A Little Talk with the Man Who Prayed for Obama's Death

Even by the nut case standard of the assorted pack of neo-Nazi unreconstructed Klan members, Aryan Nation haters, and the legion of loose screw religious cranks and loonies, the Reverend Wiley S. Drake's public prayer for the death of President Obama stretched far past the outer limit of credulity. The unrepentant Drake did not back away from the prayer when asked about it by Alan Colmes on Fox News Radio on June 2. He pleaded that he didn't understand why people were upset with his comments.

Drake is not just a garden variety religious crank. In 2006, he reigned as the second vice president of the nearly 20 million strong Southern Baptist Convention. The group is by far the nation's biggest evangelical denomination. He pastors a bonafide church, the First Southern Baptist Church in the middle-class bedroom city of Buena Park, California. Drake has his own popular radio show on the Crusade Radio Network. In April, Southern Baptist Convention spokesperson Richard Land even had kind words for Obama for his family values emphasis.

Convention officials, though, were far less forthright about Wiley's death prayer death for Obama. It issued a perfunctory statement saying that his views were his and his alone. It did not vigorously denounce those views, especially his Obama death prayer.

Wiley skirted the legal definition of what constitutes a threat to the president by attributing the death prayer to a phony, made up prayer from God. The operative term is willful in the federal statute that makes it an offense to threaten the president. It's punishable by up to five years in prison. Every year, the Secret Service investigates about 1500 reported or discovered threats to the president. Drake's God attribute threat didn't escape their attention.

But Drake doesn't just speak for Drake, and a handful of cranks, but says what more than a few ultra conservative, religious fundamentalists actually think and belief, and in their scariest and darkest moments the violence they actually wish for. With the murder of Kansas abortion provider Dr. George Tiller, the Holocaust Museum shoot-up, the recent report from the Southern Poverty Law Center on a surge in hate groups, and the demand by a worried US Attorney General Eric Holder for a tougher hate law, death threats against public figures can't be shrugged off.

This writer, however, couldn't let Drake's purported death prayer on Obama lightly pass. So I had a little talk with him mostly to give him another chance to back off his prayer.
Here's an excerpt from the June 19 talk with Drake:

"Did you actually pray for President Obama's death?"

"No, I was merely citing an imprecatory prayer which in scripture is a prayer mandated by God to smite down the enemies....those that do evil."

"So you're saying that you did not actually call for Obama's death?"

"I was asked in an interview about the murder of Kansas doctor George Tiller and I said in an imprecatory prayer that Tiller who was responsible for the murder of thousands of children was given a chance at salvation and that didn't happen so he was condemned in prayer to die. I had no regrets about his death. I was then asked if the imprecatory prayer for the death of evil doers could even extend to the president. I said yes. I was merely citing a prayer."

"Do you stand by that?"

"Unfortunately in the interview I said Obama. I'm not wanting (sic) the president dead. The prayer for his death is not my prayer but comes from God."

Drake said since the story hit he's gotten personal death threats and threats to picket and even burn down his church. The unrepentant Drake laughed them off saying he had nothing to fear since he was doing God's work.

A final question:

"Pastor will you come on my weekly radio show and explain to listeners the reason for citing a prayer against the president?"

"I'd better talk to my attorney first."

Stay tuned on that one.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His weekly radio show, "The Hutchinson Report" can be heard weekly in Los Angeles Fridays on KTYM Radio 1460 AM and live streamed nationally on ktym.com

Comments

[steveobviously]

marx was wrong! religion isn't the opium of the masses. religion is the PCP of the masses!

[JohnFromCensornati]

The Love Boat.

[HeevenSteven]

PCP on steroids.

[Freesia2]

I didn't know about this. I don't know how I could have not because it's a fear I have all the time. I read even though it makes my breath stop. It's strange to be more afraid of "good church goin' folk" here in America than of any radical from outside.

