By TIFFANY STANLEY - RELIGION NEWS SERVICE
Added: Tue, 23 Jun 2009 23:00:00 UTC

Thanks to James in Cali for the link.
http://www.religionnews.com/index.php?/rnstext/does_god_answer_prayers_to_do_someone_ill1/#index.php

The former second vice president of the Southern Baptist Convention said he’s merely practicing the age-old art of “imprecatory prayer”—a theological term for praying that bad things happen to bad people.

Imprecatory prayer can turn a verse into curse through reciting Scripture aimed at one’s foes. Rather than asking for, say, healing or a win in the big game, these prayers request that God smite one’s enemies with—among other things—plagues, death and eternal damnation.

“That doesn’t mean I spend every waking hour praying for the death of the president,” said Drake, who leads Buena Park Southern Baptist Church, near Anaheim, Calif. “Of our prayers, 98 percent should be good prayers and 2 percent should be imprecatory.”

Though Scripture says Jesus told his followers to love their enemies and pray for them, the Bible also depicts King David pleading with God to vanquish his adversaries. While famed Christian apologist C.S. Lewis found such imprecatory psalms distasteful and “devilish,” even he could not deny their existence.

Derided by some as a bad Judeo-Christian imitation of voodoo, the literal practice of imprecatory prayer has some newfound fans.

Gordon Klingenschmitt, a former U.S. Navy chaplain, posted an online prayer on April 25 that targeted his old foes, the Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State; and Mikey Weinstein, founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation.

Klingenschmitt asked God “in Jesus’ name” to “cut off their descendents” and “replace them with Godly people.”
...
Continue reading
http://www.religionnews.com/index.php?/rnstext/does_god_answer_prayers_to_do_someone_ill1/#index.php

TAGGED: MORALITY, RELIGION