Inside Prayerpalooza
The Response vs. The Rapture: Big questions for Rick Perry's prayer day atReliant
Gov. Rick Perry in Houston last year for a prayer day event at City Hall.Photo by Steven Thomson
Photo via The Response USA
If you haven't heard, our once secession-sponsoring governor, Rick Perry, is set to harness the power of prayer in a massive religious event at Reliant Stadium on Saturday and aim it at a nation in crisis.
In crisis we are. But even as a religious person (a moderate, progressive, Episcopalian sort), this thing is starting to get a little freaky deaky.
Aside from the obvious — that a government official is pushing a Christian event in a nation that expressly forbids the intermingling of faith and public policy — there's the name. "The Response." It's pretty ominous, kinda like "The Rapture."
When you hold hands and squinch your eyes and pray, does everyone have to envision the same means to the end? What if you have different visions?
The event's website cites recent natural disasters as evidence of our critical state, as if these incidents are some act of God akin to the plagues.
There are also a host of logistical questions.
What are attendees supposed to be praying for, exactly? Who approves that — is there some kind of democratic committee? Is it sort of a prayer for general well-being, or is it for something more specific, like deficit reduction?
When you hold hands and squinch your eyes and pray, does everyone have to envision the same means to the end? What if you have different visions? Can you, like, neutralize opposing visions with some kind of opposite prayer?
If so, those of us praying for educational funding and accessible family planning as the easiest and most obvious routes to reducing the deficit and increasing revenue will be at Hank's Ice Cream across the street.
**Hank's Ice Cream has not approved this message.
