Prayer at the DNC

Between Two Worlds has a transcript of Donald Miller’s prayer at the Democratic National Convention. Gene Veith has more on the service and links to more, including info on the main sermon by a nun who claimed that if God allowed His Son to be sacrificed for the sins of the world, He would be an “ogre.” Lovely.

With that in mind, this seems an entirely appropriate kickoff.  Miller’s prayer is blockquoted, my additional prayers are interspersed and the whole thing is italicized.

Please join me for the next few moments in our Benediction.
“Father God,
This week, as the world looks on, help the leaders in this room create a civil dialogue about our future.
We need you, God, as individuals and also as a nation.
We need you to protect us from our enemies, but also from ourselves, because we are easily tempted toward apathy.
Give us a passion to advance opportunities for the least of these, for widows and orphans, for single moms and children whose fathers have left.
Give us the eyes to see them, and the ears to hear them, and hands willing to serve them.

Give the church the heart to serve them, as mandated by the bible.  Give us, also, the wisdom to reject the social justice “gospel” which serves to glorify government, not You, and therefore should be avoided at all costs.  It’s an anti-gospel just as much as the prosperity gospel is.  As a nation, help us serve single mothers and orphans by cultivating an attitude that men are necessary, critical parts of a child’s upbringing, and not an optional accessory.  Help us accept that the problem isn’t the lack of action on the part of the government.  The problem is our culture and what we’re willing to accept.  Give us repentance for the way we partake of this sick culture, and turn our hearts toward building your kingdom instead of a worldly one.

Help us serve people, not just causes. And stand up to specific injustices rather than vague notions.

Like forcible income redistribution, for example.  And the murder of millions of babies because they’re inconvenient.

Give those in this room who have power, along with those who will meet next week, the courage to work together to finally provide health care to those who don’t have any, and a living wage so families can thrive rather than struggle.

And give them, also, the understanding that “free” health care is impossible, and is beginning to be abandoned by other countries so it would be beyond stupid to try it here.  Let them understand that minimum wage was never intended to support a family - it’s a starting point and that it’s a statistical, though inconvenient fact, that raising it actually takes jobs away from the people who need them most.

Help us figure out how to pay teachers what they deserve and give children an equal opportunity to get a college education.

Help us also understand that continuing to pump money into a system that cannot manage to educate children adequately even at an average of $10,000 per pupil per year is foolish indeed.  If the system can’t get by on $300,000 per classroom, teacher pay really isn’t the problem we should be addressing.  And since additional money doesn’t seem to solve the problem - when the D.C. school system can’t educate children on nearly $25k per pupil - help us to accept that we need to stop throwing money at this problem and take an honest look at why our children are not being educated.

Help us figure out the balance between economic opportunity and corporate gluttony.

Help us to find verses in the bible that condemn “corporate gluttony” in order to support this concept, because so far all we can find are verses against personal greed, covetousness and avarice.

We have tried to solve these problems ourselves but they are still there. We need your help.

Forgive us for our hubris.  Lord, help us to define the problems in the light of your Word, and solve them not for our own comfort, convenience, or to try to build a perfect nation, but for your glory, which should always be our primary focus.

Father, will you restore our moral standing in the world?  A lot of people don’t like us but that’s because they don’t know the heart of the average American.
Will you give us favor and forgiveness, along with our allies around the world?
Help us be an example of humility and strength once again.

Lord, give us personal repentance and a willingness to reject our deplorable culture.  And a heart to glorify you instead of ourselves.  Help us to understand that anecdotes or even scientific surveys about what other people think of our country are entirely irrelevant.  Help us to understand that our standing before YOU is all that matters.

Lastly, father, unify us.
Even in our diversity help us see how much we have in common.

Let us see that regardless of race or any other defining characteristic, we are above all sinners who are unworthy of your mercy and grace, entitled to nothing but eternal damnation.

And unify us not just in our ideas and in our sentiments—but in our actions, as we look around and figure out something we can do to help create an America even greater than the one we have come to cherish.

But more importantly, show us your will and how we can help build your eternal kingdom, because while America may be a great country as countries go, like our lives, it is still only a vapor.  Help us to treasure the idea of eternity with you.

God we know that you are good.
Thank you for blessing us in so many ways as Americans.

And give us repentance for taking our freedom and wealth for granted.  Continue to motivate us on a personal level to help the less fortunate - while we are already incredibly generous in terms of the rest of the world, we could be doing so much more.

I make these requests in the name of your son, Jesus, who gave his own life against the forces of injustice.

and help us to view Jesus properly, not as a victim of outside, more powerful forces who took his life away from Him but as the willing Lamb of God; the sacrifice who made a way for us to stand in the presence of You, a holy God.

Let Him be our example.

as we daily pick up our crosses and sacrifice our sinful natures and personal desires for Your glory.

Amen.”

Democrats certainly haven’t cornered the market on twisting the faith in order to accommodate political views, but I think the views they are trying to accommodate are far more unbiblical than those the GOP espouses.  Still, I’d sooner see less overt religion in both parties.  It’s one thing for your faith to inform your political views - as faith should be the bedrock of every part of our lives, from how we vote to what we choose to watch on TV - and quite another to make it overtly political, the way Huckabee, for example, has done.

As to the whole concept of an interfaith service - I reject it utterly.  This interfaith service did not glorify God or lead people to the truth - that there is only one way to get to Him.  Instead,

there were readings from the Torah, the Sutra Nipata, the Koran, and more from the Old Testament. No New Testament. It is unsurprising that no reading contained a claim of exclusivity or, for that matter, any claim that adherents of a different religion would disagree with. Rather than using proper names to refer to prophets or deities, clergy tend to overload on pronouns and non-descript names. “Lord,” rather than “Jesus.” “The God of Leviticus” becomes “Holy One of Blessing.”

I simply do not understand how any Christian could take part in planning or leading such a service.