We say and hear many prayers every Sunday such as: “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name; Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.” This prayer is ripe with meaning, and it must guide our decisions and behavior. That’s why we pray it.
Therefore, it is instructive to listen to prayers addressed to large audiences to understand what is being requested of God. What follows is startling, outrageous, and blasphemous. I provide this article to inform, not to push a particular political position or candidate. WWJS (What Would Jesus Say)?
What follows is unsettling. We Catholics should be very concerned and far more upset than what happened at the Olympics opening ceremony with what appeared to be a foolish and insensitive parody of the Last Supper.
The Most Revealing Moment of a Trump Rally: A close reading of the prayers delivered before the former president speaks – Special Preview of September 2024 issue of “The Atlantic” by McKay Coppins (July 29, 2024)
(begin) A WEEK BEFORE CHRISTMAS, an evangelical minister named Paul Terry stood before thousands of Christians, their heads bowed, in Durham, New Hampshire, and pleaded with God for deliverance. The nation was in crisis, he told the Lord—racked with death and addiction, led by wicked men who “rule with imperial disdain.” “With every passing day,” the minister said, “we slip farther and farther into George Orwell’s tyrannical dystopia.”
But because God is merciful, there was reason for hope. One man stood ready to redeem the country: Donald Trump. And he was about to come onstage. “We know what he did for us and how he strove to lead us in honorable ways during his term as our president—in ways that brought your blessings to us, rather than your reproach and judgment,” Terry prayed. “We know the hour is late. We know that time grows shorter for us to be saved and revived.” When he finished in the name of Jesus Christ, Amens echoed through the hall. Soon Trump appeared to rapturous applause and Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the U.S.A.”
For all the exhaustive coverage of Trump’s campaign rallies, even before the assassination attempt at one of them in July, relatively little attention has been paid to the prayers that start each one. These invocations aren’t broadcast live on cable news, nor do they typically attract the interest of journalists, who gravitate toward the more impious utterances of the candidate himself. But the prayers offered before Trump speaks illuminate this perilous moment in American politics just as well as anything he says from the podium. And they help explain how the stakes of this year’s election have come to feel so apocalyptically high.
To understand the evolving psychology and beliefs of Trump’s religious supporters, I attempted to review every prayer offered at his campaign events since he announced in November 2022 that he would run again. Working with a researcher, I compiled 58 in total, the most recent from June 2024. The resulting document—at just over 17,000 words—makes for a strange, revealing religious text: benign in some places, blasphemous in others; contradictory and poignant and frightening and sad and, perhaps most of all, begging for exegesis.
There are many ways to parse the text. You could compare the number of times Trump’s name is mentioned (87) versus Jesus Christ’s (61). You could break down the demographics of the people leading the prayers: 45 men and 13 women; overwhelmingly evangelical, with disproportionate representation from Pentecostalism, a charismatic branch of Christianity that emphasizes supernatural faith healing and speaking in tongues. One might also be tempted to catalog the most comically incendiary lines (“Oh Lord, our Lord, we want to be awake and not woke”). But the most interesting way to look at these prayers is to examine the theological motifs that run through them.
The scripture verse that’s cited most frequently in the prayers comes from 2 Chronicles. “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”
Ryan Burge, a Baptist minister and political scientist I asked to review the prayers, told me that this verse—which is quoted 10 times—is regularly cited by evangelicals to advance a popular conservative-Christian narrative: that America, like ancient Israel before it, has broken its special covenant with God and is suffering the consequences. “The Old Testament prophets they’re quoting talk about sin collectively instead of individually—the nation has fallen into wickedness and needs healing,” Burge said. “The way they use this verse presupposes that we’re spiraling down the tubes.”
The premise of all of these prayers is that America’s covenant can be reestablished, and its special place in God’s kingdom restored, if the nation repents and turns back to him. Trump’s supporters attribute America’s fall from grace to a variety of national sins old and new: prayer bans in public schools, illegal immigration, pro-transgender policies, the purported rigging of a certain recent election. Whatever the specifics, the picture of America they paint is almost universally—biblically—bleak.
In Wildwood, New Jersey, a pastor declared, “Our nation finds itself in turmoil, chaos, and dysfunction.” In Fort Dodge, Iowa, the sentiment was similar: “Lies, corruption, and propaganda are driving civilization to ruins.” In Conway, South Carolina, one supplicant informed God, “Our enemies are trying to steal, kill, and destroy our America, so we need you to intervene.”
The premise of all of these prayers is that America’s covenant can be reestablished, and its special place in God’s kingdom restored, if the nation repents and turns back to him. Burge told me that these ideas have long percolated on the religious right. What’s new is how many Christians now seem convinced that God has anointed a specific leader who, like those prophets of old, is prepared to defeat the forces of evil and redeem the country. And that leader is running for president. (end)
We Catholics are a particular breed of Cristians. We are to remember Jesus’s sacrifice for us, that his body was given up for us; that his blood was shed for us – poured out for us. Therefore, we must remember to give up our body for others; we are to pour out our blood on behalf of others - but certainly not in criminal acts.
When we receive the Eucharist, we are to remember we are the Body of Christ; therefore, we must love each other as Jesus loved and still loves us. We are to do to others as we would have them do to us. We must do everything in love. We must never lie, break oaths, or betray.
Let’s continue to pray for others, but not out of fear, but with love. “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name; Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." We can only hope.
Deacon David Pierce
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