"Bush & McCain & Pray for Rain"

It's a beautiful day
Don't let it get away
It's a beautiful day

- Bono

It didn't rain in Denver yesterday afternoon and evening. It was a beautiful day.

What does the weather have to do with faith? Nothing--unless you're a right-wing pseudo-Christian.

Could it be that God has placed a block on the prayer line from James Dobson? A couple of weeks ago, just down the interstate in Colorado Springs, Dr. Dobson's Focus on the Family organization put out an Internet video asking people to pray for rain.

Although one would think that a leading self-identified Christian might pray for peace, there's nothing inherently wrong with praying for rain . . . if the prayer is to bring rain to a region in the midst of a drought.

A genuine Christian would do that. It's not surprising, therefore, that Dr. Dobson's group chose not to pray for peace (which is of no particular interest to them; they are awaiting the Greater Gory of Christ in Armageddon).

Nor is it surprising that the weather they were asking people to pray for was "network-cameras-can't-see-the-podium rain" during Barack Obama's outdoor acceptance speech at Mile High Stadium last evening.

The weather turned out to be beautiful. We await a reaction from Dr. Dobson.

Dobson and the "Christian Right" are reduced to a variant of the slogan used by Boston Braves fans in the late 1940s, when the team had only two good pitchers, "Spahn and Sain and pray for rain":

"Bush and McCain and pray for rain."

It's nothing new for the pseudo-Christians of the "Religious Right"--the people I call Jesus Thieves in my new book, Grand Theft Jesus: The Hijacking of Religion in America--to be calling on God to use weather to further their political agenda. But they find it easier to see the hand of God in Weather of Mass Destruction after the fact than in praying for it in advance.

Dr. Dobson was calling for divine intervention in the weather for political purposes on the eve today's third anniversary of the devastation of New Orleans and the Mississippi coast by Hurricane Katrina. That terrible event on August 29, 2005, provided a gruesome opportunity for the amazingly disgraceful preachers of the Christian Right to vent their perversions of Christianity and promote their god of vengeance. Like 9/11, 8/29 became a number that distorters of the message of Jesus could use to transform that number they are always holding up at football games, "John 3:16" into: "For God so hated the world that he gave his death and destruction, that whoever does not hate gays should perish and have eternal damnation."

"We believe that God is in control of the weather," said Michael Marcavage, head of Repent America, an evangelical group calling for "a nation in rebellion toward God" after the Katrina catastrophe. His interpretation was that God decided to wipe out New Orleans because of homosexuality. "The day Bourbon Street and the French Quarter was flooded was the day that 125,000 homosexuals were going to be celebrating sin in the streets."

Following the December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, Pastor Ted Haggard asserted to his mega-congregation that the waves hit the "number-one exporter of radical Islam," Indonesia. "That's not a judgment," he proclaimed, "it's an opportunity." One of Haggard's congregants said "he was 'psyched' about what God was 'doing with his ocean.'"

There's a word for such claims that God is a Terrorist: blasphemy.

But the advocates of divine weather of mass destruction run into trouble when they call for it in advance. In 1998, another of my nominees for Jesus' Ten Most Unwanted List, Rev. Pat Robertson, predicted that hurricanes would hit Orlando, Florida, after the city displayed support for gay rights. God apparently had something other than smiting those who declined to hate gays on his/her mind at the time. Orlando remained dry.

So did Denver last night.

God is neither a terrorist nor a political partisan.

{Historian Robert S. McElvaine is Elizabeth Chisholm Professor of Arts & Letters at Millsaps College. His latest book is Grand Theft Jesus: The Hijacking of Religion in America .

Comments

[iamajrmonster]

Look what your horrible prayers to your horrible god have wrought. You asked him to cause harm to unwitting people trying to live their lives and he has delivered for you. He seems to either be missing the mark because he is an imperfect and weak god undeserving of human worship, or he is punishing you intentionally by ruining the Republican convention and leaving you with the knowledge that you are to blame for all the harm that comes to innocents as this storm strikes land. It's tragically ironic that in trying to be morally superior to the rest of the world you have gotten it so wrong that the very god you pray to has been inspired to horrible deeds of biblical proportions to make certain that shame and humiliation visits you all for all the damage your misguided efforts have wrought until He put a stop to it with a natural disaster as the answer to a prayer.

