calls the faithful to pray for the death of the people who filed an IRS complaint against him.
Here's the press release, from Wiley Drake:
In light of the recent attack from the enemies of God I ask the children of God to go into action with Imprecatory Prayer. Especially against Americans United for Separation of Church and State. I made an attempt to go to them via Matt 18:15 but they refused to talk to me. Specifically target Joe Conn or Jeremy Learing. They are those who lead the attack. (You can see their press release attack at www.au.org ) ...Psalm 109 says, among other things,Now that all efforts have been exhausted, we must begin our Imprecatory Prayer, at the key points of the parliamentary role in the earth where we live.
John Calvin gave the church its marching orders from Scripture. The righteous have dominion, but only through imprecatory prayer against the ungodly.
David as our Old Testament shepherd gives us many Imprecatory prayers, and can be found to be in best focus in Psalm 109. Also chapters 55, 58, 68, 69, and 83
Pray these back to God and He will answer.
Jesus in Matthew 23: 13, 15, 16, 23, 24, 27, and 29 gave us our New Testament marching orders as well.
Let us join Paul and declare anathema upon anyone" who loves not the Lord Jesus." I Cor 16:22
Church father Martin Luther, led us by saying…"If any of the enemies of God's people belong to God's election, the church's prayer against them giveth way to their conversion, and seeketh no more than that the judgment should follow them, only until they acknowledge their sin, turn, and seek God." ...
Let his days be few;Drake echoes this in a quote in an L.A. Times story:
and let another take his office.
Let his children be fatherless,
and his wife a widow.
Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg:
let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places.
Let the extortioner catch all that he hath;
and let the strangers spoil his labor.
Let there be none to extend mercy unto him:
neither let there be any to favor his fatherless children.
Let his posterity be cut off;
and in the generation following let their name be blotted out.
Drake said Wednesday he was "simply doing what God told me to do" by targeting Americans United officials Joe Conn and Jeremy Leaming, whom he calls the "enemies of God."More in this EthicsDaily post by Brian Kaylor, a former pastor and "communications specialist with the Baptist General Convention of Missouri"; Kaylor reports on an interview he had with Drake, who is quoted as saying: "If they think it’s ‘outlandish,’ it doesn’t surprise me.... They’re ungodly, un-scriptural, not even Christians.... They have no reverence for the Word of God.... And if they think it’s ‘outlandish,’ don’t blame me, I didn’t write it, God did.... It really doesn’t matter what my words are ... What matters is what does God’s Word say? God’s Word says if they continue to attack God’s people, God will cause their children to become orphans and their wives to become widows. I didn’t say that, God did.""God says to pray imprecatory prayer against people who attack God's church," he said. "The Bible says that if anybody attacks God's people, David said this is what will happen to them. . . . Children will become orphans and wives will become widows."
Incidentally, the Americans United complaint seems to be that Drake endorsed Republican Mike Huckabee for President using church resources, which were bought using funds derived from tax-exempt donations. As I wrote in an earlier post, organizations to which donations are tax-deductible (so-called 501(c)(3)s) -- including religious organizations, as well as many other nonprofits -- aren't allowed to expressly support or oppose the election of candidates, and are limited in their lobbying for the enactment of legislation. General public education, including advocacy, is fine, but not electioneering or (too much) lobbying; if they want to do that, they need to set up arms that collect non-tax-deductible donations (so-called 501(c)(4)s, as opposed to the 501(c)(3)s).
The Court has upheld this scheme against First Amendment challenge, reasoning that tax exemptions for contributions are a form of subsidy, and the government can impose restrictions on what this subsidy is used for, so long as they are viewpoint-neutral (i.e., no electioneering would be fine, no electioneering in favor of racist candidates would not be). Of course, there are often difficulties in deciding what's forbidden express support or opposition and what's permitted education and advocacy; the IRS has new guidance on the electioneering side of the question.
There are sensible arguments against imposing these limits on the use of tax-exempt funds, given that the tax exemption for charitable deductions is allowed to subsidize a wide range of other private speech, including highly ideological speech, and given the difficulties of drawing lines between permissible education and impermissible lobbying and electioneering. Nonetheless, it's important to recall that speakers -- including pastors -- remain free to express their views about candidates and legislation so long as they use their own money, or 501(c)(4) money.
