The Next President

I doubt this predicition will come true - most don't, but as I was listening to Elizabeth Warren's interview on Pod Save America this week, I realized she's just about the perfect candidate to be elected President in 2020. While I certainly agree with some of her policy positions, this is not an endorsement, just an observation that she possess most of the hard-to-come-by qualities that makes somebody electable.

She's fiercely partisan and ultra-competitive, those are essential qualities for someone to even bother entering the modern Presidential selection process. She might care some about specific issues, but she cares most about beating the other guy. You can hear the edge in her voice if you listen closely - she's a killer and she doesn't like to lose. Even the seemingly most laid back Presidents have this drive. You can read stories about Jimmy Carter's competitiveness - he was a little-known Georgia governor running for President because he wanted it and he wanted to win. That's what it takes (for better or, well, just for worse, probably, but thems the facts).

The key for Warren, though, is that she comes off so relatively harmless. She's an actual grandma. She's got the right tone to her voice and an accent that disarms people. There's a smile underneath her speech most of the time. It's folksy and charismatic and is incongruous with her actual position in life. It's the Bill Clinton magic that endears people to her. You need that to win, too (ask Ted Cruz).

When it comes to the issues, well, she speaks to working class people - that's her policy passion and her political lane. She's a populist to the core with an intellectual's ability to explain populist ideas in a way that sounds mainstream to people in the mainstream. It's like if Bernie Sanders baked you cookies and had a better sense of style.

She's even got a killer story about how a living minimum wage saved her family from homelessness during her childhood. Narrative matters - maybe not as much anymore as soundbytes, but she's got those too.

I know this isn't a profound analysis of Elizabeth Warren, her politics or politics in general. There's no real depth here as you've commonly come to expect from this blog. In reality, I needed something to post today and this was the thing that most piqued my interest that didn't involve a mental breakdown over Trump's Paris Accords speech (maybe Tuesday - we'll see - that guy is an idiot).

Happy reading - and if the 11/1 odds do, in fact, pay off, you can say you heard it here first.

A Way Forward?

Paul Harvey told a Christmas story once on his radio program. My father uses it quite often in his Christmas Eve services; I've read it for him at least once. It's called "The Man and the Birds." The basic gist of the story is that a man stays home from Christmas Eve service because he just can't bring himself to believe in the incarnation - that God actually became human. While at home, a storm kicks up and he notices a flock of birds lost and weary in his front yard. The man has compassion on them and tries mightily to shoo them into the warm barn. Exasperated, the man wishes he could become a bird to lead the flock to safety - and the realization ignites within him this spark of faith.

I've been thinking about that story this morning, because I resonate with the desperation of the man. I'm not sure how to say this without coming off holier than thou (anyone who's read my twitter feed in the last 24 hours knows that's certainly not true), but part of claiming the title "evangelical" means one cares an awful lot about proclaimed truth. Instead of trying to herd a flock of birds into a barn, picture a man trying to guide trapped birds out of the barn to safety and freedom.

I believe with all my heart that the Kingdom of God is bigger, bolder, freer, more beautiful, and more expansive than any candidate, country, or campaign. I believe the good news of Jesus is that we don't have to get caught up in the machinations of power, choosing between flawed rulers and making due the best we can. When we're caught in this system is feels like birds bouncing back and forth between the walls of a barn they think encompasses the whole world, but is really a cage. Whatever floundering I do, waving my proverbial hands with exasperated one-liners, sub-par attempts at critique and satire, or wildly irresponsible mock presidential campaigns, is a desperate attempt to get the attention of my people who seem lost and unaware of it.

I know it makes me extreme and radical, but I do truly believe we shouldn't vote - not as Christians and at least not for President. As much as we try to hem and hedge and make excuses (and I'm just as guilty as anyone, see aforementioned twitter feed) our participation in that system is idolatry. It is a statement that the Kingdom of God is not enough for us, we must also have the kingdoms of this world.

When Dietrich Bonheoffer joined the plot to kill Adolf Hitler, he wrote, essentially, that he believed his actions were sinful and that they might earn him an eternity in hell, yet he willingly committed them anyway because he could stomach no other option. I try to take this perspective to heart when dealing with difficult issues (especially the taking of life), recognizing that we do not always possess the "right" solution in every instance. Similarly I recognize my tendency to do nothing over an imperfect something has not and does not always prove beneficial to me, my faith, or those around me.

