Wiley Drake is back in the news….
From The Orange County Register:
Southern Baptist Pastor Wiley Drake of Buena Park sent out an email Monday night, saying that perhaps his prayers had been answered with the death of Rep. John Murtha yesterday.
“Maybe God took him out,” Drake wrote. “Maybe God Answered our IMPRECATORY prayer that we prayed every 30 days.”
The Pennsylvania congressman, a decorated former Marine who fiercely opposed the Iraq war, died at the age of 77 after complications from gallbladder surgery.
I asked Drake if his statements weren’t distasteful, particularly coming immediately after Murtha’s death. He said that as a Christian, he didn’t buy into the sentiment of not speaking ill of the dead.
“It’s not distasteful to pray the word of God and include somebody’s name,” he said. “I didn’t celebrate his death. I said maybe it was God’s answer to our imprecatory prayer.”
Drake regularly asks his “prayer warriors” to participate in prayer targeting “unrighteous” politicians. He typically uses Psalms 109, including these passages including in his Monday email: “Let his days be few; and let another take his office.” And, “Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.”
At one point, Drake prayed for the death of President Barack Obama. However, he dropped that because he wants to see Obama faces charges that he is not a natural-born citizen and so cannot be president. Drake has such a lawsuit on appeal.
Drake said he and his prayer warriors had been praying for Murtha’s death for four or five months. Among other things, Drake said Murtha’s use of profanity and his use of God’s name in vain. Beside praying for the death of specific politicians, he said they pray for “politicians in general who are taking unrighteous stands.”
Back in 2006, Southern Baptists elected Wiley Drake to serve as the 2nd Vice-President of the Southern Baptist Convention. For a brief intro to Wiley, see here.
Here’s what I find interesting: Top Southern Baptist leaders from Morris Chapman, CEO of the SBC Executive Committee, to SBC President Johnny Hunter to former SBC Frank Page (and others) have intervened in the situation in Haiti regarding the arrested group of Idaho Southern Baptists. Clearly these prominent Southern Baptists have gone public in part because of the obvious damage being done to the reputation of the SBC – a PR nightmare indeed!
One would think that these on-going stories about Wiley Drake is also not good for the Southern Baptist brand, right? I mean, it was Southern Baptists – not anyone else- who elected this kook.
How many Southern Baptist leaders have spoken out against the hateful rhetoric of their former 2nd Vice President, Wiley Drake? The only response to Drake that I’m familiar with came last year when Sing Oldham, vice president for convention relations with the SBC Executive Committee, told a reporter that “Mr. Drake does not represent Southern Baptist actions, resolutions or positions in his interpretation and application of imprecatory prayers.”
Just wondering where Frank Page, Johnny Hunt and Morris Chapman are on this?
I don’t think that PR is the reason why SBC leaders have commented publicly on the situation in Haiti. I don’t think that the election of Wiley Drake should be taken seriously. I don’t think that one could rightly characterize Southern Baptists as silent with regard to Drake. I am not a Southern Baptist leader, I realize, but I did once blog comparing Drake to Caligula’s horse Incitatus.
Sounds like Mr. Oldham acted in his official capacity clearly stating that Mr. Drake does not represent the SBC with respect to imprecatory prayer. That’s pretty complete; I suppose they could repeat it or have someone else say it again.
Are there any former leaders of other Baptist conventions doing/saying anything that needs to be denounced?
(1) A Southwestern Seminary trustee is certainly a Southern Baptist leader.
(2) What strikes me about this Baptist missionaries in Haiti incident is that we have Land, Chapman, Hunt and Page pleading on the missionaries behalf, yet with no intimate knowledge of the facts. It sounds to me like Laura Silsby is likely guilty. She saw the big bucks that could be made in illegal adoptions and got a bunch of unsuspecting Baptist laypeople to act as her cover.
“The leader of the group of Americans charged on Thursday with abducting children in Haiti is an Idaho businesswoman with a complicated financial history that involves complaints from employees over unpaid wages, state liens on a company bank account and lawsuits in small claims court.”
“Ms. Silsby and her business, Personal Shopper, which provides shopping services for Internet customers, have faced multiple legal claims.”
See: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/05/world/americas/05idaho.html
Give the Haitian authorities some credit. They are rightfully conducting a full investigation.
As a free speech advocate (http://pragpols.blogspot.com/), I believe that it is time to drop all speech restrictions on whatever any church wants to say about any political issue or any candidate. If a church leader wants to condemn members of the congregation to eternal agony and damnation for supporting the wrong political position or candidate that is just fine. It is also time to eliminate non-profit status for all organizations, regardless of their social mission. As we all know, the national debt is way out of control and that will not change any time soon. The U.S. treasury desperately needs revenue. On top of that, some non-profit organizations and churches advocate for political and social positions that are profoundly offensive to me. Given that, I do not want to support or subsidize their anti-American agendas with one penny of my taxes. In other words, if churches or anyone else wants to play politics, then pay just like the rest of us. That is only fair and reasonable, isn’t it? Of course it is. It is Tea Party time!