Jesus' General

Christ Weary of the National Day o' Prayer:
In honor of the "workshopping" Gen'ral, the Rude Pundit offers another installment in his ongoing Christ Weary series:

Today, in case you're home and not outside screamin' at the top of your lungs for Christ's sake, is the National Day o' Prayer. It's also the 36th anniversary of the Ohio National Guard gunning down four unarmed war-protesting students at Kent State, but, really, and, c'mon, let's concentrate on what's important here, and that, indeed, is prayer because without the National Day o' Prayer, America'd be just one heaving pile of sin and atheism. And the National Day o' Prayer Task Force is on the case; they're so good at their jobs, they make regular prayer task forces look like Mayberry's finest compared to their uzi-armed SWAT Team. A SWAT Team for Jesus, that's what they are.

They wanna remind us that the National Day o' Prayer ain't just a Christian thing; however, the NDo'PTF lets us know that whatever heathenous, non-denominationaltiy you may wanna inflict on America on this, its NDo'P, the NDo'PTF has its own agenda: "to communicate with every individual the need for personal repentance and prayer, mobilizing the Christian community to intercede for America and its leadership in the five centers of power: Church, Education, Family, Government and Media." Damn straight, prayermongers. Inter-damn-cession is the goal. Christian intercession. Even if the NDo'P is for everyone, the NDo'PTF is gonna make sure the family and government get the Christian perspective, so horribly ignored the rest of the year.

And to prove that the day is non-denominational, President Bush his-ol'-self had a commemoration for the NDo'P in the White House, organized and hosted by Shirley Dobson, who is the head of the NDo'P, which, of course, is after goals like "Publicize and preserve America's Christian heritage" (and Shirley is married to lovable combover curmudgeon and cultural warrior James Dobson).

Also there was Henry Blackaby, honorary chairman of the NDo'PTF, whose missionaries help poor countries and try to convert brown heathens to shiny Christians. And Jay Dennis, Baptist preacher and author of The Jesus Habits, teaching you how to live like Jesus while wearing real shoes and avoiding lepers and not starving yourself for weeks and weeks. Yes, yes, there was a token rabbi there, but, you know, that way they can get away with sayin', "Judeo-Christian." Get it? Have a Jew there and it's "Judeo."

The President offered us these words of "wisdom": "In the stillness and peace of prayer we surrender our will to God's will, and we learn to serve His eternal purposes. By opening ourselves to God's priorities, our hearts are stirred and we are inspired to action -- to feed the hungry, to reach out to the poor, to bring aid to a widow or to an orphan or to the less fortunate." And if you happen to be the Commander-in-Chief of the nation that's creating a whole buncha' widows and orphans, well, then, really, all you're doing is giving everyone a chance to act on God's priorities, no?

Mostly, though, the Rude Pundit was blown away by the video of the official song of the National Day o' Prayer Task Force, not to be confused with the National Day o' Prayer itself, even though the Task Force's song, "America, Honor God," was sung at the White House by its artist, Australian hottie-o'hottie Rebecca St. James.


The video starts with scratchy film of the Founding Fathers, looking all stern, and then shows us images of people of various sizes, colors (as in shades of white, mostly), and income groups praying, along with praying NASCAR drivers, praying soldiers, praying Boy Scouts, praying rodeo cowboys, all in front of the Stars and Stripes, until, yes, we get the idea. America. God. God. America.

Yes, the Rude Pundit wanted to break out his prayer kneeling pad, available through the NDo'PTF website, ask Rebecca to get down in front of him as he stands there, and have her celebrate the glories of bobbing one's head in prayer. For God, for Bush, for America.

Note: General lovers, if you wanna read more of this kinda stuff, come on over and peruse a while at the Rude Pundit's place. You'll be glad you did. Then you'll be disturbed that you're glad. Then you'll feel just a bit dirty for laughing. Then you'll touch yourself repeatedly as you're reading, and that'll make everything okay again.

And, manly, heterosexually, of course, the Rude Pundit would totally hand job the General.

Correction: As several readers have pointed out, only two of the four dead at Kent State, Allison Krause and Jeffrey Miller, were actually protesting. The other two chose the wrong path to get to class on time, so Sandra Scheuer and William Schroeder would not, in fact, be classified as protesters at the time of their deaths. In one of those great "irony is a big ol' chomp of ass" moments, Schroeder was ROTC, but, hell, it was kind of like being fragged by your own men in the jungle.