Prayer = Solidarity?

Since when did Prayer come to equal Solidarity? Granted there are all kinds ways to pray, but for Christians there is a clear directive to pray for God’s Will, and to claim that any particular nation’s will is the same as God’s is blasphemous according to the Bible, is it not? This first occured to me as I drove past a synagogue here in Chicago and saw two large signs on the front lawn that proclaimed “We Pray for Israel.” Well of course a synagogue will be praying for Israel, I mean the prayers for Israel are all over the Hebrew Bible, but why do they need a sign in the front lawn?

The answer is found in a campaign that’s been carried on now for the last five years by a group called the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (IFCJ). The campaign is called the International Day of Prayer and Solidarity with Israel. This group, with many of it’s Board of Directors in the Chicago area, has been quite effective in rallying political support for Israel (read–over and against anyone disagreeing with Israeli foreign policy) from churches and synagogues. If any other church groups dare to question this support or Israel’s decisions this group calls them an enemy of Israel. On the home page of the groups website the National Council of Churches gets this villifying treatment.

Yesterday we got a pretty little lapel pin from the American Bible Society as a token for our assumed contribution. It is shaped like a Bible but on the left page is an American flag and on the right page the words “Pray for our country.” I know its unfair to the ABS to link this to the IFCJ but personally I can’t help but read these words the same way. I do pray for my country, but I don’t need an American flag on a Bible shaped pin to remind me to do that. The Bible does not contain an American flag and I’d dare say that making mixing these symbols is downright blasphemous!

Why is there such a fixation with prayer as a political weapon? Why are we so convinced that God is on our side? Has God become the extension of our own egos? Is anyone reading the Bible anymore, particularly the words of Jesus in the Lord’s prayer? “Thy Kingdom Come, Thy Will Be Done, On Earth as it is in Heaven?” Prayer as solidarity turns that completely around. It makes it My Will be done in Heaven as I like it Here on Earth! That’s sick and its sin, and we’ll have to answer to God for this form of Christian Nationalism. I for one don’t want to get God angry in this regard.