Family Research Council

Religious Right Including Members Of Congress Pray For God To Stop The Health Care Bill

Eric Kleefeld | December 17, 2009, 1:59PM

Men praying outside the Capitol building in Washington, D.C.

The Family Research Council Action PAC held an extraordinary "prayercast" event last night, praying for the intercession of God to change Senators' minds and stop the health care bill.

(The full streaming video is available here.)

The event was an excellent display of the theocratic right -- that is, for the literal institution of religious doctrines in public policy, and appeals to the Deity for active direction and intervention in politics.

As I reported last night, Family Research Council president Tony Perkins began the evening with a false statement, confidently saying that history records the Founding Fathers praying for God's intervention at the Constitutional Convention. (They did not pray, mainly due to the financial inability to get a chaplain, as well as the political pitfall that even seeking a chaplain would alert the public to their internal dissensions.)

Co-host Lou Engle focused the event as a protest against abortion, alleging that the bill would result in government funding and promoting it, and likening their prayers to Biblical figures who worked to stop the genocide of the Jews. "But the Bible's very clear that prayer affects government," said Engle. "Esther's three-day fast changed public policy; Daniel's fast changed public policy; and it's the same, yesterday, today and forever, and that's why we're here."

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