Prominent Christian calls to “pray for Putin” are wrongheaded and discordant with the American political tradition and American religious history.
Remember reading about the American prayer vigils for Soviet dictators Joseph Stalin and Nikita Khrushchev during the Cold War? What about all the times Americans were beseeched to pray for Adolph Hitler and Benito Mussolini during World War II?
You don’t remember that? Neither do I, because it never happened.
You see, back in the day, Americans prayed not for despots and dictators, but for the people enslaved by these despots and dictators—and for our soldiers and diplomats who were working to stop these despots and dictators and free the enslaved.
“Pray for the peoples of the ‘Captive Nations‘ behind the Iron Curtain,” was, in fact, a common American religious refrain in the 20th Century.
It is, after all, more than a little twisted and perverse, not to mention heretical, to pray for objectively bad men as they perpetrate genocide and mass murder while enslaving innocent peoples worldwide.
The New Orthodoxy. But according to some Christian conservatives, that is so passé. Their new orthodoxy requires that we shower prayer and affection on despots and dictators, not their victims. Thus the prominent Christian evangelist and missionary Franklin Graham tweeted:
Rod Dreher, a prominent Christian author and journalist, replied:
Now, of course, praying for God to work a miracle in Putin’s heart is all well and good; but not, I’m afraid, “so that war can be avoided at all cost [emphasis added].”
If the price of peace is the Russian annexation of Ukraine and the Russian enslavement of the people of Ukraine, then no thanks. That cost is too high and too exorbitant—and too detrimental to American national security interests.
Christianity, after all, has never demanded that the faithful be pacifists. In fact, quite the opposite: As Catholic author and journalist Austen Ivereigh has observed, under certain conditions “to refuse to go to war may in fact be a great evil.”
Ivereigh quotes the great Christian apologist C.S. Lewis: “If war is ever moral, then sometimes peace can be sinful.”
Christians who urge that we pray for Putin insist that they are praying not for his success, but “for his conversion to peace with his neighbors“—or, as David French puts it: “I’m praying that God turns Vladimir Putin’s heart from war.”
But of course, that’s not what Graham said. Graham said he was praying for Putin “so that war could be avoided at all cost [emphasis added].” And Rod Dreher agreed, saying “I have been praying for exactly this.”
Damnable Prayers. French’s clarification about what he is praying for is helpful; however, it does not exonerate Graham and Dreher for their damnable prayer requests.
Nor does it negate the fact that urging the faithful to pray for despots and dictators is discordant with the American political tradition and American religious history.
Because in truth, as a practical matter, people pray for those whom they are rooting for and wish to help, aid and assist.
The fine distinction that French makes—that he is praying not or Putin, but for Putin’s Christian conversion—is lost on most people and lost in most prayer requests. It certainly appears to be lost on Graham and Dreher as evidenced by their damnable tweets.
For this reason, contra Graham and Dreher, let us pray not for Putin, but for the people of Ukraine. And let us pray that American and NATO leaders have the wisdom and resolve to stop Putin and save Ukraine.
Anything less than that would be, dare I say it, unAmerican and unchristian.
Feature photo credit: Christian evangelist and missionary Franklin Graham (L) and Christian author and journalist Rod Dreher (R). Graham’s pic is courtesy of BillyGraham.org. Dreher’s pic is a screen shot from a YouTube video posted by The American Conservative.
