The Rev. Wiley S. Drake’s prayers for tragedy to befall Americans United for Separation of Church and State and its staffers continue to draw controversy.
After Americans United urged the Internal Revenue Service to investigate Drake’s use of his church’s resources to endorse Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee, the pastor of the First Southern Baptist Church of Buena Park, Calif., asked supporters to join him every day in praying for the deaths of officials of the religious liberty watchdog group.
Drake’s “imprecatory prayers” included asking God to smite specific Americans United staff members by shortening their lives and harming their spouses and offspring. The blogosphere quickly exploded with denunciations of Drake’s tactics.
Late yesterday, the Associated Press reported that Alice Stewart, a Huckabee spokesperson, said the campaign did not coordinate with Drake and does not support the pastor’s “evil comments.”
Drake, a former vice president of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) and now a candidate for the denomination’s presidency, has stood by his call for curses, telling other media outlets that God demands that action.
The SBC, unlike the Huckabee campaign, has not denounced the abrasive pastor’s spiritual war. Instead, an SBC official lamely attempted to distance the organization, long in the grip of Religious Right operatives, from Drake. The official said that all Baptists are entitled to their personal opinions on theological matters.
A search of the SBC’s official news arm’s Web site, BP News, finds nothing of Drake’s controversial comments.
The SBC may be too tightly bound to the Religious Right to do the honorable thing, but one would hope that the leaders of the nation’s largest Protestant denomination would more firmly separate themselves from Drake’s over-the-top comments.
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