Praying for death

Wiley Drake, a former 2nd Vice President of the Southern Baptist Convention, a former VP candidate for the American Independent Party (running with Alan Keyes), and the current minister of the First Southern Baptist Church in Buena Vista California, has been much in the news lately. Drake proudly proclaimed that he had called for imprecatory prayer against George Tiller and is calling for it against President Obama.

Imprecatory prayer can only be 'against' someone. It is based on an interpretation of scripture, primarily of certain Psalms, Psalm 109 as one example, that God's people should ask God to bring calamity, destruction, and death on those they perceive as their own enemies or enemies to God.

Two quotes from the recent Associated Baptist Press stories - both written by Bob Allen - about Drake are illustrative.

Drake said he prayed nearly 10 years for the salvation of Tiller, medical director of the Women's Health Care Services clinic and an outspoken advocate for abortion rights. About a year ago, Drake said, he switched to what he called "imprecatory prayer."

"I said to the Lord, 'Lord I pray back to you the Psalms, where it says that they are to become widowers and their children are to become orphans and so forth.' And we began calling for those imprecatory prayers, because he had obviously turned his back on God again and again and again," Drake said.

Drake called Tiller "a reprobate" and a "brutal, arrogant murderer" who "bragged on his own website how many babies he had killed."

"Would you have rejoiced when Adolf Hitler died during the war?" Drake asked. "Or would you have said, 'Oh that is terrible for him to be killed'? No, I would have said, 'Amen, praise the Lord, hallelujah, I'm glad he's dead.'"

"This man, George Tiller, was far greater in his atrocities than Adolf Hitler," Drake said. "So I am happy. I am glad that he is dead. Now I am sad that he went to hell, because he had a choice just like everybody else did. He could have chosen Jesus Christ and when he died went to heaven. But he chose the devil. He chose to neglect, he chose to reject Jesus Christ. And therefore on Sunday morning when he breathed his last breath there in the Lutheran church, he breathed his last breath, and he slipped into the presence of the devil. And I have a strange hunch and a strange feeling that there is a special, superheated, super-hot place in hell for people like George Tiller."

Quote 2 -

Wiley Drake, pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in Buena Park, Calif., and former running mate of American Independent Party presidential candidate Alan Keyes, said June 2 on Fox News Radio he didn't understand why people were upset with his comments quoted by Associated Baptist Press from a webcast of his daily radio talk show.

"Imprecatory prayer is agreeing with God, and if people don't like that, they need to talk to God," Drake told syndicated talk-show host Alan Colmes. "God said it, I didn't. I was just agreeing with God."

Asked if there are others for whom Drake is praying "imprecatory prayer," Drake hesitated before answering that there are several. "The usurper that is in the White House is one, B. Hussein Obama," he said.

Later in the interview, Colmes returned to Drake's answer to make sure he heard him right.

"Are you praying for his death?" Colmes asked.

"Yes," Drake replied.

"So you're praying for the death of the president of the United States?"

"Yes."

Colmes asked Drake if he was concerned that by saying that he might be placed on a Secret Service or FBI watch list, and if he believed it appropriate to talk or pray that way.

"I think it's appropriate to pray the Word of God," Drake said. "I'm not saying anything. What I am doing is repeating what God is saying, and if that puts me on somebody's list, then I'll just have to be on their list."

"You would like for the president of the United States to die?" Colmes asked once more.

"If he does not turn to God and does not turn his life around, I am asking God to enforce imprecatory prayers that are throughout the Scripture that would cause him death, that's correct."

What do you think about all of this?

Religious Killers

What do you call someone who kills in the name of his or her faith?

Some are called "terrorists." Others are called "heroes."

The words you choose to use depend a lot on the religious faith of the person committing the act of violence and your religious faith. It is significantly easier to call someone of another faith a "terrorist" than to use that same label for someone of your faith.

With the second violent attack taking place within the last two weeks - the murder of George Tiller in Wichita and the murder of Stephen Johns at the Holocaust Museum - this should cause us to consider how people use religious faith to justify violence. That might be a good discussion for the members of your faith group to have.

What do I call someone who kills in the name of his or her faith? I call them what they are - killers.