Southern Baptist Convention. It figures. Coming from that region of the country where they flourish I can tell you they hold authority over the thoughts and minds of the people. And so if they decide to support, even by not rejecting, the likes of this preacher then don't discount the implied permission that that gives to various Christian soldiers, better known as yahoos. Armed yahoos.

A preacher. A man of the cloth. How could he? I'm a Christian (try to be - fail often) so I'll do what the Southern Baptist Convention won't. I renounce him.

That didn't help a thing. These deranged talibangelicals scare me spitless, Mr. Hutchinson.

[BuzzingAlong]

You haven't heard any of the republicans in Congress or people like Newt, Fred Thompson, Buchanan, or Wolf or Schieffer condemn this kind of gargage either.

I would wonder why, except I already know.

As do you.

[harriscrl3]

If I believe in the bible and religion for a hot second I think that when they warn peole about beware of false prophets they were talking about the religous right seriously. Because there is no more false and faker prophets than them and I hope that I get to see the day when they finally get that they themselves are the FALSE Prophets that they warned about millenia's ago.

Carol

[been2there]

People who misuse the Bible are guilty of misusing the Bible, just as those who misuse guns are guilty of misusing guns. Guns, like the Bible, are potential--and potential can be used constructively or not. Drake is misusing the Bible, and I hope to God that none of his sheeple misuse a gun. If one does, Drake will, I think, answer to God, and I admit that I will find that no consolation at all.

[kathy001]

It must be so nice to be a Christian. You can do or say anything you want - lie, kill, enslave - as long as you loudly proclaim that it is "Gawd's Will"!

[Betty23]

Please don't lump all Christians under the same umbrella. I am a born again Christian that voted for Pres. Obama. I am pro life and I renounce this man's statements concerning the president and the death of Dr Tlller. I believe all life is sacred.

[kathy001]

If you are a Christians who actually follows the teachings of Jesus, then I apologize and I applaud you for renouncing the hate-mongers.

[JustJoy7]

The problem with the Bible, old or new testament, is that a "perfect" God is described by "imperfect" mortal MEN...yes Men, because at that time, women were mere chattel and had no say in anything. So the question is how authentic can a body of works by when it is described by mortal, imperfect men who described according to their own personal feelings. They put it out as the WORD of GOD!!! and since, we have bought it hook, line, and sinker, with no one being able to interpret it. Instead, everyone gives their own spin on what is meant. However, no matter what they meant, it's irrelevant because it didn't come from a GOD to start with, it came from mortal, imperfect men with their own personal agenda.

This is all right if the admonition is to help people live better and deal with their fellow humans in a good and decent way, but call it that. Don't say it's a word from a God that no one has ever spoken to. We can call God as a spirit the spirit of goodness, but to say they are the words of a God is a test for all of us. The tings that we do and say in the name of a loving God are truly contradictory of who we say God represents. Worldwide, most of the worst evil is in the name of God.

[JustJoy7]

The sad fallacy is that we have no way of knowing who is and who isn't crazy. Using God is the password for doing evil, and when a crazed "preacher" stands before a body of people and plants this kind of evil, there is no way of knowing who amongst them will take it as a mandate from "God" to carry out such evil. EVERYTHING IS MENTAL, and the sick mind handles this kind of demagoguery as doing what God would want them to do.

We condemn smoking, drinking, being gay, you name it; yet, we allow people to outwardly damage through mental abuse. If this is what the good reverend wants, you can be sure that he is too chicken to carry out such an act, mandated by God, himself; instead, he plants it in the minds of the weak who are more likely to actually do something this vile and then say they are happy about the act as he feels about Dr. Tiller.

We are a nation of misplaced laws.

[PlanetKansas]

Viruses, mold, mildew, maggots, fungus, weeds, the e-coli bacteria, the crabs...nothing sacred about those things. So, at best, the sanctity of life is kind of a selective thing. We get to choose which forms of life we feel are sacred, and we get to kill the rest. Pretty neat deal, huh? You know how we got it? We made the whole f***ing thing up!

