Stuart Shepard appearing his his 'Mea Culpa' video |
DENVER – The call for prayer for a rainstorm on this city's football stadium when Sen. Barack Obama delivers his nomination-acceptance speech there next week, dropped by a Focus on the Family Action personality, has been picked up by a former official of the Southern Baptist Convention.
"Stuart Shepard is invited to lead us in this prayer for rain any day," Pastor Wiley Drake, a former vice president for the SBC, said in an announcement about his plan. "Other prayer warriors are welcome not only to pray for rain but repentance in America as well."
Shepard is the director of digital media for Focus on the Family Action, which pulled from its website and YouTube a video in which he asked people to pray for "rain of biblical proportions" during Obama's acceptance speech during the Democratic National Convention in Denver Aug. 28.
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The political arm of Focus on the Family said it pulled the video after complaints from its constituents. Shepard said the video was "mildly humorous" and called for Christians to pray for "abundant, torrential" rains during the speech in order to disrupt it.
He said his goal was to pray for rain that would create flash flood warnings and "swamp" Denver streets.
"I'm still pro-life, and I'm still in favor of marriage as being between one man and one woman," he said in the video. "And I would like the next president who will select justices for the next Supreme Court to agree."
Drake, an activist who has been targeted by opponents of his Christian ministry for using his own radio program to discuss moral issues in the public arena, said he was saddened to see Focus pull the video.
So he's taking up the subject on his "Telephonic Prayer Meeting," held daily for people who have prayer requests.
That meeting is from 5-7 a.m. at 1-712-432-1690, access code 399430, he said.
"I, too, am still against killing babies and allowing sodomites to marry. Anyone wishing to join those of us who believe in imprecatory prayer (for divine justice) are invited to join," he said.
Tom Minnery, Focus Action vice president of public policy, said his organization would regret if someone took the call for prayer for rain on Obama seriously.
The "Pray for Rain" was posted July 30 and scored 20,000 views on the Internet in a short time, Shepard said. It was one of Shepard's weekly video commentaries that appear on Focus Action's website.
The general tone has been tongue-in-cheek as Shepard evaluates political issues from the conservative Christian viewpoint of Focus Action.
The video showed Shepard at Denver's Invesco Field, seeking prayer for "torrential" rain during Obama's speech.
"I'm talking 'umbrella-ain't-going-to-help-you rain,'" he said on the video.
His point was that Obama's stances on abortion and homosexual marriage don't line up with what many believe to be the Christian perspective on those issues.
Minnery said the complaints focused on using prayer to cause harm.
"We are not about confusing people about prayer," Minnery told the Colorado Springs Gazette at the time.
Shepard, in a new video titled "Mea Culpa", talks about his week after having been named "Worst Person in the World" by a video commentator for his prayer suggestion.
"What a week I'm having," he says. "My little video asking people to pray for rain on Sen. Obama's speech … has drawn a wee bit of attention."
He says the earlier video was pulled "out of respect for [the viewers]," and he thanks the "mainstream media" for dropping by. Those thanks are delivered while Shepard is being soaked by a colleague holding a running garden hose.