[NYTr] Importuning for Misfortune: Prayers to Smite Enemies Not Popular

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

a little comic relief for us atheists...

sent by rick kissell

Los Angeles Times - Aug 25, 2007
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-beliefs25aug25,1,7091720.story?coll=la-headlines-california&ctrack=1&cset=true 

Prayer for opponent's misfortune finds little support

Responding to pastor's controversial statement, authorities on various 
faiths see little justification for wishing harm to befall enemies.

By K. Connie Kang

Until last week, "imprecatory prayer" was not in many people's
vocabularies.

But then the Rev. Wiley S. Drake, pastor of the First Southern Baptist 
Church of Buena Park, urged his supporters to use Psalm 109 to focus 
prayers directed at the "enemies of God" -- including the leaders of 
Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

Drake was urging the use of imprecatory prayer -- prayers for another's 
misfortune or for vengeance against God's enemies. Now such prayer is 
the talk of blogs and letters to the editor.

The controversy flared Aug. 14, the day the Washington-based group
asked the Internal Revenue Service to probe the tax-exempt status of
Drake's congregation.

Churches, as tax-exempt organizations, are prohibited from campaigning 
for candidates. Drake had earlier issued a statement on a church 
letterhead endorsing former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a Republican 
presidential candidate.

Drake told his supporters that he attempted to talk to Americans United 
for the Separation of Church and State about the issue. He cited a
verse from the Gospel of Matthew that says "if your brother sins
against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you."
Drake said his efforts were rebuffed.

"Now that all efforts have been exhausted, we must begin our
Imprecatory Prayer, at the key points of the parliamentary role in the
earth where we live," Drake wrote.

Under the heading, "HOW TO PRAY," he listed all 31 verses of Psalm 109, 
in which King David appeals to divine justice. Drake provided his 
congregation the King James Version of the psalm, including Verse 9, 
which says: /Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow./

On the advice of his attorneys, Drake has since declined to be
interviewed.

Experts in Scripture say it's easy to misread David's intentions and
the purpose of imprecatory prayer in general.

There needs to be a distinction between one's personal enemies and the 
enemies of God, said Sister Thomas Bernard MacConnell, founder of the 
Spirituality Center on the campus of Mount St. Mary's College and a 
veteran teacher of spiritual direction.

"It is very possible that my enemies are not God's enemies," she said. 
Referring to Drake's targets, she added, "Who is to say that those 
people are God's enemies?"

The Rev. Kurt Fredrickson, who directs doctoral programs for 700
working pastors from around the world at Fuller Theological Seminary,
says imprecatory prayers are atypical.

"They are more of a window into the sinfulness of human beings," said 
Fredrickson, an assistant professor of pastoral ministry at the
Pasadena school. "Normally when we think about praying, we're thinking
about prayers of adoration, prayers of confession, prayers for someone
we're concerned about who is sick or going through a hard time, or
those sort of prayers for ourselves -- not the sort of vindictive,
revengeful statements. These prayers are contrary to the way of Jesus."

Clearly, David is angry in Psalm 109, he said. But David's words are 
less an example for others than a window into the troubled king's mind. 
As Fredrickson put it, "Is this David just letting off steam?"

Fredrickson said when his daughter was going through a tough time a
year ago when her kidneys shut down, he sometimes was so "mad at God"
that he said things he wouldn't want to see in print. (He was able to
donate one of his kidneys to save her life.)

Scripture, especially the psalms, gives humans "permission," in the 
worst of times, just to be human, as David is in Psalm 109, he said. 
That's the wonderful thing about the psalms, he said.

The Rev. John Goldingay, a professor of the Old Testament at Fuller, 
said that one value of imprecatory prayer is that it asks God to take 
action -- not for humans to take matters into their own hands.

"When you're calling down trouble, calamity and disaster on somebody 
else, you're saying to God, 'You've got to bring trouble on those 
people,' " he said. "It's /not/ just asking for trouble because you 
don't like them or you're a nasty person. You're asking for justice."

Other faiths take varying views of such prayers.

Imam Ali Siddiqui, of the Islamic Society of Corona/Norco in Corona, 
said there was no tradition of imprecatory prayer in Islam. But there
is a prayer in which the believer asks Allah to "liberate me from
people who are trying to hurt me," Siddiqui said.

He told a story about the Prophet Muhammad that embodies the opposite
of imprecatory prayer: A woman used to throw trash at the prophet. Once
she did not come to abuse him, so Muhammad inquired about her. Upon
learning that she was ill, he went to see her and prayed for her
well-being.

Rabbi Stephen Julius Stein, of Wilshire Boulevard Temple, said the kind 
of prayer called for by Drake is not "normative" in Jewish tradition.

"We ask God certainly to do justice and to bring those who are errant
to justice, but what I would consider an imprecatory prayer is not 
normative in Judaism," he said. "There is a difference between saying, 
'May the wicked be brought to justice,' and 'May John Smith be cursed.' 
When we start naming names, that takes 'prayer' to an entirely
different level."

The Rev. Dickson Yagi, a Southern Baptist pastor and an expert on 
Buddhism, says in some streams of esoteric Buddhism, such as Shingon
and Tendai, adherents perform a fire ritual as the main worship.

He said Kukai, founder of Shingon Buddhism, established this ritual in 
Kyoto, when the city was the Japanese capital, and used it to curse an 
enemy when two men claimed the title of emperor.

Kukai backed one and cursed the fake emperor, who as a result, the
story goes, went mad and died.

When Yagi asked a Shingon priest friend in Japan whether his priests 
practiced that form of curse with their fire ritual, the priest told 
Yagi: "No, we don't do those things, but there is a rumor that some 
monks were cursing the Americans during Wold War II with the fire
ritual."

Speaking of the raw language of Psalm 109, Yagi said his denomination
has no tradition of using prayer to curse anyone.

"This would be quite shocking to all Southern Baptists," he said.

"In the New Testament, Jesus Christ comes and says, 'Forgive your 
enemies, pray for your enemies, love your enemies,' " Yagi said. "This 
idea of enemies has really changed in the New Testament. We cannot do 
those things, because Jesus Christ taught us to forgive our enemies, 
love our enemies, pray for our enemies and he died for his enemies."