A couple friends sent me a link to The Return prayer gathering in Washington a week and a half ago. I tuned in on September 26, attracted by the event’s billing as a national call to repentance. Repentance is always good, right? Same with prayer. How can you go wrong with prayer?
Rabbi Jonathan Cahn, a Messianic Jew, was already on the stage at the National Mall when I got online. I respect Cahn, author of The Harbinger and The Paradigm, two bestselling books that have circulated widely in Pentecostal-charismatic circles. I listened to his ardent prayer for this nation, and while I didn’t miss the subtle political cues, I saw that he honored the sanctity of the moment.
This was about prayer and repentance from sin. Surely we all need this.
Real-time messages poured in from all over on Instagram as Cahn preached. The broken-hearted and contrite typed in their sins and laid them down in the eyes of the whole world.
Now I have hesitated to write about this event for several days, because I know many sincere people tuned in and prayed. May God hear their hearts.
That made it even more of a letdown when several succeeding speakers made clear why we were really there. To prop up the re-election campaign of President Donald Trump. This was a political rally disguised as a prayer meeting, and while I wasn’t exactly shocked, given the roster of speakers, I still held out hope that these generals of the faith would set their sights higher.
I watched for about 40 minutes and gave up.
If I wasn’t hearing right-wing politics from the generals, all I needed to do was catch a glimpse of the maskless ones thronging the National Mall. The horde of bare faces left no doubt about the political loyalties.
That still blows my mind. How has refusing to wear a mask become a statement of faith? My forebears were tortured, insulted, flogged, stuck in prison, stoned, sawed in half, and put to death by the sword. But in the year 2020, we think we’re persecuted because we have to wear masks.
It probably goes without saying that at least 95 percent of the crowd was white.
To steal the title of one of the speaker’s books, could you Just Give Me Jesus? Could you just pray for me, or be a silent witness to my tears? Could you just teach me the words of eternal life, or speak hope to my spirit? Would you lay hands on me and cry out to God for my healing, or tarry at the altar with me?
Must you force my Jesus into the scarlet robe of right-wing politics?
I have one dear Christian friend hospitalized with COVID-19 right now. Others have lost their jobs permanently or are caught in an endless queue of callers at the Texas Workforce Commission while the president plays games with pandemic relief. Many—yes, many—of the most gracious Black Christian friends I know have told me how weary they are of their white brothers and sisters’ inaction and mumbled lip service concerning our national sin of racism. “When we’re tired,” one friend said, “things are really bad.”
When will we realize that God has allowed this shaking of our beloved nation so that we will lay down these false loyalties that have brought so much destruction and division to the body of Christ?
We can blow that shofar till our ears pop. We can pray for revival all we want. But Isaiah 58 assures us that none is coming as long as we close our ears to the cries of the oppressed on the other side of town.
