Christian Leaders Pray For President Trump
[guest post by Dana]
Last week, a photo of President Trump being prayed for by evangelical leaders and Vice President Pence made the rounds.
In a Facebook post, Pastor Rodney Howard-Browne, who was part of the prayer group, shared this:
Yesterday was very surreal for @ahowardbrowne & I. 30 years ago we came from South Africa to America as missionaries. Yesterday I was asked by Pastor Paula White-Cain to pray over our 45th President – what a humbling moment standing in the Oval Office – laying hands and praying for our President – Supernatural Wisdom, Guidance and Protection – who could ever even imagine – wow – we are going to see another great spiritual awakening…
Howard-Browne further clarified that what took place “was normal, what a lot of us pray when we pray for elected officials. It was like a meeting of friends.”
When I first saw the photo, I reacted with cynicism: Evangelicals. Pfft. Trump. Pfft. All sorts of nuttery rolled into one photo. But then I thought about it. Say what you will about evangelicals, President Trump, and prayer, but I don’t know why anyone would object to prayers going up for a president. Particularly this one. While only God can say if these were the prayers of righteous men, I think it’s a positive thing when anyone, anywhere asks God to grant Trump wisdom. How could it not be?
Anyway, as a reminder, Trump’s claims of Christianity have been questionable and conveniently timed, in light of an impending election. Consider when asked about seeking God’s forgiveness in this life, then-candidate Trump said,
“I have great relationship with God. I have great relationship with the Evangelicals,” Trump said in the interview before pivoting to his poll numbers among Evangelical voters.
“I like to be good. I don’t like to have to ask for forgiveness. And I am good. I don’t do a lot of things that are bad. I try to do nothing that is bad.”
…
Trump told Republican pollster and focus-group guru Frank Luntz that when the real-estate mogul has done something wrong, he tries to correct his error without getting God involved.
“I am not sure I have,” Trump said when asked if he’d ever asked God for forgiveness. “I just go on and try to do a better job from there. I don’t think so,” he said. “I think if I do something wrong, I think, I just try and make it right. I don’t bring God into that picture. I don’t.”
To me, his comments revealed an individual completely unfamiliar with the Christian faith, mankind’s fall from grace, and the personal relationship between the believer and God. And yet, he somehow managed to con(vince) any number of leaders in the Christian church that he was the real deal.
But to answer the question of whether anyone objected to the president being prayed for, it appears they did. The Washington Post dug up a pretty dumb example from a supposed Christian, because why choose a robust and challenging objection intelligently articulated by a solid Christian when you can instead choose a dumb one because every cosmopolitan knows that Christians = dumb:
The White Wing Evangelical Christians visit the White House, laying hands on Trump. Now Trump thinks he’s Jesus. Sacrilegious.
They also included the objections of a well known Protestant pastor. This in spite of his rank hypocrisy. Consider the Rev. William Barber II, who serves as North Carolina’s NAACP chair and the leader of the protest group, Moral Mondays, which protests against President Trump’s policies:
On MSNBC’s “AM Joy” Saturday morning, Barber called the now-viral photo “theological malpractice bordering on heresy.”
“When you can p-r-a-y for a president and others while they are p-r-e-y, preying on the most vulnerable, you’re violating the most sacred principles of religion,” Barber told host Joy Reid.
Barber considers Trump (and Republicans) hypocrites, because their views and policies are not representative of Jesus’s words about how people are to treat “the least of these.”
When we have this extremist Trump Republican agenda that takes health care, transfers wealth to the greedy, that’s hypocrisy and sin. Seven hundred billion dollars, Joy? You haven’t seen that kind of transfer of wealth on the backs of bodies of people since slavery. Claiming to care about life, but then passing a bill when you know thousands will die — 22 million people, poor, working people will be hurt — that is hypocrisy and sin. When you know it will hurt children, the disabled and veterans, that is sin. That is hypocrisy.
Further, he accused Trump-Ryan-McConnell’s agenda as one of rank “hypocrisy and sin.”
Let me just cut to the chase: Rev. William Barber II exhorting Republicans and the president about Jesus’s commands on how to treat the most vulnerable among us is the same Rev. William Barber II who stood in solidarity with Planned Parenthood to protect the rights of women to have an abortion. This says all anyone needs to know about how much he really cares about who lives and dies and the most vulnerable among us.
These “Christians”. As a believer (albeit one who no longer attends church and has no intention of taking up the practice again), this is really frustrating. The hypocrisy of Trump, the hypocrisy of Barber, the seedy efforts of church leaders to convince voters that Trump was someone that he really wasn’t brought to mind a question that filmmaker Ken Burns asked during a recent interview. And it’s one that I’ve been chewing over. (Yes, I’m talking about that Ken Burns. The one about whom we can say much regarding his politics, historical views, etc., but this post isn’t about that.) He has simply articulated a compelling question, and one that I wish I could answer. But I can’t.
“The Republican Party has been extraordinarily successful at getting many groups of people to vote against their self-interest. Evangelicals are voting for Donald Trump. What part of Donald Trump reminds you of Jesus Christ? Trump lusts after his own daughter on national radio, talks about women’s bodies and breasts in such a disparaging way, and mocks them. How is this in any way Christian? When you make the “other” the enemy, how is that Christian?”
(Cross-posted at The Jury Talks Back.)
–Dana