Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Prayer for Obama: When Hate Invokes the Bible

Apparently over the last few weeks, a new slogan has been gaining some momentum among those opposed to President Obama. The slogan has been used as an email signature and on hats, buttons, shirts, and bumper stickers:

lets_all_pray_for_obama_bumper_sticker-p128174371548093129tmn6_210On its face, this looks like a pretty nice sentiment. That is until we read what Psalm 109:8 says ("I’m using the King James Bible; I doubt those responsible for the sentiments expressed by this bumper sticker read the Hebrew Bible):

Let his days be few; and let another take his office

Um. OK. Not terribly nice, but I guess it isn’t much different than the bumper stickers that said 1/20/2009 referring to the day that President George W. Bush’s successor would be inaugurated (and, hence, President Bush’s term in office would end). I mean, it looks like this is simply a prayer that President Obama serves a single term; after all, nobody would pray for President Obama to die, right? Well, no (remember the videos of the Arizona pastor praying for President Obama’s death…).

Unfortunately, this prayer is not quite so benign; the quotation from Psalms takes on a much different, and much more dangerous connotation, when read in conjunction with the lines that follow:

8Let his days be few; and let another take his office.

9Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.

10Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg: let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places.

11Let the extortioner catch all that he hath; and let the strangers spoil his labour.

12Let there be none to extend mercy unto him: neither let there be any to favour his fatherless children.

13Let his posterity be cut off; and in the generation following let their name be blotted out.

14Let the iniquity of his fathers be remembered with the LORD; and let not the sin of his mother be blotted out.

Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow? Sorry, but that sounds like people are praying for President Obama to die, maybe even praying for his assassination. If you see someone with one of these bumper stickers or hats, ask them how they can in good conscience, no matter whether they agree with President Obama’s policies or not, pray for his death and for his daughters to become fatherless vagabonds. Ask them how they could ever utter such wishes for anyone. Then ask them what could possibly make them hate anybody so much. Heck, while your at it, ask ’em What Would Jesus Do?

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2 Comments:

At Tuesday, September 11, 2012 11:46:00 AM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

Naw. Just verse 8. Not praying for anything more. Frankly, verse "8b" would be sufficient.

-Paul L.

 
At Tuesday, September 11, 2012 12:23:00 PM , Blogger MSWallack said...

Sorry, Paul. Hard to take seriously the notion that anybody is going to make the effort to recite one line of a particular psalm without any relation to the lines immediately following that psalm.

 

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