At the same time, it feels as though Bonhoeffer's position is the only one that makes sense for Christian voters. If you're there, I might disagree, but I can understand. I just think we shouldn't be voting if we can, at all, help ourselves. There's nothing good in our preoccupation with power. It's dirty and messy and wreaks of lack of faith. We can't play pretend, saying we believe in a Kingdom ushered in by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, then invest ourselves and our future in kingdoms that operate on an entirely different foundation.

I've written this before, but I know it gets trickier on a local level - since we have to get along with our neighbors. If there weren't a town council, we'd have to invent one, right? Or maybe we really could just live sacrificially for the good of the other? Maybe I'm just as trapped in the barn as everyone else, none of us really believing the door exists, or, if we do, not really believing we can ever find it.

I don't mean not voting for one person or another, but exempting ourselves from the conversation of us vs them (or even them vs them, with some obligation to choose sides). There is just us. As much as we'd like to say we can be loyal to our first allegiance and also take sides as Republicans or Democrats, we're fooling ourselves. Those identities in some way hinder us from being who we were created to be. The same is true for our identities as American or Arabian, Ugandan or Dutch. They seem convenient, but they just get in the way. Paul said neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female (boy, is it hard to let go of that one!), and I'm even starting to wonder if even our identity as "Christians" gets in the way of our identity in Christ.

I don't think I've handled myself well in this flailing attempt to point our attention towards the door. I sure hope I've not come off as demonizing "them" who might think differently than me. My genuine desire is to caution "us" about the dangers we have embarked upon - and they are quite likely the exact same dangers we'd've encountered if 80% of us had voted the other direction.

I think it's an emotional over-reaction to say last night's vote was similar to the ancient Church's embrace of Constantine, but that's how it feels. In the US, people who most overtly name themselves the people of God have sided with amoral people in an amoral system we are desperate to sanctify. No, I don't think the other outcome would have produced a different result. Hence my reluctant call to give up voting.

I recognize the great sacrifices that have been paid to secure voting rights for people - and I admonish us to continue that work. Every person deserves the right to voice their opinion through the ballot box, but, as people following in the wake of Christ Jesus, I suggest we give up those rights in favor of living out an alternative.

That same Bonhoeffer proposed the idea of religionless Christianity, but died before he could flesh out his vision. I believe the most promising path forward, for the Church and for the world, is to explore together what that means: namely a life free of dogma and power and being "right;" a life of love in imitation of Christ, trying, as hard as the Holy Spirit will empower us, to avoid sacrificing our vision of the Kingdom to the kingdoms of the world.

I can't say I've done this well in recent days. Certainly many of you have felt less than loved. I don't know what to say. I'm sorry. I'll try to be better. But I have to keep trying. Somehow, we've got to get out of the barn.

The President's Job

With all the Presidential debate stuff going on, what would otherwise be a pretty big story is taking the back burner. There's been a bill kicked around for a decade or more that would allow US citizens to sue the government of Saudi Arabia for damages as a result of 9/11. This has come up now because of the recently un-redacted portion of the 9/11 report that speaks to potential Saudi involvement. Ultimately, the pages are pretty tame - it says the commission looked into links and while there may be some financial connections to individual Saudis, there isn't any direct evidence and no real connection to the Saudi state itself.

Now, lots of people doubt the veracity, or perhaps, the specificity of these details. The very fact that the government took a decade to declassify these pages invites suspicion. It's a messy situation.

What media coverage that exists of this issue is trying to play it off as a good and evil scenario - Congress fighting for the families of 9/11 victims and the President protecting diplomatic cronies with their hand on the oil spigot. That comes off pretty thin, mostly because it's an obviously complicated narrative. For example: a Bush presidency might be more open to Saudi special treatment - no one has yet figured out why Obama would want to help them.

But what this is, and why it's so boring to the media and the general public, is because it's representative of the government working properly. Congress is specifically charged with speaking for the people, in 485 individual blocks. They are supposed to take up the cause of victimized families and support individual issues. That's what Congress is for.
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At the same time, the President is responsible for the country as a whole. He has to speak with one voice for the whole, which is a difficult spot to be in with the country so confused about who it wants to be. Foreign policy is one place in which we are just one place - you have to make decisions. The President's job is specifically to represent the best interests of the nation as an entity. As much as we like to say the nation is the people, there is a difference. The State exists as a thing - it represents the people, it is the outer layer of our democratic structure, but it's not the same. There's a reason we have separation of powers, because they represent different things.

