Thoughts and Prayers are the Inverse of the Gospel

Yes, this is "piling on".

Yes, "thoughts and prayers" has already jumped the shark.

Yes, senators and congresspeople are now saying things like, "our prayers are with...." because the phrase has moved from a joke to toxic in a few weeks.

That said, whatever will come post-"thoughts and prayers" will serve in its place, another empty platitude in the place of actual action.

And that's the point. Prayer is never a substitute for action.

Let's try out the parable of the Good Samaritan with thoughts and prayers....

A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead.^... But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. The Samaritan told the man, "You will be in my thoughts and prayers," and continued on his journey. 

Or how about this one....


 Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.  For I was hungry and you gave me your thoughts.  I was a stranger and you prayed for me.  I was naked and you posted on social media.  I was sick and you felt sad. I was in prison and you felt bad for me.

Or how about one more... 

“Teacher,” they said to Jesus, “this woman was caught in the act of adultery. The law of Moses says to stone her. What do you say?”  They were trying to trap him into saying something they could use against him, but Jesus stooped down and wrote in the dust with his finger. They kept demanding an answer, so he stood up again and said, “My thoughts and prayers are with this woman."

Thoughts and prayers in the place of action is the actually inverse of the gospel. It's heresy. The good news was not about platitudes and "feelings" but compassionate acts of love. 

Of course we should pray for those in mourning and for healing but when we only pray for healing and fail to actually act to prevent further pain, we make our Christian faith perverse. God works in mysterious ways, but never though the NRA.

Similarly, I have found many Christians blaming the fact that God is "banned" from schools. 

This t-shirt. This was obviously designed by an elderly person or a 11 year-old. Look at those fonts, and COMIC SANS. A prayer in COMIC SANS.

Who knew that God can be held out of a solidly built brick building? Is this like the silver bullets of theology? God is all knowing and all powerful....well, except in schools! It's bad theology and it's factually incorrect. Students can pray, bring their holy books and schools must make accommodations for religious groups and meetings after school hours. It's also a slap in the face of teachers living out the gospel with their actions. American Christianity has become a cult of fantasy and anti-science, of trusting politics and laws rather than changing hearts. Embracing "winning" over ethics and morals that were supposedly important. Evangelicals see themselves as victims, even though they are in the numerical majority. American Christianity is in its final fits of it's spiral of death. Death is ugly but the rebirth is necessary. May God save us from the Christians. 

(To cover my bases #notallChristians)