Activists Keep the Faith, If Not Their Money
The price of regular at a Shell gas station in Petworth gleamed defiantly in the midday sun: $3.91 a gallon.
But unlike the customers rolling up to the station's pumps this week, resigned to the fact that their wallets were about to take a beating, Rocky Twyman and company had a plan to bring that number tumbling down.
They would ask God to do it.
"Our pockets are empty, but we're going to hold on to God!" Twyman, a community organizer from Rockville, said as he and seven other people formed a semicircle, held hands and sang, pleading for divine intervention to lower fuel prices.
It was the latest demonstration by Twyman's movement, Pray at the Pump, which began in April. Since then, he has held group prayers at gas stations as far away as San Francisco, garnering international media attention and even claiming success in at least a couple of cases.
Pray at the Pump? Honestly, how ridiculous can you get? I don't think God is concerned with the price of gas. It has nothing to do with Zie, after all; humanity's shortsightedness and greed got itself in this mess. Even if God was so inclined to do something about it, I rather think Zie would start with the Netherlands, where gas is $10 per gallon (scroll to bottom of page).
But the biggest reason not to pull such a self-aggrandizing stunt is this.
"And now about prayer. When you pray, don't be like the hypocrites who pretend piety by praying publicly on street corners and in the synagogues where everyone can see them. Truly, that is all the reward they will ever get. But when you pray, go away by yourself, all alone, and shut the door behind you and pray to your Father secretly, and your Father, who knows your secrets, will reward you." (Matthew 6: 5,6; The Living Bible)
Really, when you see a professed Christian disregarding Christ's direction in this way, you wonder how much of a Christian they really are.
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