So, what's happened is precisely what should happen when everyone is doing their job. Congress worked together to pass a pretty universal bill meant to allow 9/11 families to explore Saudi culpability in court. Yes, it is a tricky foreign policy issue and allowing US citizens to sue foreign governments in US courts could set a lot of difficult precedents, with unknown consequences to our economy and politics. Which is precisely why the President vetoed the bill. It's great for Americans, but not great for America. Both parties did their job.

Now it looks like Congress will override the veto and make the bill law against the President's objection. Again, they're doing their job. Potentially, now, the Courts will weigh in - a third branch of government not specifically representing the nation or the people, but some timeless combination of the two, meant to stand outside of context.

This whole episode is interesting in the season of a Presidential election, where what it takes to be elected is entirely different from what it takes to govern. This is beyond simply the ability to sell yourself in one case and to be reasoned and considered in the next. What it takes to be elected President is to convince the population that you're going to represent them well, but the role of the President isn't to represent the people; it's to represent the country. Presidents run like the nation's congressman, but have to govern like a President.

You see Hillary Clinton struggling with this because she's spent so much time governing. She knows that what a President has to say isn't going to get her elected - she has to act Presidential without actually being Presidential. In this sense, her experience is what's killing her. Trump, on the other hand, has no clue about what it means to govern - he only knows how to sell himself and is going all in on representing the people (of course it can be debated exactly what kind of people he's representing).

We've got one candidate who has no idea what it means to be President and one candidate who has too good an idea of what it means to be President - and neither of them are attractive to the average US voter.

There is, without doubt, a lot of dysfunction in the system, but it has very little to do with the system itself, but the ways in which our culture at large expects people to act towards their own self-interest. Our politicians live into those expectations the same way our voters do. I'm not sure that will change, but I'd hope we can begin to take a step back and figure out how each part contributes uniquely to the whole and make our decisions accordingly.

It Started Out As A Joke...

... and I guess it still is. Ever the curious mind, when all this talk of an independent Presidential candidate took off with Trump assuming the mantle of presumed GOP nominee, I got curious what it would actually take to make a real run. Just to get on the ballot in most states is incredibly laborious. You need tens, sometimes over 100,000 signatures from registered voters in each state to make the ballot. The Texas deadline has already passed. No candidate getting in now could even win.

But in the course of informing myself on the process, I noticed a little comment at the bottom of the chart,

Two states (Colorado and Louisiana) allow independent candidates to pay filing fees in lieu of submitting petitions.

Louisiana still has a lot of hoops to jump through with their filing requirements, even if signatures aren't among them, but Colorado, ever the rebellious, libertarian state, has just a fee. For a scant 1,000 (nonrefundable - they make this very clear) dollars, any eligible candidate (35 years old, natural born citizen, and 14+ year resident) can have their name added to the ballot. There's a couple other hoops to jump through (see below), but all very doable.

I thought, "wouldn't it be funny to get my name on the Colorado Presidential ballot?" I mean, most of my family lives there. It would be cool for any parent to check the box next to their child's name when voting for PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES! I wouldn't win, obviously, but I don't think I'd want to anyway. Besides, I'm a little scared my Dad might vote for Trump if I don't present a palatable alternative.

That's a real issue, though - not so much Trump (although Trump is an issue), but there are tons of people out there who don't like either major party candidate, but still feel a real, deep compulsion to vote. Getting my name on the ballot gives people an alternative - and one that can maybe make them smile a little in the ballot box rather than groan.

The biggest problem, though: I don't have a thousand dollars - and if you think my wife is going to sign off on spending even $10 on this silly campaign, you don't know my wife. The solution: crowd-funding. I needed to set up a gofundme campaign, or something of the like to make it work. But I didn't think people would give $10 if they thought I was just going to pocket the money - so I had to find a site that allows you to set an all or nothing campaign. Indiegogo came out on top - this way, I either get to the full $1,000 or none of the donors pays a dime.

