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Indeed, the point seems to be, as Augustine said of the verses in question, "not that the mere being seen of men is an impiety, but the doing this, in order to be seen of men." John Wesley, for example, warned that some may even use Jesus' words as an excuse not to pray: "Pray to God, if it be possible, when none seeth but He; but, if otherwise, pray to God." It's humility, not crowd control, that's at stake here. Even those who pray in private can violate Jesus' command, if they take pride in praying alone. "Even if thou shouldest enter into thy closet, and having shut the door, shouldest do it for display, the doors will do thee no good," wrote John Chysostom. "Let us not then make our prayer by the gesture of our body, nor by the loudness of our voice, but by the earnestness of our mind; neither with noise and clamor and for display, so as even to disturb those that are near us, but with all modesty, and with contrition in the mind, and with inward tears." (For more on what the great church leaders from history have said on this, check out the World Wide Study Bible at the Christian Classics Ethereal Library, which includes Thomas Aquinas's Golden Chain—his version of the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture.)

This then, is Easterbrook's point: "The huge ballrooms are required because the whole event has become about being seen, not about prayer." (In an issue of Harper's last year, Jeff Sharlet argued that the whole event is "merely a tool in a larger purpose: to recruit the powerful attendees into smaller, more frequent prayer meetings, where they can 'meet Jesus man to man.'")

If the event is truly about being seen and not about prayer, then certainly it should be disbanded. But if instead it is for politicians, diplomats, and others to humble themselves before God—as Bush characterized the meeting's purpose in his address two years ago, to "remind generations of leaders of a purpose and a power greater than their own"—then long may it last.

First the Super Bowl halftime show, now this …
How incredibly out of touch is CBS? As noted by Jeff Sharlet's religion blog, The Revealer, the political gossip site Wonkette has posted a 60 Minutes press release that is almost a perfect parody of media cluelessness about evangelicals. 60 Minutes also has a copy of it on its site.

"Evangelicals—Christians who place a personal relationship with Jesus Christ above all else—have become a major factor in American politics and culture, says a prominent Christian theologian," the release begins. (The prominent Christian theologian is Harvard University's Peter Gomes, who's sometimes a critic, and sometimes an ally of evangelicals.)

The "army" of evangelicals, says 60 Minutes, "has fought recently to keep a statue of the Ten Commandments in an Alabama courtroom and is fighting to keep the name of God in the Pledge of Allegiance. Evangelicals have a lobbyist, too, the former Republican presidential candidate Gary Bauer."

Ah, Bauer, the lone evangelical lobbyist on Capitol Hill, to whom all evangelicals must donate 10 percent of their earnings. You'd think that even if CBS can't get straight that Bauer doesn't represent the full spectrum of evangelical politics, they'd at least know the political players well enough to know that he's not the only one in town.

Oh, but it gets better. "Central to evangelicals' faith is an event that can happen at any time called the Rapture, when God takes all true-believing Christians and children under 12 to a better place while all others suffer the tribulation and are damned."

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February (Web-only) 2004, Vol. 48