Rick Perry’s Jesus Imperative: A Report from Saturday’s Mega-Rally | Politics | Religion Dispatches

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Rick Perry’s Jesus Imperative: A Report from Saturday’s Mega-Rally | Politics | Religion Dispatches

By the time Texas Governor Rick Perry took the stage at his scheduled time at The Response on Saturday, the crowd had been softened to receive him. Perry, as scheduled, emerged from behind the prayer and worship band shortly before 11:30, his coiffed hair and toothy grin filling the enormous television screens behind him. The audience, still aglow and groggy, almost, from a frenzied prayer session devoted to individual repentance had been called upon, through the throb of the praise music, to “lay yourselves bare” for Jesus, your “first love,” and to “repent for putting other things before Jesus.”

This was no idle command—in fact “command” and “obedience” were the day’s chief buzzwords for many speakers; as repentance was required on behalf of yourself, your church, and your country for having failed to commit yourself to Jesus, for having permitted abortion and “sexual immorality,” for failing to cleanse yourself of “filthiness,” and to repent for having “touched what is unclean.” As the individual repentance portion of the day reached its climax, just before Perry’s remarks, people lay flat on the floor; others raised their arms in charismatic receipt of God’s word. Others danced. Some spoke in tongues. A woman wearing a fatigue green “M.A.S.H.” t-shirt (that’s Mobile Army Spiritual Hospital) prostrated herself on the floor.

“Like all of you, I love this country this deeply,” intoned the governor who once publicly mused about his state seceding. “Indeed the only thing you love more,” he added, as the audience held its collective breath, praying he wouldn’t say something that fell short of expectations, “is the living Christ.” A collective exhale for him getting it right; the governor was exalted.

Comments

[twfarlan.livejournal.com]

Nehemiah Scudder (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nehemiah_Scudder) comes to mind. Right year for it, too.

[caraig.livejournal.com]

That's... that's frankly scary. That's one step away from ... wait, no, it's not one step away from him being a preacher and a politician.

Can someone in the mainstream media ask this guy what he thinks of sharing this country with other faiths -- hell, with other Christian *denominations*?

[capplor.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't be surprised if it was something innocuous, but would still allow him to place everybody else in some variation of contract bondage.