Franklin Graham tells his followers to "pray for Putin"

[ShazzieB]

50. I agree.

I was raised a Southern Baptist, which is basically old school evangelical Christianity, and I can assure you that praying for world leaders to be guided in their decisions or (as in this case) praying for someone's "heart and mind" to be changed so that they see the error of their ways is absolutely nothing new. Whether this has any effect is a whole separate conversation. All I am saying is that there is nothing new, shocking, or treasonous about this.

Prayer is a HUGE thing in these people's lives, and they pray about everything and "for" everyone. All. The. Damned. Time. It's like that Geico commercial says: It's what they do. Prayer is a very BFD to them. Whatever is on their minds, they pray about it, and the looming thread of war in Ukraine is certainly something that is weighing on a lot of people's minds right now.

I realize the whole concept of asking God to make things better sounds silly and childish to a lot of people, but that's a whole separate issue and, imo, neither nor there. The point is that it should not be shocking to anyone when an evangelical preacher tells his followers to prayer for someone like Putin.

Personally, I can't stand Franklin Graham. I think he's flat, dead wrong about a lot of things, and he represents a brand of Christianity that I consider to be toxic in many ways. Anyone who wants to tear a strip off of him when it comes to his anti-LGBTQ+ views, his toxic misogyny, etc., is more than welcome to do so, afaic. But the idea that his asking people to pray for Putin neans he's some sort of pro-Putin traitor is just plain silly. I don't think he wants Ukraine to be invaded any more than we do. He's just telling his people to do what they would do in response to any problem, large or small: pray about it and pray for the people involved. This is s.o.p. for those folks, and people need to quit reading things into this that aren't there and blowing it all out of proportion.