About
six or eight years ago, I remember being astonished and dismayed to learn that some
of my fellow pro-life workers refused to pray for then-President Barack Obama.
There weren’t many of them, but there were enough to leave me dumbfounded.
These people were mostly devout Christians of various traditions, who were familiar
enough with their Bibles to have come across 1 Timothy 2:1-2 (“I desire
therefore, first of all, that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and
thanksgivings be made for all men: for kings, and for all that are in high
station: that we may lead a quiet and a peaceable life in all piety and
chastity.”) The Holy Spirit speaking through St. Paul makes clear that prayer for
those in positions of authority in government should be prayed for, which was why
I included prayer for the president in my morning and evening prayers every
day.
(Scott Olson/Getty Images)
But
even beyond the Scriptural command, there is the issue of empathy. I disagreed
with much of what President Obama stood for and most of his policies, but he was
still a fellow human being in a position of tremendous responsibility and associated
pressure. Regardless of how much or little I agreed with him, I wanted him to know
God’s blessing and come to see His face for all eternity. And though most of my
pro-life friends shared that viewpoint, the few who didn’t were distressing.
They
were certain that they know all about Barack Obama. He was one of Them. He was
one whose policies and appointments we were fighting (which was often true). He
was the Enemy, not to be tolerated or accommodated in any way, even in prayer. Obama
was evil, and there was even some question about whether he was the Antichrist
himself. He opposed everything we stood for, and as such was outcast, wicked,
and (essentially) beyond redemption.
What
these people (again, a small but vociferous minority) had done was to start
viewing the world through the lens of their politics – a very easy thing to fall
into when you spend more time listening to cable news than immersing yourself in
Scripture. They knew all about Obama, having been informed by their preferred
news feeds and online columnists, and were convinced that he was not to be
supported or favored in any way. They might have mouthed a cursory prayer (“We
pray for all in civil authority…”), but they would not have prayed for
President Obama by name, and certainly wouldn’t have truly intended God to
bless him.
The
most tragic thing about this situation was that these people didn’t realize the
degree to which they were imperiling their souls. They were engaging in the
very thing Jesus forbids in the Sermon on the Mount – i.e. judging the heart of
another. While it is true that some of what Obama did and promoted could be rightly
judged as opposed to God’s moral law, to extend that judgment to presume to
know his motives and the state of his heart before God was to sit in the seat
of God Himself – something that Jesus strictly forbid. Furthermore, to presume
that Obama was beyond redemption, effectively damned already, was the highest
kind of presumption.
What
these people were forgetting was that when St. Paul wrote those instructions to
Timothy, as well as verses like Romans 13:1, the “high authority” in question
was the Roman emperor Nero. Yeah, him. If there was any party who did not
deserve prayer by his actions and attitudes, it was Nero. Yet the Holy Spirit
inspired St. Paul to write that anyway, and St. Timothy certainly obeyed, and
Christians have been obeying ever since.
That’s
the important thing. We live in contentious times, and judging the heart and
motives of others is the stock in trade of much public commentary. These few
people I mention had been so swayed by all they were taking in that it had eclipsed
what the Lord had clearly instructed them to do. I took it as a reminder to me
of where my primary responsibility lies, and to entrust all judgment to the
Lord. What evil Obama has done, he will answer for – but the witness of
Scripture is that I should be much more concerned about the evil I have done,
and the answering I will do. In light of that, there should be nobody on the
face of the earth I refuse to pray for.
