I heard the new interim pastor at my church preach today. He's a nice older guy and his sermon was actually quite good, but it's his prayer for the people that I think shocked me and I think quite a few other people in the congregation.

The pastor is old, between 70 and 80, and he's been around. He even mentioned in his sermon that it was his greek professor who was one of the people responsible for the New Revised Standard Version translation of the Bible.

Okay so he's old, which means he's kind of old fashioned. Anyway, in his prayers he prayed for the president of the USA, "George and Laura Bush". Talk about shocking! I've never heard anyone pray for the health of George Bush ever in my church. It's just not done, not at least in my church.

As soon as words came out of the pastor's mouth, people were coughing and going "ahem", like they couldn't believe it either. I think if he had gone so far as to pray for "Dick Cheney and his wife Lynne", some people might have walked out. He also asked that we pray for the people of New Hampshire so that they make a good decision in choosing the winner of the democratic presidential nomination, and the congregation seemed to like that idea.

Poor guy. He'll probably get an earful for doing that. It is kind of odd, but I think it's just because the guy is old and old fashioned, and in his day you did pray for the president of the country as a matter of course, no matter what you felt about him. It's just weird to hear somebody pray for the health of a person many people in my San Francisco congregation would consider "the most hated man in the world, the next Hitler and the possible anti-christ".

I don't care either way. I mean, maybe we should be praying that the Smirkiemeister see the light and come to his senses and change some of his policies. It can't hurt.

It's odd that the new interim pastor prayed for him on one level, and it's odd on another level that I don't remember anybody else praying for the Shrubmeister before either.

Has my church congregation become so partisan in its views that we don't pray for someone that some people in the congregation don't like, even though there are other people in the congregation who think the Smirkmeister is God's gift to the world?

Shockingly true but yes, there are some people in my city of San Francisco church who totally love W and everything he's doing.