Pray, Tony, pray!

August 2, 2008

Guest Post by Morbo

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, a prominent Religious Right organization, believes we’ve really hits the skids in this country.

Indeed, times are tough for the far-right fundamentalist Christians. Homosexuals are lining up to get married in California, and Massachusetts is about to let out-of-state same-sex couples get married. Republican hopeful John McCain might even let those nasty gays adopt kids! (At least that’s his position this week.)

What’s an uptight biblical literalist supposed to do? Perkins’ answer was to hit the floorboards. As Donald Wildmon’s OneNewsNow reported, Perkins directed his staff to stay home on July 28 and spend the day in prayer.

Amen! We often hear fundamentalists brag about the awesome power of their vengeful God. He’s a very Old Testament-type guy with a long list of people he hates — gays, liberals, pro-choice activists, etc. And, the fundamentalists would have us believe, you can often get him to do what you want through prayer. Prayer, we are told by the fundamentalists, changes things.

So get to it.

My advice to Perkins is this: Dismiss your Washington lobbyists. Fire your attorneys. Send your grassroots activists packing. Stop issuing fund-raising letters. Cease expecting the actions of mere men and women to bring about the society you want. Beseech your all-power God to give it to you. Disengage entirely from the worldly affairs of politics. Make your battle no longer political but spiritual.

If God really wants this country to be theocracy as opposed to a democracy, he’ll give it to you, right? All you have to do is ask.

Of course, there’s always the possibility that God doesn’t exist or that he’s not quite the narrow-minded bigot the fundamentalists have made him (or her) out to be. But that seems unlikely. After all, the Bible supports every political position the Religious Right has ever held, doesn’t it?

So let’s try a little test, Tony. Your side spends its time praying for the kind of society you want in America, relying strictly on your all-powerful God to give it you. Our side will work for the type of society we want through the political process. It should be no contest. You win hands down, right? So let’s get to it.

We’re ready when you are.

I think I passed 2 of them this morning…McCain bumper stickers on beat up cars holding people who looked like they didn’t have 2 nickels to rub together. Voting with the religious. right against their own self interest

  • Thumpers praying against you. One of the silliest human experiences I can think of.

    My Obama car magnet circle looks so-o cool on my blue Honda!

  • No amount of praying is going to support Tony in the Capitol Hill Lobbyist Lifestyle to which he has become quite accustom;>

  • At least he’s telling them to stay at home. I can’t tell you how un-fun DC gets when swarms of TalEvangicals descend on the place to pray for the day when God makes every citizen of this nation into miserable, wetsuit wearing schmucks.

    Actually, we’re due for something in a couple of weeks. Urrgh.

    Guess I’ll pray for a tornado.

  • “Perkins directed his staff to stay home on July 28 and spend the day in prayer.”

    How about the first Tuesday in November?

  • In fact, Perkins and his gang should prove how much they really believe what they claim to. They can all gather in one of their megatheaters and promise not to come out until their all-powerful leader has got off his incorporeal ass and wiped out all non-believers. They don’t need to send out for food- the Big Guy surely will make manna fall from the ceiling. They don’t need to come out to bathe, because any smells that start to dominate will have been part of the Overall Plan, and thus can’t be offensive. After they all die and start decomposing, we can go bury them, let their organic matter return to the environment, and they can start being useful to the world for a change.

  • I’ve long thought that the politically-active religious right proves its lack of faith when it fights for control of the public sphere. If abortion or gay rights is the problem, then the answer ought to be evangelism — bringing folks to their perspective — instead of trying to force them into compliance.

  • @MsMuddled
    therein lies the dilemma of this campaign, low information voters, and I mean real low information voters who never read a newspaper, watch a news broadcast and rely on the pulpit for their views. How do you reach these people- I don’t know

  • A very Old Testament-type guy? There is wrath and love in the Old Testament, and wrath and love in the New Testament. Anyone who believes that OT=wrath and NT=love is unacquainted with either Testament. And that includes the clergyman in Doonesbury who made that false distinction in 2006; I would have written to Garry Trudeau if I had known how to direct my message.

    Besides, if you believe this false dichotomy, then what do you think of the Jews, who recognize the OT (while not calling it that) but not the NT?

  • Dear Denizens of the KnuckleDraggerdom of WingNuttia,

    God just called. He wants me to tell you that he’s having a lot of fun, stringing you all along on your self-serving Path to Zion business, but you need to purify yourselves for the afterlife by withdrawing completely from the global social order. Give all of your wealth away, abandon the worldly ways of FOX, surrender to the soceity of the non-righteous all your possessions—right down to the last dollar, cell-phone, and everything else that is man-made—and live in the woods among the grizzly bears and wolves for one full year. For those who can do this, God promises you eternal bliss. For those who refuse, eternal damnation amongst the ungodly is your just reward. Such is his covenant with you.

    The best part of doing something like this is that there are actually people who are incredulously stupid intelligent enough to take God up on the offer. Maybe Tony’s one of them….

  • Amazing Fiction KoolAide…Could that be the name of a new movie starring Perkins??

    How in the world people like this get a national stage is beyond me…. This is pandering in its highest form..self-delusion also comes to mind…bizarre…

  • #11 – The Old Testament God was very explicit when it came to actions. Sacrifices of animals were demanded, people were banished from lands, people were slaughtered in warfare, and of course there was the great flood. The New Testament God is much more nuanced with sacrifices becoming symbolic and the reach to people is more inclusive. Solving problems by slaughtering your enemy is a much more an Old Testament way of doing things.

  • But I notice that Tony Perkins is not calling for slaughter but for prayer, and intercessory prayer by the faithful is a very New Testament thing to do.

    Most intercessory prayer in the OT is done by prophets and others with a special connection to God, e.g. Abraham, Moses, Samuel. Intercessory prayer by ordinary folk peeps over the horizon in just a few places, e.g. “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem” (Psalm 122:6) and Jeremiah’s admonition to the exiles in Babylon to “seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf” (Jeremiah 29:7). It’s SOP in the NT.

  • God doesn’t do anything…why should he …he’s God. All powerful except when it comes to us huh. That free choice thing.. So God just smiles at us while holding a big bat behind his back? It’s the “inspired words written by men” that is throwing Perkins off. He thinks men don’t lie or make mistakes because God wouldn’t let them. It’s done all the time now…but not back then…no siree.

    All that is just is…and all that is …is God. there is nothing outside of him. The illusion of perception begins when one see himself as different than or separate than the source which both contains and sustains him. Science is already proving that the same object is in multiple places at the same time and that perception puts it into perspective.

    Funny how inspired words have the ability to justify not having to think but to just accept so those incapable of deep thinking as well as those to busy or lazy to devote the time to it can just get on with the enjoyment of life.

    Simplicity is sweet…The purpose of life?…To be alive. At any given moment you have everything you need to do that or you would not be alive. The point of life?…to grow along spiritual lines (not religious but spiritual).

    Perkins lives in the power of the mundane, thinking prayers is more effective if I kneel…but what about if you lay face down?…even better….maybe bury yourself in some dirt?…fat luck.

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