But before I could go about setting up the campaign, there was one little thing to take care of. Colorado's first step to filing is to declare yourself a candidate - and the Federal Election Commission has a long and lengthy, very technical, legally intimidating process for doing such. You have to register a campaign committee with names and social security numbers, etc - you have to have a Treasurer and file quarterly reports of receipts and expenses - not to mention all the laws a candidate for President has to follow. It's tough.

Then I noticed another little caveat at the bottom of a page - it said, unless you raise or spend $5,000, none of these requirements applies to you. I even sent an email to the FEC to confirm that if I only spent, say, $1,000 or so, I'd be free to get on the ballot without federal filing requirements. I received an email reply from one Mr. Christopher Berg, Public Affairs Specialist with the FEC confirming that my campaign could proceed.

The campaign was pretty easy to set up. I filmed a short video to introduce myself and the project (it sounds a little artsy because I tried Kickstarter first and got rejected... for not being artsy enough) and I shred the link a couple dozen times.

Within a few minutes, I had my first donation - from my Dad - what a vote of confidence.* I never expected to get donations over $10 - that seemed like the right amount for a project of this nature - and although 100 of those seemed difficult, I gave myself two months to pull it off (still giving me a week or so to get all the forms submitted for the filing deadline in Colorado). To my surprise, the next donation was $20, from a college friend I probably have not kept it good enough contact with over the years. Pretty cool. Then another friend gave $100 and I started to think this might really have a chance. Still 87 donations away from the goal, but it had only been two hours!

We left the next day for my sister-in-law's graduation and I try not to spend too much time on the internet during family gatherings, so when I awoke that Saturday morning to a text from my brother, I was till groggy and didn't quite understand what he said, "Jeremy gave you the $1,000."

After a few beats of confusion, I scrambled for my laptop only to find, indeed, my whole project was now completely funded - in just a few days.

You see, I have this cousin (well, I have a lot of cousins, but this one in particular), Jeremy, I've jokingly called the "black sheep" of the family - not because he's bad at all, really (he's not), but because he's so relatively normal - he just never seemed to fit in well with the rest of us odd, strange, people. His family lived farther away, we saw them less often - he's really the cousin I know least well.

Anyway, he's also the most famous person I know personally. Jeremy is the voice and co-writer of cinemasins. You and several million other people may subscribe to their youtube channel - you've probably seen one of the videos, at least. Apparently, this youtube thing is a going venture and he's got $1,000 laying around to fund a crazy joke (I think also his recognition of the humor in this whole attempted campaign betrays that perhaps the outsider aura he's gave off to my childhood self was a front, or perhaps a serious misinterpretation by me).

Anyway, the money is there - and I'm very grateful.

I let the $100 donor, Bruce Barnard, be my Vice President (Jeremy politely declined) and my brother Jordan is collecting the signatures of nine registered Colorado voters who would serve in the Electoral College, should I win the state. The only remaining hurdle is filling out the brief paperwork and getting it notarized.

Now, I have to say, this is sometimes a bit embarrassing - like yesterday, when they called a nice woman at my local bank back early from lunch to notarize my form - having to explain the whole story in brief and apologize for interrupting her lunch was awkward. The tension was broken, however, by my four year old daughter yelling, in the bank, near the top of her lungs, "No, don't do it, daddy, don't run for President!"

But run, I will. I'm too far in to back out now.

Over the course of the next six months or so, I'll put together a few videos or something to try and make people laugh and, who knows, maybe catch some viral mania. I'm not trying to win and I don't expect to. I just wanted a funny story to tell for the rest of my life, but, to be honest, it would be kinda awesome if a bunch of strangers actually found out about this whole thing and got my votes to double digits.

So if you have friends or relatives in Colorado. Encourage them to vote. Help me get to 7th place in the Colorado election for President. I feel like 7th would be a real achievement.



*Pun intended.

The Prayer Breakfast

So, the President did what every President has done for the last 63 years last week - he spoke at the National Prayer Breakfast, a tradition in which people of all faiths are invited to slow down in the midst of political hurry, and recognize a common need for God. It's such a normal part of the calendar, I wasn't even aware of it happening until I started seeing a particular Facebook post from Franklin Graham running around the internet. In it he criticized the President's remarks and directly attacked Islam, saying the only true Muslims are violent ones and, by implication, dismissing the religion entirely.

