The Family Research Council Action PAC just finished it’s spend 90-minute “prayercast,” an online event to pray for God’s intercession to get Senators to stop the health care bill, and it sure was interesting to watch.
Overall, the event provided a good look at the theocratic right, about which we’ll have more to write tomorrow. Guests included — either live, by phone, or on pre-recorded video — Sens. Jim DeMint (R-SC) and Sam Brownback (R-KS), Reps. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), Randy Forbes (R-VA), Todd Akin (R-MO) and others.
But let’s start our review with one fun moment from tonight. At the beginning of the event, FRC president Tony Perkins and his co-host Lou Engle spoke of a stirring moment from the Constitutional Convention of 1787. Benjamin Franklin called for the feuding delegates to join together in prayer to God, and how “without His concurring aid, we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel.”
“And you know what happened?” Perkins asked. “History records that they prayed.”
Actually, history records that they did not pray — and this has been a recurring myth of the American religious right that never goes away. As the Library of Congress says: “Franklin’s motion failed, ostensibly because the Convention had no funds to pay local clergymen to act as chaplains.”
We’ll have more tomorrow.
