Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you.
-Jesus, Matthew 5:44
Today I came across this article in the Baptist Standard which pointed me to an interesting initiative. Thomas Bruce, an Army Reserve Chaplain, founded “Adopt a Terrorist for Prayer,” a website which encourages and invites followers of Jesus to undertake something quite radical–the practice of his teachings.
If you read the site, you’ll find that one of the objects of prayer is the conversion of radical Islamic terrorists to Christianity. Not only is Bruce asking for participants to pray for peace between terrorists and their targets, but for a complete change in religious affiliation by those persons who lead these terrorists networks.
I find this quite interesting. What do you think?
The tact or angle taken by Bruce smells too much like the recent ‘prayer of jabez’ craze in mainstream Christianity. Pray this way to convert your enemy to enlarge the Christian footprint.
I do fully agree with the scripture to pray for those who persecute you. I also think that it is MUCH harder to pray for those who personally persecute you every day, not a terrorist whom a person would not personally know.
From my own experience, praying for someone who persecuted me at work was a transforming experience, not for that person, but for me. It literally shifted the paradigm and began the arduous process of breaking down my own pride and justification while painstakingly building bridges instead of continuing in the pattern of burning them.
To me, prayer in this instance isn’t a magic catch-all for conversion of the persecutor, but for those enduring suffering.
[...] read about an Army Reserve Chaplain who started a website called Adopt A Terrorist For Prayer (via Ben Simpson). Praying specifically for an individual terrorist? That’s pretty radical, and [...]