Forgiveness, After All, Is Such a Hassle

So much for killing someone with kindness. So much for "if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads" (Romans 12:20). So much for overcoming evil with good (Romans 12:21). One of my esteemed colleagues, the Rev. Wiley Drake, of First Southern Baptist Church in Buena Park, California has had it with such "turn the other cheek" nonsense. It seems that after Rev. Drake mailed out a letter on church stationery endorsing a particular candidate for President, Americans United For Separation of Church and State encouraged the I.R.S. to reevaluate the congregation's tax exempt status. This displeased Rev. Drake, who no longer wants to kill his enemies with kindness; now he simply wants to kill them.

Citing Psalm 109 among other passages of guidance, Rev. Drake is encouraging his supporters to engage in "imprecatory prayer" -- calling down God's personalized wrath on those thusly targeted.

"Dear God, scratch them out."
"Loving God, hurt them, please."
"God of peace, obliterate them."
God as windshield to our specified bugs.

It reminds me of the closing lines of one of my other favorite Psalms:
"O daughter Babylon, you devastator! ^*
Happy shall they be who pay you back
what you have done to us!
⁹Happy shall they be who take your little ones
and dash them against the rock!" (Psalm 137)

Except Psalm 137 is merely acknowledging how good vengeance can feel. Unlike Rev. Drake, this Psalm isn't imploring God to hire on as our personal hitman. The good reverend is taking a quantum leap over President Reagan's "Star Wars" Strategic Defense Initiative. Here is God as Strategic Offense Initiative, with prayer as the triggering, homing device.

And we wonder why Christians have an increasingly bad name! Perhaps having started with Genesis, Rev. Drake is still making his way through scripture, learning about prayer as he goes. I can see how his understanding of prayer may be a little skewed by the passages and examples he has encountered thus far. I might suggest, though, that he skip ahead just this once to Luke 11, where one of Jesus' disciples asks him to "teach us how to pray." According to Jesus, one of the core elements of prayer is the desire for forgiveness -- illuminated in some way by the way we forgive others who sin against us. Forgiving, and being forgiven as inextricably related. This whole "forgiveness" business can be kind of murky at times. As Kenny Loggins once said, "who the good guys are; who the bad guys are isn't always clear" (from The One Who Got Away).

It's worth thinking about. Apart from that whole humility business about holding open the possibility that OUR enemies may not be GOD's, Rev. Drake ought to be careful. At the rate he is going, he could be the one who winds up wearing heaps of burning coals on his head.