fire arms that worries me. I am in favor of personal fire arms, and in favor of trusting that my fellow citizens are not dangerous morons with the kind of lunatic fringe personal beliefs that characterize domestic terrorists.
I am concerned and uncomfortable when what has for the most part been a mainstream, major political party re-embraces extreme right groups like the John Birch Society, a group which has not changed their position since they were properly expelled from the GOP back in the 1960's by people as diverse as William F. Buckley and Barry Goldwater. Now they are co-hosting the right wing C-PAC event in February.
So, how many of these people are there? More than you might expect to find, including among a segment of our military, where they have access to serious weaponry. In the six months during which I have also been writing on PoliticusUSA, I have seen a steady increase in the comment section of people who self-identify as conservative or right wing calling for and/or predicting that our military was going to take over our government 'to save us', mostly, but not exclusively, in response to writing about birther activity.
Let me be clear. I do not for a moment consider these fringe lunatics to speak for all conservatives or people of the right, not at all. That would be stupid. But there is an increasing tolerance and acceptance of these views by those on the right who do not claim to share these views, in exchange for their support. This gives these extremists a legitimacy that they do not merit or deserve.
What kind of things am I calling 'crazy', besides the attempts at 'imprecatory' prayer assassination? Fears the US is preparing to turn over our sovereignty to the UN, as part of a 'one world government'. Specifically, ridiculous claims like foreign troops are secretly hidden throughout the United States in inaccessible areas of our national parks -- up to 1,300,000 troops. And as always there are devils and details, for example: there is a contingent of Russian tanks in the Great Smokey National Park, and Holloman Air Force Base has been given to the Russians; and Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas has been given to the Germans. Sounds crazy, like oh, say claims of FEMA re-education camps.
So, who are these fundies? One of the terms to describe their religious beliefs is "Dominion Theology", or theonomy, the belief that society, not only ours but throughout the world, should be governed by the biblical law of God, replacing secular law. There is 'soft dominionism' which asserts that the United States is a Christian nation (as distinct from a nation which includes Christians as one of the many practiced religions). Hard dominionism believes that events like the Iraq war and alliance with Israel promote the second coming of Christ and the 'end days'.
Dominionism is associated with 'the Family' also called 'the Fellowship', as in the Senators Inhofe, Coburn, Ensign scandal, the Chip Pickering scandal, and the Governor Sanford scandal. It is not a coincidence that those calling for imprecatory prayer belong to these and similar groups. Both Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann have support from and ties to Dominion believers.
Having failed in the 2008 election cycle, and having now failed (so far) in completely stopping health care reform, the scary question is..........what next? More prayer? Or something more direct?
Alas, those who are engaging in the practice of being a "prayer warrior" are committing acts of blasphemy and heresy.
ReplyDeletePsalm 109: 8-9 does indeed indicate "May his days be few; may another take his place of leadership..." However, its also being read out of context. I much prefer passages out of the New Testament on how one should deal with one's enemies:
Matthew 5: 43 - 44 "You have heard that it was said ,'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his son to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous."
Christ also gave a new commandment to his disciples. John 13:34-35 "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."
The people who are engaging in "prayer war" are not following the teachings of Christ, but are instead using Old Testament style methods of vengeance and hatred. This is antithetical to Christian doctrine, and smears the otherwise fine people who make up the conservative movement. If the conservative movement can convince people to follow their ways, then that's fine. But if they can only get people to support them by the association with such heretics, then the conservative movement is in serious trouble indeed
Senator Coburn is also being taken out of context by both the people praying for someone to die and the people reporting on what he said. When someone asked him about what could be done to stop the healthcare bill he answered that people should pray someone does not make it to the chamber to vote. That sounds bad by itself but DC was in the middle of a near blizzard (at least what qualifies for one in DC) and roads were being closed and people trapped at airports. The Senate requires a quorum for something to be voted on and Coburn was honestly answering that the only way the vote would not pass was if the snowstorm trapped enough senators away from the chambers and prevented them from having a quorum. When you look at his statement in the context of the snowstorm and travel conditions it is more an honest assessment of the chances of stopping the bill rather than a call to pray for someone to die.
ReplyDeletett wrote:" When you look at his statement in the context of the snowstorm and travel conditions it is more an honest assessment of the chances of stopping the bill rather than a call to pray for someone to die."
ReplyDeleteWith respect tt - NO, not true! NOT TRUE AT ALL!
