Prayer for the Nations

Heavenly Father, we come before you to ask your forgiveness, and seek your direction and guidance. We know your Word says, 'Woe to those who call evil good,' but that's exactly what we've done.

"We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and inverted our values.
We have ridiculed the absolute truth of your Word and called
    it moral pluralism.
We have worshipped other gods and called it multiculturalism.
We have endorsed perversion and called it an alternative
    lifestyle.
We have exploited the poor and called it the lottery.
We have neglected the needy and called it self-preservation.
We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare.
We have killed our unborn and called it choice.
We have shot abortionists and called it justifiable.
We have neglected to discipline our children and called it
    building esteem.
We have abused power and called it political savvy.
We have coveted our neighbors' possessions and called it
    ambition.
We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and
    called it freedom of expression.
We have ridiculed the time-honored values of our forefathers
    and called it enlightenment.

"Search us O God and know our hearts today; try us and see if there be some wicked way in us; cleanse and forgive us from our sins and set us free. Guide and bless those men and women who have been sent and ordained by You, to govern our great nations. Grant them Your wisdom to rule and may their decisions direct us to the center of Your will. I ask it in the Name of Your Son the living Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen."

This is the prayer used by Rev. Joe Wright, Pastor of the Central Christian Church for the opening of the Wichita, Kansas Senate in 1996 and written by Rev. Bob Russell, who prayed it at the Kentucky Governor's Prayer Breakfast in 1995. It was repeated by Paul Harvey on his national radio program; and is said to be a prayer prayed by Rev. Billy Graham for the revival of the Christians in America.

Many times when it was prayed in public it caused an unholy ruckus, with members and Senators walking out of Congress, and others blasting it as a 'message of intolerance'. Others asserted the prayer reflects the extreme radical views that dominate some segments of politics. Still others rejected it because it made everyone mad, while others claimed the antagonists only wanted to make political points from it.

The pastors' claimed no intention to antagonize, and they would not retract it. Tens of thousands of phone calls to churches and city halls' affirmed it, and TV programs supported it. and called upon the Legislators to pray and mean it too. It stirs up more controversy when it is prayed in public again and again. Wright reminded them he was talking to God and not to them.

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