Should We Pray for Trump?
Quick answer: We should pray for ourselves instead.
In a rare long-form (six-page!) statement, Donald Trump began his diatribe against the Democratic impeachers by rebuking Nancy Pelosi for saying that she prayed for him: “ Even worse than offending the Founding Fathers, you are offending Americans of faith by continually saying ‘I pray for the President,’ when you know this statement is not true, unless it is meant in a negative sense.” (annotated transcript)
It’s hard to imagine anyone other than Trump or his evangelical lapdogs being offended by Pelosi’s statement, but maybe our President has a point. Is praying for Trump a valid idea or just rhetorical positioning?
My thesis: Unless Pelosi is simply using the statement as an opportunity for establishing her own religiosity (or Trump’s lack thereof), she’s wasting her time by supplicating a higher power on behalf of one of our nation’s most egregious sinners.
I’m assuming three things about my gentle readers on Medium:
- You believe in God or some higher power.
- You believe in the power of prayer to that higher power.
- You believe that Donald Trump is doing a bad job as President of the United States.
