Dear Non-Evangelicals, Let’s Stop Fearing Prayer:

Brandon Kneefel
Aug 8, 2017 · 4 min read

I am not an Evangelical Christian, but I pray. I prayed as I tried to get clean and sober, I prayed before and after coming out of the closet, and even on reality TV, I prayed. It’s a spiritual tool that helps me get clear about principles; it helps me focus on what is ever-lasting and good.

Y’all, I am not into fear mongering, but if the religious leaders of this country cannot hold true to their own rigid ideals of modesty and righteousness, then what spiritual compass do the fundamentalists have? If spiritual leaders side with a man — a U.S. president — who is often not true to his word and sexually harasses women, then what direction are we headed? Pastors and Preachers point their levitical holiness codes away from the emperor with no clothes back unto the most vulnerable populations of this country. I don’t particularly enjoy the hollers of fundamentalists, specifically toward my own LGBT community, but I get it. I get it. You’re beholden to the a “higher law” and not the letter of constitutional law. I get it. But Trump isn’t one of you. So what the hell?!

(Imma be super confused if this isn’t an exorcism: Reuters file photo)

We have a president who cannot take responsibility for any harm he or his cabinet has done. We have a lying president who says he stands with LGBT people, then bans transgender folks from serving in the military. He claims this is a financial decision; a strategic decision. And yet he was surrounded by a formal or informal Evangelical advisory board — people who are not financial whizzes or military experts. These are people whose expertise is often confined, literally, to one book — the Bible. He was influenced by Evangelical leaders who neglect the harm that he causes in order to praise his anti-LGBT agenda. And the so-called Christian leaders were seduced by a reckless Cyclops, believing that he’d surely only destroy the plight of those they themselves oppose — trans and gay folks. But, what they miss is that a one-eyed monster only sees his course and will bludgeon a path only large enough for his body to fit through. The monster who makes empty promises to a community that faces disproportionate amounts of discrimination lacks loyalty toward anything but himself. We’ve seen the wreckage of his plight with his leadership thus far.

Many of my friends and colleagues cannot watch the news. They have fear or anger around what is happening. Gone, it seems, are the days of ideological battles. It seems rational dissonance is a thing of the past. The scenes on the news now are flurries of madness or blithe and bold denial that smells like subterraneous rage.

I cannot do much, but I can watch the news. I can watch the news to know where to direct my prayers. I don’t buy into passivity, the kind that asks God to “save us from this mess,” but a rallying cry that auto-corrects the errors in the world. I believe in a vision-casting of sorts that declares a truer world, that requires us to wake up from this insane illusion. And I call upon the spiritual leaders in this country who are unmoved by a president pitting groups against one another. I call upon the agnostics that know that there is something benevolent and indomitable about the human spirit, a spirit that joins in unity for the greater good. I call upon those of you to symbolically lay your hands on your neighbors, communities and reclaim prayer as a tool to declare that we are good. Declare that our most vulnerable members of society do not need our pity or our punishment, but our faith. Declare that integrity is the only spiritual compass needed — if we don’t have the power of our honest word, we have nothing to offer each other — and that no concept of power or influence will deter us from doing what is right and good for all. Declare that in our humility, we may awaken to greater wisdom about our fellows, our future and ourselves. And so it is because it has already begun.

One last thing…

If you’re into radical thinking, join me here for occasional updates HERE. For more on reclaiming prayer and how to use it powerfully, individually and non-dogmatically, my ebook Defining Moments and Prayers to Guide Them is available here.

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