What Would Jesus Do? Mark Twain's Ultimate truth about getting what we pray for.
The President that many Americans consider their "Christian in the White House" has declared that God, the Higher Father to whom he appeals, is the reason why he was elected.
George W. Bush has, on his watch, initiated war. He has placed American troops in harm's way, leaving military families at home with the agony of worry and conflicts in many cases as to whether or not this particular war is absolutely necessary. Some families have spoken out against the war while others, praying all the time for safety for their loved ones, have chosen to follow an unspoken code of silence and support when troops are in action.
We all pray for God's protection for our troops. But do we ask God to protect troops from enemies or should we ask God to protect troops from war itself?
This year Christians in this country are divided over the coming decision to remove an openly-practising Christian president who appeals to many on that very spiritual basis.
Add to that a political party leadership that plays the religion card very cynically in trying to rally believers to blindly vote for Bush because Bush talks God talk. We then find ourselves with that circumstance that prompted Lincoln to say that he hoped this country was on God's side rather than that God was on our side.
Mark Twain had strong feelings about this and a passage from his famous War Prayer is one of those literal images that continues to speak very clearly to those who literally preach that God is on our side - those who preach that America should not only end wars, but, if our Christian in the White House says so, should initiate them as well.
What images come to our minds when we hear someone pray for God to bless our armies with victory? What do we really say when we ask God to protect our troops and grant victory?
From Libertystory.net: Outraged by American military intervention in the Phillipines, Mark Twain wrote this and sent it to Harper's Bazaar. This women's magazine rejected it for being too radical, and it wasn't published until after Mark Twain's death, when World War I made it even more timely. It appeared in Harper's Monthly, November 1916.
Consider the following excerpt from the War Prayer:
"The service proceeded; a war chapter from the Old Testament was read; the first prayer was said; it was followed by an organ burst that shook the building, and with one impulse the house rose, with glowing eyes and beating hearts, and poured out that tremendous invocation:
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