Halloween Comes Early - A National Day of Prayer 'Scare-Mail'

I received an Un-Snopes-ified email recently that was another attempt to keep fear alive in this country about our current president.

The email, almost in its entirety, is below...but first, I'd like to share a few comments.

1. Even if the United States was brought into being from bible-believing, evangelical Christians (it wasn't, but even if it was), I would hope we would have the decency and fortitude as a people to resist putting a 'Christian' label on our Republic, and rather, insist that our government proceed in a purely secular manner.

Think about how it feels when you're the odd person out in a game or conversation. Do you really want to be that person that continues to say, "Oh, you wouldn't understand, it's a 'Christian' thing..." when asked by the person who isn't a Christian why they have to support a government that keeps having a 'conversation' or plays a 'game' that excludes other peoples of faith or non-faith not in the majority?

Thankfully the same forefathers that some Christians claim as their own had this aforementioned fortitude, and made sure that the Constitution, our one and only governing document for these United States, was a secular one, and appealed to all peoples regardless of their belief or lack thereof in a supernatural being. It could have easily gone the other way.

2. If you are a Christian, I do not begrudge you your right to practice your religion. I really don't. What I do begrudge is when you, as the practitioner of the dominant religion in this country, Christianity, try to make sure that your religion is represented at the highest levels of government. I am talking most specifically about the 'National Day of Prayer'.

3. If you have a problem with Barack Obama catering to Muslims in his administration (I'm not agreeing that he is doing this, just saying that if you believe that he is), I would ask you to consider that Christians have been the 'catered to' group for quite some time in our republic. And actually, having another religious group 'catered to' should be a wonderful 'wake up call' to any and all people that think Church and State should be brought back together.

The government has no business catering to any religious group, PERIOD. Rather it should be devoted to governing large diverse populations of people from every religious and a-religious walk of life.

4. I often hear that people think our country is going in the 'wrong direction' and we need to return to 'God'. I ask you to reconsider this romantic, in my humble opinion, Urban Legend-esque period when we were 'with God' . Was it during the late 1700's and all through the early part of the 19th century when a black person was still considered just 3/5 of a human being? Was it during the early 1900's when a woman couldn't even vote in this country? How about the 1930's, 40's, and 50's where black people in this country, under the guise of Christianity, were hunted down at night, tortured, and killed (ie. lynched) by cruel people dressed in sheets and brandishing fire crosses?

I thank our collective reasoning abilities as humans that we're not heading in those directions anymore. We're slowly but surely making this world a better place to live in and thrive. The average lifespan of a human being at the time the Declaration of Independence was written was less than 45 years. Today that same statistic is close to 67 years. And while some will claim this longetivity a miracle from God, I put forth that this is a testament to the collective human mind that day in and day out tries to answer questions about how the world works.

Let's all just take a collective deep breath, and realize just how far we've really come as a species on this planet. It's truly an amazing thing to contemplate! Truly amazing!

Let's also forget about all the things that make us think we're so different from one another. We're not. We're all pretty much the same amount of sloshing water mixed in with some minerals, protein, fat, and carbohydrates trying to acquire more of these things to keep us going. And no, that previous sentence doesn't mean life is any less important or meaningful. It's actually just the opposite, it makes living this life right here, right now, all the more prescient and important.

So with no further ado, here's the 'scary' email:

In 1952

President Truman established one day a year as a "National Day of Prayer."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In 1988

President Reagan designated the First Thursday in May of each year as the National Day of Prayer.
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In June 2007, (then) Presidential Candidate Barack Obama declared that the USA
"Was no longer a Christian nation."
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This year President Obama canceled the 21st annual National Day of Prayer ceremony
at the White House under the ruse Of "not wanting to offend anyone"
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BUT... on September 25, 2009 from 4 AM until 7 PM, a National Day of Prayer
FOR THE MUSLIM RELIGION was Held on Capitol Hill, Beside the White House.
There were over 50,000 Muslims in D.C. that day.

HE PRAYS WITH THE MUSLIMS!

I guess it Doesn't matter if "Christians" Are offended by this event -
We obviously Don't count as "anyone" Anymore.

The direction this country is headed should strike fear in the heart of every Christian, especially knowing that the Muslim religion believes that if Christians cannot be converted, they should be annihilated.

The words of 2 Chronicles 7:14

"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 will I hear from Heaven And will forgive their Sin and will heal Their land."

We must pray for Our nation, our communities, Our families, and especially our children. They are the ones who are going to suffer the most.

If we don't PRAY May God have Mercy. IN GOD WE TRUST.

__________________________________________________________________

Snopes has a great write up for these claims in the email. Click HERE if you'd like to read it.

The claims about Obama are patently false, but that usually doesn't stop people from sending out misinformation when it disagrees with what they WANT to believe is true.

The writer of the email puts in a bible verse from II Chronicles for good measure. If only he or she had also put in the verses from Deuteronomy 7:1-2 to counter:

“When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations…then you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them and show them no mercy.” Deuteronomy 7:1-2 "

The rest of the email is a plea to get people to read to the end of it so that they receive a blessing from God and forward the email on to 10 friends.

Click HERE if you want to read the rest of the email I received. It's stock 'footage' that gets appended to most emails of this sort to get people to read the message in its entirety.

I actually feel sorry for people who write this kind of stuff, and the people who buy into it. I think both types of people REALLY believe both what they are writing, and what they are reading, and I think they WANT to believe it. It's an easy solution in search of a problem that doesn't exist. It's good drama for sure, and it makes Glenn Beck a good living.

However, at the end of the day it's all just scare tactics and noise based on little semblance of reality, fact checking, or reason. Rather emails like this simply appeal to good old fashioned fear; fear of the unknown, fear of policies that aren't the policies of the previous administration, fear. If only all of us could wake up and smell this kind of nonsense for what it really is, and begin to think critically about the claims being put forth in these emails.

Again, I will keep hope alive in this regard and despite the scariness around me, will still enjoy Halloween next week :)

Thanks for stopping by,

Drew