I linked to the post, but the text of it is here:

Today at the National Prayer Breakfast, the President implied that what ISIS is doing is equivalent to what happened over 1000 years ago during the Crusades and the Inquisition. Mr. President--Many people in history have used the name of Jesus Christ to accomplish evil things for their own desires. But Jesus taught peace, love and forgiveness. He came to give His life for the sins of mankind, not to take life. Mohammad on the contrary was a warrior and killed many innocent people. True followers of Christ emulate Christ—true followers of Mohammed emulate Mohammed.

I'll be honest. This sort of perspective angers me. Infuriates me, really. It's all I can do to keep from lashing out with incredible furor. I appreciate Franklin Graham. I know a lot of people, personally, who've been helped out tremendously by Samaritan's Purse following disaster. One of the ebola doctors who made such headlines last year was working for this organization in Africa when he was infected - Kent Brantley was one of the individuals highlighted at the prayer breakfast and in the President's remarks.

At the same time, attacking a factually true statement, in the name of Christ, for political purposes is not only wrong, and sacreligious, but downright irresponsible. Attacking the core of a religion from the outside, while simultaneously ignoring the open-hearted pleas of actual adherenst that your opinion is misinformed is calloused at best and demonic at worst.

I recognize that a lot of people I know and care about agree with Graham's post, many shared it. They're going to be offended by my response. I think I'm ok with that. They're wrong. It doesn't make them bad people, simply people who happen to be way off base here. I know that's a strong statement, but a strong statement is necessary here.

Here's why:

You can read the full text of the President's remarks (and they're not very long), but there is a small section that caught the ire of Graham and others.

Now, over the last few months, we’ve seen a number of challenges -- certainly over the last six years. But part of what I want to touch on today is the degree to which we've seen professions of faith used both as an instrument of great good, but also twisted and misused in the name of evil.

As we speak, around the world, we see faith inspiring people to lift up one another -- to feed the hungry and care for the poor, and comfort the afflicted and make peace where there is strife. We heard the good work that Sister has done in Philadelphia, and the incredible work that Dr. Brantly and his colleagues have done. We see faith driving us to do right.

But we also see faith being twisted and distorted, used as a wedge -- or, worse, sometimes used as a weapon. From a school in Pakistan to the streets of Paris, we have seen violence and terror perpetrated by those who profess to stand up for faith, their faith, professed to stand up for Islam, but, in fact, are betraying it. We see ISIL, a brutal, vicious death cult that, in the name of religion, carries out unspeakable acts of barbarism -- terrorizing religious minorities like the Yezidis, subjecting women to rape as a weapon of war, and claiming the mantle of religious authority for such actions.

We see sectarian war in Syria, the murder of Muslims and Christians in Nigeria, religious war in the Central African Republic, a rising tide of anti-Semitism and hate crimes in Europe, so often perpetrated in the name of religion.

So how do we, as people of faith, reconcile these realities -- the profound good, the strength, the tenacity, the compassion and love that can flow from all of our faiths, operating alongside those who seek to hijack religious for their own murderous ends?

Humanity has been grappling with these questions throughout human history. And lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ. Michelle and I returned from India -- an incredible, beautiful country, full of magnificent diversity -- but a place where, in past years, religious faiths of all types have, on occasion, been targeted by other peoples of faith, simply due to their heritage and their beliefs -- acts of intolerance that would have shocked Gandhiji, the person who helped to liberate that nation.

So this is not unique to one group or one religion. There is a tendency in us, a sinful tendency that can pervert and distort our faith. In today’s world, when hate groups have their own Twitter accounts and bigotry can fester in hidden places in cyberspace, it can be even harder to counteract such intolerance. But God compels us to try.

The President is speaking truthfully. Lots of terrible things have been done in the name of Christ over the years, even moreso in the name of God. No Christian wants to be represented by those heinous acts. This is much the same argument made by the prominent atheists of the day - that religion has been a needless excuse for violence and we're better off without it. Graham rightfully names this a false association, the Crusades and other "religious" atrocities are counter to the God those actors proclaimed.

The point of the President's speech was not to excuse any action, but to put in perspective the violence being done today in the name of Islam. If we are unwilling to be judged by the most violent, callous Christians among us, perhaps it is unwise to judge Islam by its most violent adherents, especially when so many Muslim faces are denouncing such actions as counter to the faith.

