On August 14th, Wiley Drake, pastor of First Southern Baptist Church of Buena Park, California, and broadcaster on a church-based radio show, called on Baptists to pray for misfortune to befall certain employees of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State.  Drake, who served one term as vice president of the Southern Baptist Convention and is an announced candidate for president of the convention this next year, issued a statement calling for “imprecatory prayer” from his supporters against two communications staffers for Americans United.   Using imprecatory prayer is to pray evil upon someone or invoke a curse against him or her.  The occasion of his call for such a prayer for evil, is the request by Americans United that the tax exempt status of his church be investigated; this after Drake used church stationary and the church radio broadcast to endorse a particular Republican candidate for the U.S. presidency.  Does your Baptist spirit groan within you?  It should, for two reasons.                                                                                                             

First, many Baptists are militantly obscuring a principle for which their forefathers suffered and fought, i.e. the separation of church and state.  Pastor Drake, as a private citizen has the right and freedom to endorse whomever he pleases for whatever government position he wishes.  He can contribute to their campaign.  He can promote and participate in election rallies.  He can do anything any other citizen can do.  What he may not do is use the platform of his tax-exempt church to politic.  To do so makes his church a political action organization, which does not qualify for a tax-exempt status, even as secular political action groups do not qualify.  The tax-exempt status of his church needs to be reexamined.  Likewise, the tax-exempt status of any church that politics for one particular candidate or party.

Second, Drake seems to be following only the Old Testament.  Baptists are first and foremost followers of Jesus Christ.  We find in Him the Way, the Truth and the Life. Jesus acknowledged the authority of the Old Testament while at the same time challenging its interpretation and usage by his earthly contemporaries.  “You heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’  But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you.” (Matthew 6:43-44 NKJV)   Needless to say, the desire of pastor Drake to seek harm for his perceived enemies, and his enlisting other Baptists to petition God to harm those persons, is not in the spirit of Christ.

On both accounts, Drake is giving all others a false impression, and a negative impression, of Baptists.  Speaking, of course of historic and traditional Baptists.  The image of contemporary “Baptists” was already suffering before his call for God to inflict evil.

Mel Deason  Executive Director of Alabama Mainstream Baptists