And, more importantly, whatever one thinks of the rights and wrongs of the tax code as applied in this situation, calling for divine retribution -- apparently including death, and condemnation of children to being "continually vagabonds, and beg[gars]" -- strikes me as a little excessive.
Many thanks to Paul Caron (TaxProf Blog) for the pointer; he has more links.
Please note; I'm not saying there's not a difference. Clearly, stoning somebody to death and praying that they die are radically different. But I do find it funny.
Are there any successful prosecutions of people using other religious frameworks (say, voudoun) to draw down death-curses, for that matter?
Saying this is "a little excessive" seems to me to be more than a little understated.
At least from the linked 'guidance' this seems to be only true in theory not in practice for ministers. The page very clearly indicates that even when explicitly presenting one's own views paid in a privately funded fashion you still violate the tax exempt status issue if you speak in an official capacity, e.g., the university president sending out the newsletter (situation 4.
At least on the face this seems to totally preclude ministers from telling their congregation that god prefers canidate X as any such statement would be made in their official capacity as a minister. Now maybe you are going to quibble that somehow public statements about matters of faith don't necessarily constitute official communications by the church. I think this is implausible but even so there is a serious problem here.
Suppose that the pope was based in the US and wished to make an ex cathedra statement about some canidate being evil/preferable. By the nature of the catholic religious faith he can only make a statement with this sort of significance when he is speaking in his official capacity. Now I only use catholicism here as an example because as a former catholic I'm familiar with it but I suspect there are a fair number of religious faiths that distinguish official proclamations of their holy leaders (mormons?, muslims?, jews?) from private comments by them.
Given this situation I don't see how these laws could possibly not violate the separation of church and state. Even if you view the tax exemptions as government contributions this doesn't resolve the issue. The government couldn't offer substantial financial support to all and only those churches who didn't officially deny the divinity of Jesus Christ. Nor does this rule avoid that problem by being content neutral as it most certainly is NOT content neutral. Certain sorts of religious belief (those that endorse particular candidates for office) are penalized based on their content.
However, how is calling for divine retribution necessarily a unique evil?
The Americans United are calling on governmental retribution against Drake. Surely that is, even if justified, more palpable of an attack than a prayer. Drake is calling on a "higher" court to adjudicate. Both are making claims according to a notion of justice and both seek the punishment of the other. American's United are doing it in a way that will almost certainly cause more immediate harm.
But, I think if Drake really was faithful he'd drop the whole tax-exempt status all together. Tax exemption has long been a crutch on religious institutions. If Drake wants to give to God what he feels he should give to God then Drake should start giving to Caesar what is Caesar's.
Then he could use the letterhead in whatever way he wants.
On a sidenote, and in regard to a comment in the previous religion thread, I remembered Drake's name because he had a conflict with his city about homeless sleeping on church property. Drake fought for the rights of the homeless. So he might be a bit overboard here but he is, in many ways, consistent across the board in his faith.
Nick
More seriously, he won't drop the tax exempt status. Churches and, more importantly, their pastors have become too dependent on it. If he drops it, he'd probably also lose the tax subsidy for his housing costs.
That's one way to look at it. Of course, you could also consider it as not an attack but "render unto Caesar what is Caesar's" - that is, if your church money is going to be involved in politics, it needs to cough up it's share to the IRS.
That was, in fact, a nearly universal supposition of Southern Baptists. My grandfather, an Episcopalian layman who married an Italian Catholic, got involved in negotiations between the Bishop of Savannah and the Grand Dragon of the Georgia Ku Klux Klan in order to disabuse the Dragon of his belief that there was a tunnel from the Vatican to America, by which the pope would come to America if Al Smith were elected president in order to tell Smith how to govern.
I am not making any of this up. As late as 1962, I was solemnly assured by Southern Baptist acquaintances that the tunnel still existed and connected to the episcopal residence in Atlanta.
The Matthew citations aren't freindly, but they do not call down God's wrath on the pharisees, as in a prayer for relief from them. The passage just calls them bad names. Even the Christ could wake upon the wrong side of the bed once in a while.
Hello. Book of Revelations, anyone?
In the end it all falls apart and God reverts to form, but in the meantime, during this New Testament era, neither the Lord, nor the Lord, or even the Lord, in any of His tripartite wholeness, is advocating imprecatory prayers. Doing that might forfeit your ticket to the Rapture.
Paul does it, but feh, he is a gentile interloper more interested in politics than polemics.
