Joshua Jantz campaign’s prayer guide (this is from Okiedoke’s Oklahoma Election Propaganda Collection 2006)
I have seen some pretty crazy things, but I think Joshua’s prayer guide takes the cake. I know Joshua is an evangelical and wants to get folks saved but somehow it just seems crass and disrespectful for him to ask supporters to pray “For the voters’ salvation.”
But oh it gets worse… a few lines later, Joshua goes on to ask that his supporters pray for “unrighteous candidates to lose interest.”
My first reaction is curse at such an incredibly hateful and disrespectful comment, but my next reaction is to ask Joshua which of the Senate District 46 candidates does he think are unrighteous?
How dare he he say something this stupid. I know two of the other candidates (Andrew Rice and Rhonda Rudd — Andrew had done great activist work & Rhonda is awesome and a friend from L-school who I admire a lot.) and they are good folks. So unless Josh knows something really bad about one of the other two candidates in this race (Drew Dugan & Winston Barton), Josh’s attitude is pretty ****y. And frankly it is cowardly. If he is going to trash talk unnamed candidates as being “unrighteous,” then he should at least say which of the candidates he thinks is unrighteous so those candidates can respond to his ignorance.
I know this is just a stupid piece of campaign literature that he probably wasn’t intending for public exposure, but I can’t help but be upset because I feel like this kind of rhetoric gives religion (and Christianity in particular) a bad name.
I’m going to be contacting Josh and will ask him to apologize for this statement. If you feel the same, please contact him at his website
Dear Mr. Jantz:
I have seen the campaign literature in which you
ask voters to pray for the “unrighteous” candidates.
In fact, I find the entire brochure unenlightened and
a strong symbol of what is wrong with this country.
It is imperative that church and state– and religious
ideology– remain separate. You may pray all you want
and I can fault you not, so long as your praying is
done in private and not in the center of the temple for
all to see and witness your “piousness.”
You should point out exactly which candidates you
believe are “unrighteous” and the reasons you believe
so. In fact, you should go one step further and let
us all know when you were appointed judge over your
fellow man.
Your tactics are not worthy of the Christian faith.
Sincerely,
Rev. Dr. Gary D. Childers
Here’s what I wrote:
“I am certainly praying for “unrighteous” candidates to lose interest in this position…especially you. I can’t believe the outright insanity and bigotry the Republicans have employed in this year’s campaigns to cling to any shred of their former popularity. Jesus would be horribly ashamed of the self-righteous greedy warmongers that make up the core of the Republican party. Marilyn in OKC”
Andrew Sullivan said best in Time: We should call them what they are –
not Christians but Christianists. Just like we add “ist” to Islam to
mean Muslim extremist who want their religion to be state law, we add
“ist” to Christian for the same reason.