(CNN)– On August 6, Texas Gov. Rick Perry wants you to drop the Texas BBQ, grab a moist towelette and fold your hands to pray. On Monday, Perry declared the date a “day of prayer and fasting for our nation’s challenges.”
"America is in crisis, " the Republican governor says on a website promoting the event. “We have been besieged by financial debt terrorism, and a multitude of natural disasters.”*
This is the first I’ve heard of this “Book of Joel”. The wikipedia description sounds like it’s um…kinda out there.
The August 6 date also happens to be the anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing. I guess nuclear weapons are kinda like the wrath of the Angry Sky Spirit, and God doesn’t really like the Japanese anyway, so why not?
Nothing like a National “Fuck You” to everybody in the country that doesn’t happen to love Jesus. And George W. Bush’s shit has dried on the Constitution, so it’s cool for Rick Perry to wipe his ass with it now. Yeah, yeah…it’s a loophole, but the Establishment Clause is just a technicality, anyway.
Only upside is that some GoP governors seem to be less than enthusiastic about Perry’s invitation.
Yeah…Heinlein was right. I expect Perry will take the stage and announce that his true name is Nehemiah Scudder. And we all know where this leads.
We’ve had a National Day of Prayer since 1952 (1st Thursday in May), and pretty much every governor issues a proclamation acknowledging it, so I don’t see anything particularly unusual about Perry having another one. Whether it’s a good idea or not, the horse has already left the barn.
This one sounds a little more ominous to me. It’s not some generic “let’s be thankful for all our many blessings” deal, or even a gratuitous “God Bless America” State of the Union thing. Feels more like “let’s burn some heretics at the stake”.
Perry is just grandstanding, so I guess he deserves a Pitting.
However, the Book of Joel has been in the bible for a very long time and you expressing ignorance of that fact along with shock at its contents makes you look a bit ill-informed.
That’s Perry for you, and Texas politics. Not sure what your on about the book of Joel. Why the scare quotes? It is a book in the Bible, Old Testament. Its been around for a long time (at least 1500 years). Sorry you haven’t heard of it. There is absolutely nothing unusual about Joel in the context of the rest of the Bible. It is pretty standard judgement of Yahweh for sinful nation stuff. It isn’t unusual for Christians to both quote from the Bible and/or use biblical text for various purposes. Thats been happening for at least 1500 years too.
(I’m not supporting Perry necessarily, I just don’t get the indignant outrage over this. It is business as usual.)
I mentioned in my Perry running for President thread that I thought this was a way for Perry to play on the national Evangelical stage.
The “Return to God” phrases from the book of Joel are read on Ash Wednesday in most liturgical churches. August seems a strange time, but I guess it is the peak of revival season.
Rick gets to pander to his base. Plus, it is sponsored by the American Family Association so he gets to make sure everyone knows he really, really hates gays.
He’s sniffing around for a potential presidential or vp slot with this.
“Oh, look, there are a bunch of locusts eating all the crops. That’s because you’re all a bunch of bastards and God is sick of it. Stop being such bastards, repent, and God will get rid of the locusts and everything will be ok again. In fact, it’ll be great. Oh, and all of Israel’s enemies? Time’s coming when God’s going to smite you because you’re so lousy to Israel. That means you, Phoenicians and Philistines! Oh, and Egypt, you’ll get yours too.”
There’s the Book of Joel in miniature. Pretty standard minor prophet book, if a little more locust heavy than most. Seriously, about half of the book is about how crappy locusts are. Although, to be fair, they are pretty crappy.
Even if I loved the idea, right there is where it would all fall apart for me. As far as I’m concerned, The AFA can collectively fuck off harder then pretty much any other organization out there.
To be fair, that’s a good description of any of the prophets if you only replace “locusts eating the crops” with “earthquake destroying cities” or “foreigners occupying Israel” or some other disaster.
This is what Perry does best, along with handing out gummint money to his buddies. This guy will refuse Federal aid if it has any strings attached*, and then turn around and demand that the Feds give Texas money for our wildfires. While we DO have a problem with wildfires, they aren’t national disaster level.
This is also the “small government” guy, unless it comes to things like getting EVERY preteen girl vaccinated against an STD…and one of his buddies just happens to own a company that manufactures that vaccine. It’s all a coincidence! I happen to think that vaccines are GOOD things, but I’m not convinced that Perry is acting out of concern for the future health of these girls. Perry’s also the guy who hands out money from the Emerging Technology Fund which basically rewards Perry donors with gummint money.
Yes, I voted for Bill White, why do you ask?
*He refused the stimulus package, and also educational funds. We’ve just seen our teacher jobs and other educational spending slashed.
If millions of Americans praying everyday isn’t going to make the world a better place, why would one think that singling out one day and making it “special” will do something?
See, I’ve got no problem with people praying as long as they aren’t inviting me to do it. Pray all you want to yourself…I won’t stop you. But the moment you make a to-do about it, I’m going to think to myself, “Just STFU already!” Have you never heard the concept of a “prayer closet?”
As you mention we ALREADY had our national day of prayer on May 5, complete with a proclamation from President Obama… Oh, now I get it. Apparently last month’s National Day of Prayer didn’t take because our Muslin Soshilust Terrist Sympathiser President was involved. It makes complete sense why Perry needs to set up a followup day of prayer, so that God can hear it this time, and invites the other Governors to attend, but not the President.
This way God can put it in his day-planner, so he won’t miss any of the prayers. Just in case he isn’t as omnipresent as we have been told. Same reason you should visit large, ornate buildings once a week to pray. So basically, a national day of prayer is a statement of disbelief in God’s all powerfulness.