Awesome.
I am not comforted by the fact that God is, in all likelihood, imaginary because it means that a large segment of humanity has spent a large part of human history acting extremely foolish with no end in sight.
A bonafide Church do not have to incorporate under 501C3 to be tax exempt. Why churches incorporate? Ignorance and fear. But when they incorporate the put themselves under Caesar's "protection." Churches must send letters of dissolution to the appropiate authority and reclaim the title of Churches and drop the title of "charitable organization."
Be careful of the deals you make. You will be held to them.
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/...r=9&version=31
I am not betting that many Churches wil do it.
That's insane. The pope would put his tunnel in Atlanta. Come on, Georgia? The tunnel used to come out in Boston, but even His Holiness won't deal with the big dig traffic. They were going to detour to Green Bay, but I think they rerouted it to Ave Maria, FL.
God is probably comforted, too: think of the responsibility!
I think you're right. I looked for it and didn't find it, although really I was just trying to get a young lady into the bushes.
Since when is "an Israelite of the tribe of Benjamin, circumcised on the eighth day" a Gentile? Being an Apostle to the Gentiles does not necessarily make one a Gentile himself.
Pet Theory: This sort of stuff is what happens when you let Sola Scriptura run the show.
Or look at it this way: If you pray for someone's death, either:
-- there's no God, and nobody gets hurt
-- there's a God, but the guy doesn't deserve to die, and nobody gets hurt
-- there's a God, and the guy does deserve to die, in which case someone dies, but then, he deserves it.
It's impossible to hurt an innocent person with a prayer for someone's death. This makes it very much unlike actually shooting him yourself, or even wanting to shoot him yourself. It may be worth trying to put into words exactly why we find it so contemptible to pray for someone's death, given the general understanding of how God is supposed to operate and how he always does the right thing, even when killing.
(This ignores cases like "God exists, is evil, and zaps people if you ask him to." I suppose you could argue that praying for someone's death is reckless because of that possibility.)
Of course, the same is true for normal prayers. If you pray for someone to get well, do you really think that you could ever convince God to act differently than he would without the prayer?
I think the unspoken worry is "anyone who wants God to kill someone is very close to being a killer himself; he'd do it now if he knew he wouldn't be caught". Religion isn't logical; believers can easily hold two contradictory opinions such as wanting God to kill someone but not wanting him dead by any other means. You can't expect believers to believe the logical consequences of their own beliefs.
The same question can be asked about *any* prayer, including prayers that are considered much more acceptable.
BJC and AU submitted joint briefs in Hein v. Freedom from Religion, City of Boerne v. Flores, Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hileah, and Int'l Soc for Krishna Consciousness v. Lee (joining also with such groups as the Anti-Defamation League, the National Association of Evangelicals, the Christian Legal Society, and the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights). There are more; that's just a quick glance through the first 10 hits on Lexis.
I'm sure Drake and his flock do pray for George Bush and other national/world leaders.
It's the folks at American's United, who would like to be the emperors, who get him feisty.
Though the early church did a much better job of confession during persecution than Drake.
Drop the shackles, man! Let go the pernicious bonds of tax exemption!!
It has a loading hatch on the back so Benedict can come out in his Papal Panzerkampfwagen IV .... no more of these Jeeps!
Furthermore, it's important to note that this pastor is a former leader of the Southern Baptist Convention. Back in the 1970s, SBC was taken over by the radical right wing of the convention; leaders included some of the same conservatives (very wise folks when it comes to convention politics) who later rose to prominence in the Republican Party. But this pastor is a former leader. At the most recent convention of the Southern Baptists, the convention elected less fundamentalist leaders who wanted to lead the SBC into a less political direction.
True, it's been a pretty big waste of time. On the other hand, at least the absurd tripe they prattle on about won't actually come to pass.
It seems odd that God should ask Drake to pray for AU's demise. Drake apparently believes in a weak God, impotent without the exhortations of His followers.
It pains me to say anything positive about any Baptist -- none of 'em ever said anything nice about me. But . . .
I am just barely too young to remember this, but I learn from Jason Sokol's book on civil rights that the Southern Baptist Convention in 1954 voted about 900-60 to endorse Brown v. Board.
Of course, when the preachers got back to their churches, the boards of deacons and contributors made 'em take it back. But it does show that even a Baptist can have a decent impulse, if left alone with his conscience.