This and similar statements relating to using old testament "imprecatory prayer" by multiple conservative legislators and other conservative leaders have been made long before this specific vote and this specific weather pattern were at issue.
If this were about the weather, as you claim, don't you think there would have been an effort to clarify this -----instead of months of this going on,with the sale of buttons, t-shirts, visors, coffe mugs, and bunper stickers? Or similarly themed signs at tea-party and town hall events?
tt - do you have a problem with conservative religous leaders calling for their congregations to "pray" Obama to death?
Please, do a bit more research into the so called Prayer Warrior movement and imprecatory prayer before acceping this explanation, and before being an apologist for this action.
I did.
Praying for death is like napping for excercise.
ReplyDeleteWhat I think interesting about the extreme religious conservatives, some of whom have in the past apparently espoused a Dominion Theology, is that the type of government that they are advocating is the same basic type of government that exists in Iran and in many other middle eastern countries. In these countries, there is a theocracy where our cherished constitutional rights, (including those rights that those same Dominion Theocracy types would absolutely insist be granted to them) do not exists. For instance, where is the Freedom of Speech in Iran? (It only applies if you support the government) Where is Freedom of Assembly (it only applies if you are assembling to rally FOR the government).
ReplyDeleteI find the idea of a theocracy antithetical to US values such as liberty, respect for the rights of others, and yes, I find the idea of a theocracy to be anti-christian.
John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life" (emphasis added) This passage from the Gospel according to John sums up pretty well that God loves the entire world. This includes those who don't know the words of Christ, and it includes those who don't happen to believe the words of heretics such as those who would actively pray against someone.
Christians were warned about these kinds of people in scripture. "But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves. Many will follow their shameful ways and will bring the way of truth into disrepute. In their greed these teachers will exploit you with stories they have made up. Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping." II Peter 2:1-4. God's wrath on those who dare to try to use the power of God to sow seeds of hate and evil will eventually show itself. Taking the scriptures out of context and finding in scripture a requirement that they should pray for anyone's demise is as I said earlier, heresy at best, and blasphemous as well.
Well when I did a google on "prayer warriors Obama" 4 of the first 5 hits were people praying for Obama's success. The other in the top 5 required you to join a group I have never heard of so I can't say anything about them but they might fit the profile of what you are talking about. The next hit was from the Daily Kos which is about as reliable as the Weekly World News. I am not saying there are not people out there praying for the demise of Obama, in fact I am pretty sure there are, however that is not what Coburn was referring to. To answer your question, yes I have a problem with it. I also had a problem with it when Code Pink, the Daily Kos, Democrat Underground, and several other liberal blogs frequently called for the execution of Bush and Cheney. I have seen people banned on blogs I read for making racist remarks about Obama or calling for harm to him. I never saw anyone banned on the Daily Kos for saying harm should come to Bush, in fact the threads were not even locked to stop it from continuing. This is America and we vote people out of office. If we ever have a president who refuses to leave then maybe some minor violence is called for but I am pretty sure the secret service would take care of removing him and I don't really think that will ever happen.
ReplyDeletett, I think I see the problem with your search. See what you get if you redefine your search to imprecatory prayer against obama, imprecatory prayer against health reform / democrats, etc. I'm pretty sure what produced tour results was "for", as in "in favor of" or "on behalf of". There are also less extreme groups who believe they can pray centrists and liberals to convert to their way of thinking; that may be what you turned up. Also check out dominionism sites; Coburn and the others I cited are dominionists, notably associated with "the Family" also known as "the Fellowship".
ReplyDeletett, here are the exact words of Coburn, and there is video on youtube as well. The quote came from an article in the Washington Post in this case.
ReplyDeleteAt 4 p.m. Sunday afternoon -- nine hours before the 1 a.m. vote that would effectively clinch the legislation's passage -- Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) went to the Senate floor to propose a prayer. "What the American people ought to pray is that somebody can't make the vote tonight," he said. "That's what they ought to pray."
This was not the first or only instance of imprecatory prayer being invoked by Coburn and his colleagues, and it was widely presumed to apply specifically to Sen. Byrd. That was clearly the intent taken by his supporters. That intent understood by his supporters has not been denied or clarified otherwise by Coburn or any of his colleagues.
Given the prevalence of the items for sale displaying "Psalm 109" (some merchandise specify verses, some do not) it cannot fairly be argued that this kind of prayer is not being advocated by the right.
Clearly not ALL the right endorse this, but a significant segment, including but not only self-styled tea 'partiers'/ 'teab baggers'.
Coburn is squarely in that segment.