I do not want to perpetuate any “taking of sides” over the “controversialist” which Mrs. Wasson addresses in her piece “Pray? For This Guy?”, but I would like to give another perspective on the subject at hand, which is the question of whether hard truth actually constitutes an unloving attitude.
Mrs. Wasson’s style is passionate and may be considered “abrasive” by some. But stop and consider the virtue of abrasion. We buy Ajax to scrub our bathtubs for its abrasive quality. We take our jewelry to the jeweler to be polished by a process of fine-abrasion buffing out the fine scratches. When your dear bed-bound grandmother developed a bedsore, a process of gentle abrasion is used to debride (gently strip off) necrotic tissue which breeds germs, so new healthy tissue can grow and healing can commence. If there ever were a nation who needed a good scrubbing, it is America!
Donna Wasson is a hospice nurse. I, too, worked in Hospice many of my early years of nursing. You don’t spend a career working around death and dying, without a heart full of compassion and true love for others.
But let’s get back to the question of whether Donna’s words are unloving? And whether, indeed she (and we all) should be praying for this particular enemy-of-the-state, Obama. A favorite old-time preacher of mine once wrote these words:
“I believe there are times when we do not need to pray for folk to be blessed. I visited a member of my church in the hospital and prayed for him, and then a man in the other bed asked me to pray for him. I asked him whether he was a Christian, and he said he believed in God. I told him that didn’t make him a Christian, and then I explained the gospel to him and asked him to put his trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. He said he could not accept that, but he wanted me to pray for him. I told him, “Brother, I will pray for you, but not the way you want me to pray for you. You want me to pray that you will get well and that God will bless you. I am going to pray that you will be saved—that is the only prayer I can pray for you.” I believe we do too much praying for people to be blessed of God when we ought to be praying that those people will be saved”. —J. Vernon McGee
Yes, the Bible says pray for your enemies, but there are clear examples wherein God said stop praying for them, as He would hear not more of the prayers for that enemy.
Still, let’s not take Vernon McGee’s word for it. Let’s look to the one authority which we should all base our behaviors upon, which is God’s Word, itself. Jeremiah 7: 9-16 says:
9 Will ye steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense unto Baal, and walk after other gods whom ye know not;
10 And come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, We are delivered to do all these abominations? 11 Is this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, even I have seen it, saith the Lord. 12 But go ye now unto my place which was in Shiloh, where I set my name at the first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Israel. 13 And now, because ye have done all these works, saith the Lord, and I spake unto you, rising up early and speaking, but ye heard not; and I called you, but ye answered not; 14 Therefore will I do unto this house, which is called by my name, wherein ye trust, and unto the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, as I have done to Shiloh. 15 And I will cast you out of my sight, as I have cast out all your brethren, even the whole seed of Ephraim.
16 Therefore pray not thou for this people, neither lift up cry nor prayer for them, neither make intercession to me: for I will not hear thee
Consider America now, who has been on a downward trajectory, moving away from God for a long time, however, Obama is the first president, and the Democrat Party at the recent convention is also complicit, which for the first time has not merely condoned such sin and God-rejection but has formally sanctioned and embraced it, making it their official goal and party platform!
This does not leave the Republicans innocent by any stretch. They too are complicit.
America has done the same abominations as Israel. Murder, adultery, walking after other gods, swearing falsely all sound like a “day in the life” of Obama’s (modern) America to me. But even those sins are not new with Obama; other administrations are guilty as well. What is new with Obama, what move us out of the category of a disobedient nation, to a nation blatantly in direct and official rebellion against God, came in the form of these 7 words from Obama’s lips during his first year in office: “America is no longer a Christian Nation” We had already taken the Bible and Prayer out of public school, we are well on the way now in America to banning it altogether in the public square, even in private homes where police raid and arrest folks for holding Bible studies. We kill millions of babies every year, but it has been Obama who has made abortion services and contraception mandatorily financed by every American and offered by every American business even if they are faith-based and these practices are diametrically counter to their religious values and beliefs. Under Obama, homosexuality and the concept of gay marriage became “officially acceptable” and “lawful” in many states by his refusing to uphold the Definition of Marriage Act, repealing of D.A.D.T. for the military. It is also under Obama that America’s transformation into a police state has accelerated into over-drive, while our Constitution has been decimated, individual liberties disregarded and greater subservience to U.N. powers have become the new norm.
Jeremiah didn’t mince words, and neither did the prophet Isaiah, who was quite a “name-caller” himself:
His watchmen are blind: they are all ignorant, they are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark; sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber. 11 Yea, they are greedy dogs which can never have enough, and they are shepherds that cannot understand: they all look to their own way, every one for his gain, from his quarter. (Isaiah 56:10-11) Isaiah also said this: Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear: 2 But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.
It takes all kinds in the work of God, to get through to different types of people. Donna doesn’t use profanity, she doesn’t say things that aren’t true, and she does her research and supports her assertion of principles with appropriate and relevant scripture. So what if it “isn’t pretty”? In the words of one illustrious Forrest Gump, “pretty is as pretty does”. All the rest is just Donna’s God-given personality and she gives fair warning disclosure that her writing style is not for everyone. Reading her stuff and then writing to complain about it is a little like the lady suing McDonalds after she scaled herself on hot coffee. McDonalds did not force that customer to buy the coffee. Certain risks are inherent.
Let’s not be hypocritical like atheists and Muslim radicals who defend “free speech” for themselves while they would deny it to Christians. I am afraid Donna is right about that readers are perfectly free to skip right over her articles, avoid her website, and not subject themselves to her opinions. I think possibly it is those who are afraid to speak up, who would silence voices like Donna, because they would rather convince themselves that they are more virtuous in their “tolerance and love” than she is with her supposed “vitriol and hate”. Well, you can grease those poor offended gays; Obamas, Marxists and radial Muslims slide right into hell with your brand of “love”, but please, stay out of Donna’s way. She’s already learnt that pandering and compromise are what got us where we are, and is wielding her pen of hard truth like a skilled surgeon to cut through the necrotic rhetoric of political correctness in order to salvage a chance that any living and healthy tissue remaining at the heart of this once-great nation, can stand a chance of staying alive and returning to obedience while there is still time left to do so.
Sandee Lloyd