Again, you can say that about prayer for anything. If you're just saying that all prayer implies a weak God, then sure. If you're saying that this kind of prayer suggests God is weak but socially accepted prayers for health or for your football team are perfectly fine, then you're completely wrong--there's nothing special about praying for someone's death which implies God is weak, compared to praying for anything else.
And I do have great respect for many Southern Baptists. It's just that when folks like Wiley Drake speak out that I feel a need to point out that he does not speak (nor claims to speak) for all Baptists.
I would agree that the aim of the prayer does not distinguish the strength of the God, however in this instance Drake claimed that God asked him specifically to pray for the demise of AU. This is different from most prayer, because in this case God was begging Drake for prayer so that he might intervene.
Generally, I find the concept of prayer inconsistent with the concept of an omni-benevolent God. I see no reason why people should have to beg God to to the right thing nor any reason why only people with Christian friends should receive God's intervention in the form of intercessory prayer. And, of course, the idea of God punishing people here on earth based on imprecatory prayer seems inconstant with the idea of free will which will be rewarded or punished in an afterlife.
One thing is certain, though, Wiley Drake is a complete git. IMO, natch.
I guess Reverend Drake in the pulpit with the lightning bolt.
Nick
Jam:
Nice argument. The problem with it is that Caesar (the state) says that if the church does not incorporate (in my state into a special form of corporation)--then the church body is a partnership and the state has even more control over the actions of the church.
As a bonus, there are even more chances for Americans United for Separation of Church and State abd their ilk to mess with churches if the church decides to go as a partnership.
The church did not choose to be subject to the state, the state chose to butt in and gave the church options with some less bad than others.
I guess Reverend Drake in the pulpit with the lightning bolt.
So he is evil and deserves to die for praying to God for punishment for a group that harmed his church....
and you are cool for calling out for his death for that prayer?
*Unfortunately, in Bujold's novel, a successful death prayer results in the deaths of both the subject of the prayer and the one who is praying. That might take the wind out of Mr. Drake's sails.
(I think if the real world conformed to Bujold's Chalion universe, Drake would be a little more hesitant about making the prayer - he probably wouldn't think it was worth dying to exact justice for these crimes.)
I recall King David praying for victory over his military enemies (Psalm 20), but I don't recall similar prayers regarding nonlethal threats.
If this were to happen, and Conn and/or Learing were harmed by said zealots, would Drake be in some way culpable for inciting the violence?
The person doing the praying is appealing to God. God never does anything disproportionate, even when he makes children orphans.
Of course, we usually gloss over this aspect of God. After all, God already makes orphans even without anyone praying for it. And if we believe in God, we are forced to believe that God does so for a good reason. We don't like this, and we try to forget that our religion implies that making orphans can be good sometimes... until this guy comes along and rubs our noses in it.
He's not really asking for anything more outrageous than we already believe. We already think it's good when God makes orphans. He just makes us very uncomfortable because by explicitly praying for it, he reminds us of beliefs of ours that we'd rather forget.
Christ said "By their fruits, you shall know them"
Ken, God doesn't "make" orphans. Orphans are a product of natural law. Do you claim that God makes your stubbed toe when you run it into a doorjam? All people die, indeed "No man knows the day nor the hour", so in your theological view, parents get a death-pass until what, the kid turns 18?
On further consideration, this is a case where it was better for this prayer to have stayed in the closet.
The purpose of Christian prayer is to align our wills with God's. We may give words to our hopes, fears and angers but through prayer we change the focus away from ourselves and, hopefully, recall Scriptures that focus on the character of God revealed through Jesus.
The state hasn't butted in at all. Churches have been granted a special privilege of being exempt from taxation including property taxes, which, if the church chooses to accept has a few--a very few--restrictions. Because they don't pay taxes for city and state services, the government has to rase other taxes to subsidize churches.
Hmm...so God gets credit for all good things but bad things are the product of natural law?
You need to be consistent. If god is all powerful and all knowing then everything is his fault. If you argue that he chooses to let bad things happen to allow us to have free will then he isn't all loving. And if you claim that we are allowed to have free will but God will smite us whenever he feels like it (different from "natural law") or at the behest of some religious nut job then he isn't allowing free will to be free and God is to blame for everything.
Two part response:
1. I think of myself as anti-abortion, even though my voting and politics is usually based on gun rights.
I oppose the act because I do not think it should be legal to kill a baby, pre-born or after birth, for the crime of a woman having to be pregnant.
