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March 3, 2020

So much for 'Coexist': Bernie Sanders and other leftists catcall Mike Pence for prayer to halt coronavirus

By Monica Showalter

With their famous reputation for "tolerance" all out there, leftists, including the presumably vote-seeking Bernie Sanders, are mocking Vice President Mike Pence for beginning his coronavirus task force, a serious group of working government leaders tasked with keeping the infectious disease from spreading through the U.S., with a prayer.

Here's an excellent description of just how this picture looks:

The Williams referred to lists himself on Twitter as a Harper's magazine columnist and New York Times magazine contributing writer.  Mister Establishment.

Sure enough, Bernie Sanders, an intolerant sort of socialist atheist (as Hillary Clinton's opposition research once revealed), was out there to mock Pence, too:

The press has been similarly contemptuous of Pence:

This one's interesting in that she views prayer as an either/or proposition — if you pray, you have to have a problem with "science":

 

That's an amazing stretch, given that Pence's task force is part of the Trump administration's response to coronavirus, which already is getting kudos, even from far leftists such as California's Gov. Gavin Newsom, for its effectiveness.  Young Jessica seems to reason that if you pray, bzzzt, God won't allow you to do anything else.  Never mind the detail that Pence probably prayed for the grace of all team members to work together in the hopes of being guided to the right solution.  In the cartoon world of the left, if you pray, God won't allow you to take practical measuresl in their minds, he's not only imaginary, but a meanie to boot.

Saturday Night Live got in on the act.  Note that opening statement from the Pence character about not believing in science.  So much for "Coexist."

Leftists now view the coronavirus epidemic as little more than their golden opportunity to mock and insult people of faith, despite it being no skin off their noses if such people do pray.  They're not doing anything constructive to check the coronavirus, such as offering solutions, or just wishing the team well; they're focused on the outrage of an opening prayer for a solution, and to someone they don't think exists.  You'd think a prayer would be an easy one to ignore, in order to complain about the response, but for them, outrage and mockery are always priority one — and very likely to turn off black, Latino, and Evangelical voters.

It's also one heck of an ahistorical mindset, given that prayer, as the original twitterer noted, has always been invoked in the U.S. in times of uncertainty and crisis.

George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, in fact, were famous for their prayers in time of crisis, as was Ronald Reagan.  Until leftists stopped teaching history, every schoolkid in America knew about Washington praying at Valley Forge in the dead of winter.

Here's George Washington's prayer for the nation, still recited every morning at Mount Vernon:

I now make it my earnest prayer, that God would have the United States in his holy protection, that he would incline the hearts of the Citizens to cultivate a spirit of subordination and obedience to Government, to entertain a brotherly affection and love for one another, for their fellow citizens of the United States at large, and particularly for their brethren who have served in the Field, and finally, that he would most graciously be pleased to dispose us all, to do Justice, to love mercy, and to demean ourselves with that Charity, humility and pacific temper of mind, which were the Characteristicks of the Devine Author of our blessed Religion, and without an humble imitation of whose example in these things, we can never hope to be a happy Nation.  Amen.

Here's Abraham Lincoln's March 4, 1865 prayer for peace:

Almighty God, Who has given us this good land for our heritage; We humbly beseech Thee that we may always prove ourselves a people mindful of Thy favor and glad to do Thy will. Bless our land with honorable ministry, sound learning, and pure manners. Save us from violence, discord, and confusion, from pride and arrogance, and from every evil way. Defend our liberties, and fashion into one united people, the multitude brought hither out of many kindreds and tongues. Endow with Thy spirit of wisdom those whom in Thy name we entrust the authority of government, that there may be justice and peace at home, and that through obedience to Thy law, we may show forth Thy praise among the nations of the earth. In time of prosperity fill our hearts with thankfulness, and in the day of trouble, suffer not our trust in Thee to fail; all of which we ask through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Here is Ronald Reagan's insightful perspective on why we have a prayer tradition at all:

Prayer has sustained our people in crisis, strengthened us in times of challenge and guided us through our daily lives since the first settlers came to this continent.

Our forebears came not for gold but mainly in search of God and the freedom to worship in their own way. We've been a free people living under the law with faith in our Maker and in our future.

Lincoln also signed off on a National Day of Prayer and Fasting that was passed in Congress 157 years ago today. This is his powerfully worded proclamation:

Whereas, the Senate of the United States, devoutly recognizing the Supreme Authority and just Government of Almighty God, in all the affairs of men and of nations, has, by a resolution, requested the President to designate and set apart a day for National prayer and humiliation.

And whereas it is the duty of nations as well as of men, to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions, in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon; and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord.

And, insomuch as we know that, by His divine law, nations like individuals are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world, may we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war, which now desolates the land, may be but a punishment, inflicted upon us, for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole People? We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us!

It behooves us then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.

Now, therefore, in compliance with the request, and fully concurring in the views of the Senate, I do, by this my proclamation, designate and set apart Thursday, the 30th. day of April, 1863, as a day of national humiliation, fasting and prayer. And I do hereby request all the People to abstain, on that day, from their ordinary secular pursuits, and to unite, at their several places of public worship and their respective homes, in keeping the day holy to the Lord, and devoted to the humble discharge of the religious duties proper to that solemn occasion.

All this being done, in sincerity and truth, let us then rest humbly in the hope authorized by the Divine teachings, that the united cry of the Nation will be heard on high, and answered with blessings, no less than the pardon of our national sins, and the restoration of our now divided and suffering Country, to its former happy condition of unity and peace.

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington, this thirtieth day of March, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty seventh.

Compared to that, Mike Pence's prayer was undoubtedly gentler in tone, but fully within the U.S. tradition of praying for guidance and help in time of crisis.

While there is in the U.S. an East Coast waspy tradition of not wearing one's religion on one's sleeve, prayer is quite common in the rest of the country. Praying collectively is perfectly recognizable to blacks, Latinos, Evangelicals, and military families, to take but a few examples.

So despite their claimed need to win an election, the left in a time of crisis chooses to mock prayer instead, insulting an amazing array of voters, and doing zero to help in the coronavirus response. These people are just plain sick.

Memo to the Left: Want More Trump? This is how you get More Trump.

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