Evidently, God was not pleased when right wing evangelical Pastor James Dobson of Focus on the Family asked right wing evangelicals to ask Him to rain on Obama's speech at the Democratic National Convention. As it turned out, Obama had perfect weather (thank you, God) and now that the Republican convention is here the following week, God is producing a deluge on the Gulf Coast that is seriously interfering with the Republican convention (thank you, God). There is finally some justice in the universe! Evidently, God favors Obama and not the right wing nut cases like James Dobson who presume to know who and what God favors in national politics. Hey Dobson, maybe a little humility would be in order. It goes to show how much influence you have with God. The following is from AlterNet:
As reported here over the weekend, James Dobson's Focus on the Family employs Stuart Shepard to make short, "clever" religious-right videos for the evangelical powerhouse. Shepard creates these videos regularly, and most of them are entirely forgettable.
Last week, however, Focus unveiled a new video, asking politically-conservative Christians to pray for rain on Aug. 28, in order to disrupt Barack Obama's speech at the Democratic National Convention.
Shepard called for "abundant rain, torrential rain ... flood-advisory rain." He adds, "I'm talking about umbrella-ain't-gonna-help-you rain ... swamp-the-intersections rain." Explaining why he wants everyone to pray for rain, Shepard explains, without a hint of humor, "I'm still pro-life, and I'm still in favor of marriage being between one man and one woman. And I would like the next president who will select justices for the next Supreme Court to agree."
In other words, Obama disagrees with the religious right on culture-war issues, so Focus on the Family wants God to smite Obama with rain. Got it.
Maybe these idiots should pray for a brain instead. What numbnuts! Rain in the proportion they asked God to provide would undoubtedly have wreaked havoc in the whole Denver area and caused much devastation. It is just desserts that their prayers were not only not answered but produced results just the opposite of what they prayed for. Let that be a lesson, a**holes!
Evangelicals have a problem: they want to involve themselves in politics -- for instance by praying that the Obama speech at the Democratic convention is rained out, as James Dobson of Focus On the Family called for. Some evangelicals are embarrassed by such antics. What can they do? Nothing because their theology acknowledges no central authority. Evangelicals don't "do" structure. They don't do government, or bishops or tradition. They just do "me" and "I" never we. So their individualistic and narcissistic village idiots-Dobson, Robertson, Osteen etc.-are in charge by default.
The whole point of Evangelical Christianity is a consumerist-oriented, do your own thing approach to Jesus. This is a departure from historical Christianity centered on a liturgical tradition that had to do with faith lived in community and beliefs defined by tradition, not the individual pastor standing in front of the congregation holding forth according to whim. But evangelical "worship" is nothing but grandstanding. It's all about the sermon and the pastor's personality.
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Evangelicals get direct messages from God. So who needs tradition, let alone government? That is why Evangelicals are opposed to all structure. They hate government, and they hate the idea of bishops telling them what it means to be a Christian. They hate the idea of health care for all that might involve someone (other than voices in their heads) telling them what to do. And they want the "right" to own guns, raise kids on myths and own that SUV and believe that more drilling for oil will bring down the price of gas. They also want God to speak directly to them, never mind a community of faith. And God seems to tell them weird stuff. So today's crazy person is tomorrow's best selling Rick Warren or Victoria and Joel Osteen. And how can they be crazy? Look how big their churches are! They measure up to the only real Evangelical creed-the ability to make money and be successful in commercial terms.
Evangelicalism is a series of personality cults masquerading as religion.
