CRUCIFY HIM! CRUCIFY HIM!

What would lead people to call for the death of a person?

Perhaps their pastor.

The Reverend Wiley S. Drake,(First Southern Baptist Church of Buena Park California) asked people to pray for the deaths of the Reverend Barry W. Lynn (United Church of Christ), Joseph Conn and Jeremy Leaming. The three men, leaders of People United for the Separation of Church and State, had filed a complaint with the IRS because Drake had drafted an endorsement of Presidential Hopeful Mike Huckabee on church letterhead.

Perhaps the prayer went something like this:

Heavenly Father, we call upon you to send death upon the Reverend Barry Lynn. We pray that you would make a widow of his wife, and orphans of his now grown children. We pray that his grandchildren would seek and yet not find him, and that his denomination, the United Church of Christ, would mourn his loss.

As I wrote the above in jest, I found this:

He gave as examples of imprecatory prayer:

"Persecute them. ... Let them be put to shame and perish."

"Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow."

"Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg."

 - http://www.civilbrights.net/node/4673


I am overwhelmed by shame: shame that a member of the body of Christ has called out "I have no need of you" to other members, shame that an ordained minister has cried to God not for blessing but for punishment for men and their families.

Not all Christians are like this.

I promise.


References:

• http://pietyandpolitics.com/3/barry/
• http://www.civilbrights.net/node/4673
• http://www.auok.org/who_is_barry_lynn.htm