{"id":1873,"date":"2020-03-12T17:35:00","date_gmt":"2020-03-12T23:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=1873"},"modified":"2020-03-06T20:33:05","modified_gmt":"2020-03-07T03:33:05","slug":"prayer-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=1873","title":{"rendered":"Prayer?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Speaking of <a href=\"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=1865\">prayer<\/a>, we seem to have reached a point in this country where prayer is not only neglected by believers, it is ridiculed by unbelievers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/breakpoint.org\/how-dare-the-vice-president-pray\/?_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_E69sro4y-j1yKALeVH520fm6wNu1tBYYNxLl84AggYUeM0kREmVL06b7Q526T_78TwJClzaida06U_01lRQT0pZoxTA&amp;_hsmi=84252714\">BreakPoint<\/a> reported a few days ago that Vice President Mike Pence was roundly castigated for daring to pray before a meeting to discuss appropriate action on the coronavirus Here\u2019s a sample of what was said according to BreakPoint:<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><em>One secular research website headlined the photo with this take: \u201c<\/em><em>Symbolic of the moral and intellectual decay at the White House<\/em><em>, a photo shows<\/em><strong><em>&nbsp;<\/em><\/strong><em>Vice President Mike Pence&nbsp;and his team trying to pray away the coronavirus.\u201d Pence and his team were \u201cwallowing in ignorant superstition and willful ignorance,\u201d the site continued, suggesting that Pence prays because he\u2019s a \u201creligious extremist.\u201d<\/em><\/li><li><em>Another slant, this one from an out-and-proud atheist: \u201cIt\u2019s not a joke when people say these Republicans are trying to stop a virus with prayer. What else did anyone expect? Science? Reason? Something sensible?\u201d<\/em><\/li><li><em>One of the most viral tweets of the photo had this caption: \u201cMike Pence and his coronavirus emergency team praying for a solution. We are so [blanked].\u201d<\/em><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We seem to be on a regression: <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When the founding fathers were working on the constitution, Benjamin Franklin famously called the participants to prayer with this statement:&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>I have lived, Sir, a long time; and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth, that God governs the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it possible that an empire can rise without his aid?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>In short, prayer was accepted and expected.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The late Howard Hendricks, a well-known professor from Dallas Theological Seminary, used to tell this story:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>There was a drought in Texas that, after it had continued for a time, officials called for a day of prayer. A woman responded, \u201cPrayer? My God, has it come to that?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>She saw prayer as a last resort.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And now today, if people are convinced there is no God, prayer is seen to be at best, an exercise in futility; at worst, a sign of derangement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Praying is an example of &#8220;moral and intellectual decay.&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Woe to those who call evil good&nbsp;and good evil,&nbsp;who put darkness for light&nbsp;and light for darkness,&nbsp;who put bitter for sweet&nbsp;and sweet for bitter!&nbsp;Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes,&nbsp;and shrewd in their own sight! (Isaiah 5.20, 21, ESV)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Speaking of prayer, we seem to have reached a point in this country where prayer is not only neglected by believers, it is ridiculed by unbelievers. BreakPoint reported a few days ago that Vice President Mike Pence was roundly castigated for daring to pray before a meeting to discuss appropriate action on the coronavirus Here\u2019s &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=1873\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Prayer?<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8X9bo-ud","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1873"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1873\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1877,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1873\/revisions\/1877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}