Holy Crap: Kentucky Prayer Crime Fighters
The Republican Governor of Kentucky, Matt Bevin, has a solution to crime in his capital city: “Volunteer patrols that will not report or stop criminal activity, but pray it away.”
Bevin suggested at a community meeting that volunteer groups of between three and 10 people would adopt specific blocks and walk around them while praying, according to WHAS, the Louisville ABC station.
“You know, you walk to a corner, pray for the people, talk to people along the way,” Bevin said, according to the Louisville Courier-Journal. “No songs, no singing, no bullhorn, no T-shirts, no chanting. Be pleasant, talk to the people, that’s it.”
That’s it, y’all.
We will meet at the south gate of the White House and pray like the dickens that God shoves Donald Trump out so we can change the locks. Apparently, that’s all there is to it.
Thanks to Larry for the heads up.
Seeing that the Pope just said in no uncertain terms “You backed out of the Paris agreement? You are an idiot” – I’m thinking the thunderbolt from above is due
1May I suggest inviting him to good ole TX barbecue with him in the place of honor — on the spit? (Ever see “Fried Green Tomatoes”?) Personally, I pray for good people to be safe from harm. Won’t waste them on him. Sorry.
2Ms. Juanita Jean Herownself, look! Your prayers at the south gate worked!! Dolt45 is leaving for Mar-a-Grift-Hole as we speak. Or, shall we call the current occupant & spouse Numbnuts and Nipples, as does the Secret Service.
3TOO FUNNY, Jane & PKM!! Numbnuts and Nipples! Bwahaha! Sounds like a pair of orcas at SeaWorld. Donnie can rip off Napoleon’s crest with the big ‘N’ on it! Too, too funny. Thanks.
4Jane and PKM: I guess the Russians are going all-out with their fembots now. I was under the impression that the older models were nippeless, like Barbie dolls.
5So, they’re ‘crime monitors.’ Don’t actually report or try and stop anything. Just monitor and pray? Presumably this is to justify budget cuts of all kinds? Plain weird. I don’t think this falls under the God helps those who help themselves banner.
6Sounds good. They can mug these idiots and leave the rest of us alone.
7Does this approach have any chance of success?
It doesn’t have a prayer.
8We still have Kentucky beat. Remember when our Gov. Perry rented an arena to pray for rain during the drought?
9Whenever the Republicans want to avoid solving a problem, they put on a public prayer show. I expect a “Pray away the rising waters” meeting in Florida soon…
10Um… one tiny little correction Miz JJ. Louisville is the home of the Derby and the state’s largest city but it’s not the capital of Kentucky; Lexington is.
Y’all might think this is harsh but I’m going for it anyway. Prayer is roughly akin to (gasp!) religious masturbation (gasp!!!). It makes the one praying feel good but it doesn’t really do much for anyone else. Yeah, I’m a cynic. I’ve also been a pastor’s wife for 44 years. Make what you will of that.
11Governor Bevin: be sure to report back when crime rates go to zero. That’s when we will be impressed.
12Sooooo
Public prayer, even before I first understood Matt 6, bothered me from an early age. My Baptist family prayed with their hands cupped. 🙁 My snakehandling family prayed loud. Well maybe LOUD. 🙁 All of it irritated me and some of it flat embarrassed me as a tween and early teen. Eventually I got over it. Except I am still uncomfortable with public prayer. Those folks “have received their reward in full.” And made the day a little more tense for the rest of us.
13This is why you don’t elect religious zealots to public office.
14Instead of spending money on more police or community outreach, he’s scamming everyone with his pie in the sky wishful thinking ploy. Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition!
This guy is probably a charter member of the NRA, but won’t connect the proliferation of guns and crime.
I have an idea and I am afraid the Republicans will steal it.
15Who needs health care or health insurance?
You got it!
Pray that cancer away!
This is simply stupid make busy work for the masses, just like taping up your doors and windows for whatever that was for.
16RA, it might be Frankfort. If prayers from rwnjs work, how come Obama was President for eight years?
17Don’t we already have those?
18Jehovah Witness and Mormon volunteer groups?
Bevin’s idea works better with a product I just invented, new Pray Away (TM). $5, wherever better snake oil and placebos are sold.
Coming soon in convenient Spray Pray Away.
19Henry, you are correct. It is Frankfort. It has been 35 years since I lived in Louisville. I’ll blame it on age. ;>
Diane, my oldest sister is proof that you can’t pray away cancer. Several times her hospital room was filled with the good deacons of their church holding hands and praying for healing. We buried her the day before what would have been her 51st birthday.
20It could be funny, but as they plan to actually talk to people who are committing crimes, I certainly hope they don’t get hurt trying to do that.
…conversely, I wonder what crimes they will ignore completely. I somehow doubt they will address any white collar crimes.
21The RWNJs are always praying away something. Why doesn’t they pray for something? I.e. The entire treasonous trump administration resigns. And are caught before they can leave for a country without an extradition treaty. Or the sinkhole at Mar a Lago expands to include the whole place. After all the cockwomble is so obese that the additional tonnage could sink a cruise ship.
22I do believe that I have previously over time declared that there are some people in this world who use Jesus like a rented mule and I find that abuse of the Carpenter from Nazareth way beyond merely offensive. Now the same people are pulling the same damn thing on prayer. Y’all know what the Bible said about praying in public. Its a helluva lot better and more effective in private, dammit!
23Maggie: What has bothered me for some time is that those people have it in their heads that God serves them and not the other way round. Not quite what I learned in Catholic school.
24@Ted no.8- I recall when the evangelicals were going to replace SDISt. Ronnie’s(star wars missile shield with prayer Not .augment or supplement. but replace.
25Talk about something that didn’t have a prayer.
You can pray in one hand and crap in the other. Want to bet as to which one overflows first. Ambrose Bierce had it right. “Pray: To ask the laws of the universe to be annulled on behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.”
26At least the missile shields set off some good novels which I’ve forgotten. I was just annoyed at Reagan for taking the solar panels off the White House.
27Prayer cant hurt and might help. I have a friend who went to D.C. so she could walk around the White House to pray for it/them etc. I also had friends whose sole means of birth control was prayer. Prayer wasn’t much good as birth control. Don’t know about praying around the White House. I didn’t hear the prayer. I plead the 5th Amendment.
28The last story I read about someone praying away something, resulted in the death of a young girl. Two parents insisted that god would make their sick child well again if they prayed to god. I don’t believe it worked.
29Religion makes people crazy.
30Got NO use for it.
One of the funnier stories — sad and tragic, but also absurd enough to count for two in the ‘believe six impossible things before breakfast’ struggle. Three quickie comments from the HuffPo article.
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First, the church that has renamed itself God’s Lives Matter.
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Second, the quote from an anonymous woman:
And, of course, Jim Morrison was right. Even were there to be a God, prayer is saying to It “I know you have a billion year plan involving billions of beings on billions of planets, but it is *M*E* asking, and I know you wouldn’t mind tweaking it just a little to make ME feel good. C’mon there, be a nice little Deity, remember the times I could have bought porn and gave the money to the Church instead, and give me what I ask for.”
31‘
It doesn’t matter if it is a miracle cure or a 4 homer game from Springer — or another team GM getting drunk enough to send us (Mets, this time) a good reliever for Robles and Montero, prayer is always the ultimate ego-trip. (And how many people do any of you know who have prayed for a sick loved one and who have prayed not for the ill-person to be magically cured but for a cure that would help him and all the other sufferers from the same disease?)