From news editor Daniel Silliman: I knew hardly any German the first time I went to church in Germany. I moved there in December 2008 because my wife was starting a campus ministry, and we eventually lived there for eight years. But that first Sunday, I just knew how to say stuff like “hello” and “I would like some coffee.” So I was just listening to the sound of prayers in a language that I didn’t know when I was hit by a word that I definitely did know: Obama.

They were praying for the recently elected American president. 

We Americans can certainly overestimate the importance of the US to the rest of the world. But we can really underestimate it too. That’s a weird balance I try to keep in mind when I edit stories like this one on how evangelicals in Germany are praying ahead of their election. The situation is so different there, it has to be explained to non-German readers. But also, some of the tension that Christians are worried about in Germany is explicitly because of the US. We’re involved, even if we’re not conscious of it. 

I had never thought about praying for foreign countries before, their elections and leaders. But maybe as a Christian in America, that’s not a bad idea.