Sean Feucht, wearing an “it’s not political, its spiritual” t-shirt, joins Samuel Rodriguez and Eric Metaxas in praying before Thursday night’s Trump-Biden debate. Praying for our leaders is a good thing. Using prayer as a political weapon is not a Christian practice.
Watch:
2:04: Samuel Rodriguez, one of Trump’s original court evangelicals, says that the “battle is not between the donkey and the elephant, the battle is between the serpent and the lamb.” Spiritual warfare–an engagement between God and the forces of evil–is what often passes today for Christian political engagement today.
2:22ff: Rodriguez says that the debate “will differentiate between truth and darkness.” Rodriguez was right. Trump lied more than 30 times in the debate and we all witnessed it. Trump is a purveyor of “darkness.”
2:58: Rodriguez continues: “We need every single follower of Jesus to intercede and intervene and pray for the Holy Spirit to anoint President Trump in order to advance an agenda that reconciles righteousness with justice and truth with love.” I don’t normally associate the words “righteousness,” “justice,” “truth,” the “love” with Donald Trump.
3:29ff: Rodriguez starts praying. He tells God that “we already understand that this debate has been rigged because those that will be moderating are not committed at all to the lamb’s agenda.” Actually, one might say that CNN’s Jake Tapper and Dana Bash did help the “lamb’s agenda” (as Rodriguez understands it) by not fact-checking Trump during the debate. 😉
3:54: Rodriguez prays that God would let “truth emerge.” Apparently God did not answer that prayer.
5:26ff: Eric Metaxas says that the debate is a “joke” and a “set-up.” He then argues that America is exceptional because God created it that way. It is not like other countries.
7:20ff: Metaxas suggests we must vote for Trump because God can use people who are flawed. Nothing, of course, about God using a flawed Joe Biden.
7:30ff: Metaxas implies that anyone who does not vote for Trump is “serving the devil” and “demonic.” This kind of certainty is the mark of fundamentalism. It claims to know the mind of God and rejects the mystery of faith.
10:00ff: Samuel Rodriguez says this is the most important election in American history. One of the reasons this election is so important is because of all the “pedophilia” going on right now.
11:50ff: Metaxas believes that this is the most important election in American history because “we are sliding over the abyss.” As you listen, notice the faith these “prophets” put in the United States to advance God’s purposes in the world.
13:00ff: Metaxas starts praying. He asks God to “humiliate those who have tried to humiliate those who love you and who serve you and who love America.” I am sure that Metaxas believes that Biden’s confusion at the start of the debate was a direct answer to this prayer.
14:00: Metaxas prays for an “anointing on Donald Trump that he would say things that are from you.”
14:39: Metaxas prays that God would “shut the mouth of the liar.” Apparently that prayer went unanswered.
14:42ff: Metaxas asks God to make CNN and the Democratic Party regret hosting this debate.
14:54: Metaxas prays that God’s “kingdom would come in this nation as in heaven.” Actually, the line in the Lord’s Prayer is “thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
16:15ff: Feucht asks God to make the 2024 election the “strongest vote for Christians in the history of our nation.”
17:50ff: Feucht says that when people ask him about Trump’s moral problems he tells them that God has called Trump “for this hour.”
I have been a Christian my entire life and I do not recognize this kind of political language as Christian prayer.
Such nonsense. This hardly qualifies as true prayer, “. Prayer is an offering up of our desires unto God, for things agreeable to his will, in the name of Christ, with confession of our sins, and thankful acknowledgment of his mercies.”