[annarkee1]

If a hurricane had come during the Democratic Convention undoubtedly, the religious nuts would claim god had listened to them and sent the deluge. Will they not accept that god, by sending Gustav, has voiced his opinion of the RNC?

[JDHART]

The more irrelevent James Dobson becomes, the meaner he gets. How can praying for nature to make a political point be categorized as good Christian behavior? I wish that Focus on the Family's flock would get the Moral Outrage Stick out of its butt and use some of their religious passion for helping and loving their fellow man.

As it turned out, the Denver weather was beautiful for the Democratic convention while a Stage 5 hurricane threatens the gulf coast just in time to make a political point of its own for the Republicans. I for one celebrate the Lord's use of a good old fashioned bitch slap in answer to frivilous and mean-spirited 'prayers'. I don't wish for any more suffering for the people who live along the gulf coast, but I can't help but think that God is telling Dobson and his ilk this: HA, HA, HA.

[janmarie]

Ask and the Lord shall provide....Gustav on the opening day of the Repub convention!

[lewes17266]

CNN has a CBN reporter offering commentary on behalf of "evangelicals." My eyes teared when I saw it. It is very telling about that network's level of integrity, but more importantly about that network's opinion of "evangelicals." Many FOX people are guests on the 700 Club but CNN actually gives a CBN reporter a job. Many CNN reporters and anchors are aware of Pat Robertson's wrongs and crimes and have knowledge of what he did to me and my family. You can read my profile to understand what I am talking about. Our media could report what they know, yet choose to look the other way and even have a friendly working relationship with CBN, the "news network" run by Pat Robertson.
Mr. McElvaine, thank you for your efforts, but the very people who could and should be exposing the frauds are the ones giving them credibility and the welcome mat. Someone like me has no power against such widespread collusion and apathy. Our lawmakers do not care either even though fraud is a crime in this country. Televangelists have a license to lie and to cheat and to steal and to claim that God has blessed them. Their victims are many. It is a sad scam.

[donbrown]

What karmic retribution for Hurricane Gustav to head straight for the Gulf Coast AND oil rigs just as Bush is scheduled to speak at the Republican Convention on Monday.

Perhaps there is a GOD after all....and he's on OUR side.

[Saitia]

All real prayer is answered. . . even backward, selfish and hateful prayer. But very often the answer is so completely different from what teh stupid prayed for, they fail to recognize the answer-- like the fabulous weather that God delivered to Mile-Hi Stadium last night, and the possible hurricane bearing down on the neglecters of Katrina Convention. . . Atheists looking for proof there's a God: Are you paying attention? LOL.

[Arvadaco]

Great story on these religious nuts, Mr McElvaine! After their rousing failure in praying for rain last night here in Denver, I am hoping that they try to pray up a blizzard for DC on January 20th.

[lewes17266]

I think the Robertson prediction was actually that “earthquakes, tornadoes and possibly even a meteor” would hit Orlando for inviting gays to Disney World.

It is dumbfounding to me that such glaring frauds are ever taken seriously about anything.

[PATina]

Awwww... but isn't it beautifully ironic that the Republican convention may be "delayed" because of rain (Hurricaine Gustav)?

[silverball]

....what are they going to say when gustav hits new orleans and reminds everyone of the current occupants failures re: katrina...??? and during the repugs convention­!!!....DUH­...hey, maybe it IS god speaking..­...LOL....­."HE' decides...they report....LOL.....

[ESerafina42]

Yes - were they so busy praying for their little "practical joke" that they forget to pray for hurricanes NOT to hit and possibly KILL people?

[Herrington]

Thank you for reminding the public that God is not necessarily a dick and that Dobson et. al. certainly are. Gotta love that power of prayer. Of course the flock will simply be admonished that they did not pray hard enough, and thus are in need of the cleansing redemtion of donating more money to the church. Makes me laugh so hard I throw up.