Focus on the Family: Pray for Rain

We’re starting a new feature here on the BWC Blog. Originally we were going to call this series “James Dobson Watch” and use it as a tool to keep tabs on and lovingly tease our brothers and sisters in the Religious Right. It didn’t take long for us to remember that there is plenty of ridiculousness at every point along the theological spectrum. We dropped the old title and settled on the more inclusive “Focus on the Family.”

But there was nothing wrong with our original instincts. By happy coincidence our first installment in this series is inspired by Focus Action, the political wing of Dr. Dobson’s organization.

When Donald Miller took the podium last night to give the benediction to the Democratic National Convention he made a comment about praying for good weather for Barack Obama’s acceptance speech, which will be given on Thursday night in front of 80,000 people at Denver’s Invesco Field. This seemed to be a reference to a video produced by Focus Action calling on Christians to pray for abundant, torrential, “swamp the intersections” rain – “rain of biblical proportions” – to extinguish the Democratic fires at Mile High Stadium on Thursday, August 28.

The video, which was produced by Stuart Shepard, the director of digital media at Focus Action, goes beyond snark and borders on full-blown creepy. Shepard originally said he was only partly joking: “Sure it’s boyish humor perhaps to wish for something like that, but at the same time it’s something people feel very strongly about. They’re concerned about where [Obama] would take the nation.”

Now, apparently, he was all the way joking. Focus Action pulled the video from its website after receiving complaints from about a dozen members of its organization. “If people took it seriously, we regret it,” said Tom Minnery, Focus Action vice president of public policy.

As for his praying for a deluge: “It’s called hyperbole,” Shepard said Monday. “It is meant to be humorous.”

Minnery said the video was taken down because several Focus members complained that prayer shouldn’t be used to bring harm on someone else.

“We are not about confusing people about prayer,” Minnery said.

(Shepard has since produced a Mea Culpa video about what it’s like to beat out Sean Hannity as Keith Olbermann’s Worst Person in the World.)

We’ll never know the real reason Focus Action took down the video. I’m looking at the weather report and it’s supposed to be sunny and 82 degrees in Denver on Thursday. Then again, maybe we should take Focus Action at their word. Earlier this month, five tornadoes touched in Denver suburbs. Four years ago temperatures dipped down to 42 degrees. And on August 28, 1875 a swarm of hungry locusts – so thick they darkened the sun – descended on Denver and destroyed every garden in the city. Maybe supporters of Rutherford B. Hayes were praying for Egyptian-style plagues against the mountebank Samuel J. Tilden.

Update: John from Berkeley has produced a very funny parody, Pray for Diarrhea.

Got a tip for our little “Focus on the Family”? Send it johnepattison [at] yahoo [dot] com.