Oklahoma governor Kevin Stitt prayed in front of the Oklahoma state capitol sometime the week before elections on 8 November 2022. He won his re-election as governor. I have no words for this.
“Father we just claim Oklahoma for you. Every square inch. We claim it for you in the name of Jesus. Father, we can do nothing apart from you. We know the real battle [isn’t] against flesh and blood, but against principalities of darkness. Father, we just come against that, we just loose* your will over our state right now in the name of Jesus. … We just thank you. We claim Oklahoma for you. As the authority that I have as governor and the spiritual authority and the physical authority that you give me. I claim Oklahoma for you, that we will be a light to our country and to the world, right here in our state. We thank you that your will is done on Tuesday, and Father that you will have your way with our state, with our education system, with everything within the walls behind me and the rooms behind me, Lord, that you will root out corruption, you’ll bring the right people into this building, Father, from now on.”
The way I look at it, let the Christians say all the prayers they want, and believe that God is answering them, as long as what they do takes us back in a conservative, Constitutional, “America First” direction. Which is what they usually do.
I agree, Liz. I have lived all my life in a Christian area, heck…I was a Christian. It hasn’t made any difference in who I am or how I live or how I vote. Somebody loves the Bill of Rights, the Constitution, this country…and prays for guidance and supernatural aid for the USA. I don’t care. It will not affect my life…but the damned rule of global oligarch elites will sure as hell affect my life and my grand-children’s lives and on into the future.
In general they make me sick to my stomach with disgust and fear. The Christians don’t.
I live in a heavily Democrat-voting neighborhood. A lot of my neighbors are regular church goers. They are either Episcopalians or Presbyterians (I don’t know in what proportion).
I would suspect that the ones, who pray overtly for God to aid and bless the United States and for His guidance to help the US renew its covenant with Him are most likely not going to be Leftists. CINOs…Christians In Name Only, like Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden are not going to vote Republican.
Of course, in an attempt to make my post lucid, I used the capitals to make sure that all understood that he, him, his or whatever referred to the Christian deity and not some un-named male bystander or the Governor of Oklahoma.
Did the United States have a covenant with the Christian deity?
From what I can figure, some or perhaps many of the founding generation (the ones fighting for independence) had such beliefs. But it seems most of the principle founding fathers (Jefferson, Adams, Madison, Franklin, et al.) were more likely to see it not as a covenant with God but as a blessing of “Providence”. And Providence could be either vaguely Christian or not (Deist, etc.). The earlier Pilgrims were another story, and a theocratic one. Does that make sense?
Yes, I think you’re right enough, Zerothruster. But I want Jeanne to answer, she having written, “…His guidance to help the US renew its covenant with Him.”
Yes, this is exactly what Christians believe about their God and the USA. This is exactly what they say; a covenant with God. Whether or not that was so in the founding, it is so now for Christians.
Thats interesting about the origin of the term “divine Providence”. The Founders were all well educated in Greek and Roman history and writings, and as you note, many were Deists.
They could very well have understood that term, which they used alot, more in the ancient “cult of virtues” sense than a Christian sense.
Good one!