It seems our conservative Christian response is to say those are moderate Muslims and true believers are all about violence, as is the Qu'ran. This is precisely what Graham states in his post. I've heard the same thing in casual conversation in the sanctuary after worship on a Sunday morning (one good, Christian gentleman was under the impression the only solution to Muslim terrorism is to kill all Muslims). It's not a bogeyman; I've heard these statements myself.

This is precisely the point being made by the anti-religion crowd, the one so vehemently opposed by Christians - the same one they use to accuse Islam. That's is hypocritical. It's uncharitable. It's dangerous.*

But what if Islam really is evil and violent? Waiting to oppose it will just waste time. Of course, the same could be said for Christianity 500 or 1000 years ago. The Crusades prove as much, as does slavery. Nearly every war in Europe of the Americas in the last 2,000 years had a religious component. We can and do rightfully point out that these are distortions of the gospel of peace and love Christ lived among us. But it's not as though people thought that at the time. There was no majority crying out against the injustice of the Crusades; it wasn't a case of the masses opposing the religious crimes of the powerful (if anything it was the other way around - the powerful were the only ones who seemed to know violence violated Christian principles). A census of Christian opinion in 1500 would have likely shown us the vast majority of adherents found violence completely compatible with their faith - the same way a similar census might reflect Muslim opinion today (although, frankly, I have no idea what those numbers would be - we'd probably all be surprised).

Just because people claim faith as a motivation, doesn't mean it's reflective of anyone's faith but their own. That's the point. In forgetting this important fact, we're betraying our own faith. I know a lot of people who responded to the President's remarks the same way Franklin Graham did. I know they're not calloused, faithless Christians. Quite the opposite. I'm willing to believe that one misguided opinion doesn't shape their entire lives and it certainly doesn't shape the reality of the faith underneath.

The President responds, following the remarks above, with holy wisdom:

Our job is not to ask that God respond to our notion of truth -- our job is to be true to Him, His word, and His commandments. And we should assume humbly that we’re confused and don’t always know what we’re doing and we’re staggering and stumbling towards Him, and have some humility in that process. And that means we have to speak up against those who would misuse His name to justify oppression, or violence, or hatred with that fierce certainty. No God condones terror. No grievance justifies the taking of innocent lives, or the oppression of those who are weaker or fewer in number.

And so, as people of faith, we are summoned to push back against those who try to distort our religion -- any religion -- for their own nihilistic ends.

Response to the President is largely about politics. It just is. People don't like him. They question his faith because they disagree with his policies. We did the same with Bush and his war. The response is partly about politics, but it's mostly about fear. So much of what's come to be known as Christian faith rests on certainty. I'm not talking about faith - the faith that God exists or that Jesus will return to make all things right - I'm talking about certainty - the notion that what I believe about God is how God really is. That's just not how things work. God is truth, not our perception of God. We're always working to improve that perception, but with humility and grace.

And, I can't really finish this post without pointing out the irony of the followers of Christ a man who came "not to take life," becoming more and more comfortable with taking life. It's a problem.

If our calling is to live lives in imitation of Christ, we should be promoting peace and love with everyone with whom we interact. One would think, if we're trying to encourage more love, peace, and understanding in the world, maybe it would be important to support and encourage those Muslims who want to move their religion in that direction. Some will say Allah isn't God - which makes no sense to me. Any religion that worships one true God is worshiping the one true God. Just because we may disagree on what that God is like and how that God might want us to act doesn't mean we're not seeking the ultimate truth.

I believe God loves and God's love changes things. If anyone rejects that, no matter the religion they claim, they reject God. If anyone accepts that, no matter their religion, they accept God. If I'm wrong. If everyone needs to think or believe a very specific interpretation of traditional Christianity, you don't get people to come over to your side by threatening them, vilifying them, or being argumentative. You win people with love. We don't repay wrong for wrong, anger for anger - those things don't work.

Our President is criticized a lot. Rightly, in many instances. This particular criticism is not only unwarranted, but completely illogical and nonsensical. It is entirely outside the spirit of the prayer breakfast itself. It's embarrassing and it makes no sense given the faith so many of us profess.




*And for anyone who's wondering, inciting a world-wide religious war is not the way to bring about the second coming of Christ. That's terrible biblical interpretation. It's also incredibly arrogant; to think we could somehow influence God's timeline in that way, and through such violence.