Joel 2

Texas Governor Rick Perry's The Response: A Call to Prayer for a Nation in Crisis invokes Joel 2.  Will he be true to it?

When our oldest son, as a baby, lay gravely ill in the hospital, and I sat near him at 2:00 am listening to the call-in show piped in through the overhead speakers, the radio host asked a trivia question challenging his listeners to complete a quote – "In the Bible," the host said, "it says 'Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy' – call in to finish the quote, identify the source, and win a prize."  My heart raced ahead of me as I ran down the darkened hall to the nurse's station.  They let me call in with the answer.  Joel 2:28-29 says:

And it shall come to pass afterword,

that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh;

Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,

your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions.

I forget what I won, but I will never forget the hope that little Bible quiz gave me that long night.  Our son lived and is with us yet.

But I am deeply disturbed at the use to which Joel 2 may be put today at Governor Perry's call to prayer in Houston, Texas.  On the website for this event Perry states:

Fellow Americans, 

Right now, America is in crisis: we have been besieged by financial debt, terrorism, and a multitude of natural disasters.  As a nation, we must come together and call upon Jesus to guide us through unprecedented struggles, and thank Him for the blessings of freedom we so richly enjoy.

Some problems are beyond our power to solve, and according to the Book of Joel, Chapter 2, this historic hour demands a historic response. Therefore, on August 6, thousands will gather to pray for a historic breakthrough for our country and a renewed sense of moral purpose.

I sincerely hope you�ll join me in Houston on August 6th and take your place in Reliant Stadium with praying people asking God�s forgiveness, wisdom and provision for our state and nation. There is hope for America. It lies in heaven, and we will find it on our knees.

The Book of Joel is one of many apocalyptic visions in the Bible in which the people of Israel are threatened with destruction yet offered deliverance.  Throughout this short Book the threat changes and escalates.  Joel 1 describes a swarm of locusts devouring the land.  Joel 2 metaphorically describes the threat as "northerners," "a great and powerful people; their like has never been from of old."  Joel 3 initially identifies the enemies as the Philistines, and towards the end adds the Egyptians and the Edomites.  Joel 1 is a lamentation.  Joel 2 is a plea for atonement.  Joel 3 is a call to arms:

Prepare war,

stir up the mighty men.

Let all the men of war draw near,

let them come up.

Beat your plowshares into swords,

and your pruning hooks into spears,

let the weak say, "I am a warrior."

…

Egypt shall become a desolation

and Edom a desolate wilderness,

for the violence done to the people of Judah,

because they have shed innocent blood in their land.

The fanaticism of the endorsers of Perry's event has been well-documented by Right Wing Watch and reported by the New York Times and Rachel Maddow.  One of the most prominent endorsers of The Response is the Reverend John Hagee, who believes that God sent Hitler to drive the Jews into Israel, and who has called the Roman Catholic Church a "false cult" and accused it of complicity with Hitler's extermination of the Jews.  Hagee's anti-Catholic views drove John McCain to eventually repudiate Hagee's endorsement in the 2008 presidential race.  Right Wing Watch describes the views of some of the other endorsers of Perry's event:

Perry's partners in the event include extremists who believe that tolerance for homosexuality caused the September 11th attacks, Oprah Winfrey is the harbinger of the Antichrist, the deadly Japanese earthquake was caused by the country�s Emperor having sex with a demon, the repeal of Don�t Ask Don�t Tell caused bird deaths in Arkansas and violence should be considered to overthrow President Obama, among many other extreme beliefs.

One self-described �Apostle� who has signed on as an official endorser to Perry's The Response prayer rally is John Benefiel of the Heartland Apostolic Prayer Network, a group affiliated with the New Apostolic Reformation with ties to other The Response endorsers including Cindy Jacobs, C. Peter Wagner and Jay Swallow. In a sermon last August, Benefiel argued that America is under a curse from God because the country possesses monuments to pagan idols and that Americans needs to renounce those idols if not destroy them. Benefiel claims that the Statue of Liberty is in fact a �demonic idol� because it represents a �false goddess.�

The entire event is being paid for by the American Family Association, whose spokesperson Bryan Fischer adheres to a collection of extremist views.  Eric Eckholm of The New York Times reports:

Perhaps most notably, Mr. Fischer trumpets the disputed theory that Adolph Hitler was a homosexual and that the Nazi Party was largely created by �homosexual thugs� � evidence, he says, of the inherent pathologies of homosexuality.  Mr. Fischer has also said that no more Muslims should be granted citizenship because their religion says to kill Americans, and that welfare recipients �rut like rabbits� because of what he calls welfare�s perverse incentives.

Joel 2 is, for me, the most beautiful and significant portion of the Book.  It offers meaningful moral and spiritual guidance.  Most importantly, it calls upon us to commit ourselves to inner goodness, not external displays of righteousness.  At verses 12-13 God says:

return to me with all your heart,

with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;

and rend your hearts and not your garments.

Joel 2 is a call for personal atonement, not a recipe for social policy.  It requires self-abnegation, not denunciation - atonement for one's own sins, not proscriptions of sinning by others.  Will the speakers at The Response address their own errors, their own faults, and their own transgressions?  Or like the Westboro Baptist Church do they plan to simply denounce certain social policies that they disagree with and accuse others of threatening America and bringing on the end days? 

That marks the difference between a sincere religious revival and a partisan political rally.

Tagged as: book of joel, joel, joel 2, john hagee, rick perry, the resonse