Matthew 6:5-6 (NIV)
And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.The question is whether Rick Perry is using the event to impress evangelical voters to kick off his anticipated presidential run, or simply to express solidarity with several thousand people in a stadium whom he has never met...or maybe, for the benefit of the doubt, Perry is just doing the event for the sake of doing it.
But, consider the one time when Jesus Christ used violence
Matthew 21:12-13 Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. “It is written,” he said unto them, “‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it a den of robbers.”In the case of the moneychangers, they were using the temple for the sake of enriching themselves with money. From this we may conclude that nobody should use a house of worship for his own selfish enrichment. This enrichment could also pertain to political clout; and it seems Rick Perry will gain political clout among evangelicals from this event. Moreover, the hypocrites we mentioned earlier prayed loudly so that they could gain favor with men and thus enrich themselves politically.
Indeed, at the moment we cannot know the true motivation for Perry's prayer event, but we can be certain that Perry needs to be careful that he is not doing the event for the wrong reasons so that he won't be a hypocrite or moneychanger.
We fear that the Republican voters will be corralled into defending Rick Perry the person, much as they were corralled into defending Sarah Palin the person. Thus the voters will not be concerned with actual government issues and policies--Perry's weakspot--but rather with Rick Perry the man. In Perry, the voters will see themselves--Bible believing Christians, and thus they will lunge at the chance to defend a fellow Christian, and forget about whether his policies are in accord with Christian virtues. We know that Perry's silent condonement of his Lieutenant governor's sabotage of the anti-TSA groping bill is one strike against him. Another is his attempts to force girls to get gardasil shots. Many other facts undermine Perry's image of being a tea-party Christian. But these facts will make less of an impression if identity politics has already taken hold of voters, and they see themselves in Rick Perry. http://www.facebook.com/groups/conservativesagainstrickperry/
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