-George Carlin

[xmlman]

Note that this wacko believes he can do no wrong because "he's doing God's work." Religion in general and cristianity specifically are a curse on mankind. The world will be a better place when religion is eradicated.

[signwitch]

"christian values"...."religious right".... what a joke - except that this ain't freaking funny. he and his ilk are a clear and present threat and should be dealt with as such. he's using his highly visible pulpit to solicit - at the very least - ill will toward our president - and at the very worst, assassination. free speech crosses the line when it advocates the death of another!

[starlitangel913]

Personally, I think this guy *should* be charged with making a threat towards the President. There are enough right wing loonies out there that would think it was "God's Will" to shoot him or something. Seriously, why isn't this kind of stuff taken more seriously? I think once a church starts having preachers spouting off politics they should lose the tax exempt status they so cherish. This means all of them, not just right wing, but left wing as well.

[Rogan]

I agree. I would go so far as to advocate that church services be monitored, to ensure political matters are not spoken of from the pulpit.

[jazzdrummerb]

Wrong solution.

[zeotrope]

Don't you have enough spying already?

[minimalist syntax]

maybe you could monitor their phones, email, and twitter accounts.

[research]

Christians are supposed to follow the words and example of Jesus in the Gospels.

As Jesus dies on the cross he forgave his executioners:

Forgive them father, for they know not what they do.

Drake and his ilk are Fake Christians.

[minimalist syntax]

I agree with you.

[JohnFromCensornati]

So, he asked himself to forgive them? Or, was he asking some other god?

[karinova]

You nailed it.
Fake Christians want to act like God.

They're supposed to be trying to act like Jesus.
Big. Difference.

[Rogan]

Unfortunately, once you have the idea that your religious beliefs and practices make you, literally, a better person than most others, and give you more insight into the real "reality," which you believe to be mostly invisible one way or another, you're already sliding down a slippery slope, that eventually transforms you into the kind of person the pastor excoriated in this article obviously is.

[kwinter]

Sometimes, in the bible, when someone asked for their god's assistance in smiting someone, they offered some kind of sacrifice.

Some were even willing to kill their own kids.

Burnt flesh was "a sweet savour unto the Lord".

I wonder what, or who, Drake might have been prepared to offer up in this bargain?

[minimalist syntax]

I think the real source of imprecatory prayers are the psalms. And in the psalms, God's kingship is developed and the enemies to be smote were the enemies of the king-- that is, God's spiritual enemies. It is truly hubris to believe that one's own enemies are also God's enemies, as Gidster points out.
Abraham is obedient to God who asks him to sacrifice his son, Isaac, and then stops him because the Jews are not supposed to be like the surrounding cultures/religions who did routinely practice child sacrifice. God's point is the true universal god would never demand the sacrifice of a child, unlike the false gods.

Only a fundamentalist would read things like Exodus 22:22-30 and similar passages as meaning God demands the sacrifice of children. The mention of offering a first born son as a sacrifice is to introduce the idea that God will offer His own son as a sacrifice to recreate the world.

[kwinter]

I've often heard xians say, god was testing Abraham, but it worked out okay because god stopped him.
I have 2 problems with that.
1. It was a cruel test. What kind of god would put someone through that kind of agony?
2. If a god is omniscient, why would he need to test anyone? Wouldn't he already know whether they would pass or fail?

If ... "God's point is the true universal god would never demand the sacrifice of a child, unlike the false gods." ... then why did he NOT stop all fathers from sacrificing their children to him?

Abraham was not the story I was referring to ... think again.

[HeevenSteven]

"The mention of offering a first born son as a sacrifice is to introduce the idea that God will offer His own son as a sacrifice to recreate the world."

So the author of Exodus knew that the future messiah would be known as the son of god, and would be sacrificed? That's the first time I've ever heard that interpretation.

[dwillisno1]

The prayer for his death is not my prayer but comes from God."

Holier than thou version of "the devil made me do it."

[tbone99]

God prays to himself?
Now thats narcissm!

[WilliamRC]

All the crazy ones seem to be appearing all of a sudden.