I agree with the act of the state killing a person for the crime of murder.
2. I do not agree with the pastor calling for God to kill those who sent the feds after him, but that is a disagreement as to what the correct sanction is.
For example, if someone made good an attempt to prevent my church from preaching the word then I think it would be a good sanction. I don't think what happened rose to that level.
What happened could have risen to that level, and if so then praying for the death of the attacker is correct. Hopefully that situation will not arise in our lifetimes.
I think we are talking about two different things.
I was remarking that in my state a church group can either become a special form of corporation and thus be treated automatically as a C3; or
they become a partnership where anti-Evangelical pressure groups like the one that started all this can cause even more problems for the membership as a whole through the regular legal system.
There is no choice three.
I was responding to an argument which basically said "how could we even think of asking God to kill someone, that's asking God to make orphans!"
That argument already assumes that God makes orphans, so your response that God doesn't make orphans isn't relevant. And once you accept that God answering a prayer for death is God making orphans, then God creating laws that result in death is also God making orphans.
(I suppose you could argue that God making orphans directly counts as God doing it, but God making orphans indirectly doesn't count, which is rather fine hair splitting.)
Indeed, there are two issues at play. My point was that the Church chooses to accept tax exempt status voluntarily and that all of the constraints that come with that exemption are thus the choice of the Church to pursue and not an example of the state butting in. I see the corporate structure as dependent on the choice of taking a government subsidized tax exemption, you see it as a government imposed structure.
Jews, Christians and Muslims surely cannot use the Bible as evidence.
I tend to take the viewpoint that Lewis makes in The Problem of Pain, that we live in a world governed by natural laws and bad things happen by running afoul/into these laws, or good things as well. When "God" acts in contrary to these laws, we label these "miracles".
It's been way too long since I've read my Aquanis, but orthodox Christians believe in a "rational" God, ie.) one that apperars (as far as our fallen, feeble minds can discern) only contravenes Nature in unique circumstances in ways which make His ways apparent to us.
But, then I'm just a chemist, not a logician or theologian, so I'm not the best person to argue this stuff.
I wonder why that is.....
(Of course I know why, just as each and every one of you do too)
Yes, the reason for this is that Christianity is traditionally given a free pass. Oh, you are thinking that the opposite is true and only Islam gets a pass. I think not.
Remember that whenever you pray for victory in the Iraq War, you are praying for the death and dismemberment of human beings who have nothing to do with terrorism. c.f. Mark Twain's The War Prayer.
If one's God is strong and just, then surely that god could and would simply make the evil ones vanish, rather than aiding humans in the inhumanity of war.
Does god decide who to smite based on prayers from men? Is it like a poll?
Remember that whenever you imagine Saddam & Sons' Iraq was absent death and dismemberment (recall CNN's Eason Jordan), or was absent its support of domestic and exported terror in general, or was absent its regional and global destablizing influences, or was absent the UN's Oil for Bribes scandal - remember that such imaginings have no impact in the real world. No matter how "strong and just" those imaginings, no matter how aesthetically pleasing, no matter how great the ideality you're able to imagine - they will have no impact in the real world.
Though too, all that assumes the real world is something you're attempting to come to terms with in the first place, rather than escapist imaginings, reminiscent of post-April, 1975, the brave and heady days of many and great triumphalist imaginings.
Again, this can be said about any prayer. It's not a specific objection to prayers that God kill someone.
Excuse me for pointing this out, but Saddam is dead and innocent civilians are still dying in Iraq and people are still praying for victory. Your point is outdated.
A God could just end the war right now. That would be the humane thing to do, unfortunately humane and divine are not synonyms when it comes to the treatment of people.
Actually, I'm not sure what your point is.
Go play Clue. You have absolutely no idea what I was saying. Playing the game once should give you an idea.
Nick
A deftly handled combination, scote. But no, very much to the contrary.
I agree. So what? So, does god decide who to smite based on prayers from men? Is it like a poll?
If you agree, I don't really have any dispute with you. My beef is with people who think that there's something specially bad about this as compared to prayer in general.
There may be the occasional person like you who thinks that praying for someone's death is absurd merely because praying for anything is absurd. But that is *not* why most of the outrage is being expressed. The outrage is at the idea of praying for someone to die, not at the idea of praying.