Metaxas - Jesus Hates Dead Religion

2012 by Eric Metaxas

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Photos used by permission of Rick Potter of Potter Photo Studios. Video used by permission of The National Prayer Breakfast.

Scripture noted KJV is from the King James Version.

ISBN: 978-1-4002-7502-1

Contents

With appreciation to Rick Potter of Potter Photo Studios for permission to use

I think this is where I claimed that Tony Bennett had written the eighteenth-century hymn Amazing Grace. As it happens, he didnt. My only real goal that morning was to be taller and funnier than Mother Teresa. Of course, history will be the judge on that score.

I dont know about you, but in my life thus far, I havent often had the opportunity to speak in front of the president of the United States. Or to chit-chat with the vice president or to publicly pretend the former Speaker of the House is my wife or to lead thirty-five hundred people in singing Amazing Grace. A capella. But unless I dreamed it, I did have the opportunity to do all these things once. It was at something called the National Prayer Breakfast. It was an extraordinary experience and Id love to tell you about it. But maybe I should back up a bit.

The first time I ever got a hint that I might be involved in the National Prayer Breakfast was in a barbershop in Manhattan.

I was waiting for my barberyes, his name is Angeloto finish with the person ahead of me when my cell phone rang. It was Foncie Bullard, a friend of mine from Fairhope, Alabama. Foncie told me that she had just spoken with Alabama senator Jeff Sessions about the possibility of my appearing at a prayer breakfast. At least thats what I heard. I had spoken at the Louisiana Governors Prayer Breakfast in 2008, as the guest of Governor Bobby Jindal, so the prospect of speaking at the Alabama Prayer Breakfast seemed perfectly plausible. I do a lot of public speaking, and I hoped that eventually someone in another state would contact me about speaking at another prayer breakfast. I would love to go back to Alabama to see my friends there. Id spoken in Mobile, Alabama, several times and in Birmingham, Alabama, twice. Id even spoken in Marion, Alabama, at Judson College.

But Foncie didnt seem to think that I was as impressed as I should be. You dont seem that excited, she said.

I didnt know what she expected. I said, Im excited and grateful to be asked, of course! I guess Im just not as surprised as I would be if I had never spoken at a prayer breakfast before.

Foncie paused. But this is the National Prayer Breakfast, she said.

The National Prayer Breakfast? Had I heard that right? I had. Well, naturally that was something else entirely. Oh, I said, feeling not a little stupid for having missed this. The noise in the barbershop was part of the reason. But what I understood still wasnt all that clear. I thought Foncie was saying that in the next few days I might be invited by Alabama senator Jeff Sessions to be a part of the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, DC. In some capacity. I knew that I would not be asked to be the keynote speaker. That was out of the question, and it never even crossed my mind. But perhaps I would be asked to read a Scripture or something.

The keynote speaking slot was a position reserved for heads of state, or for someone like a head of state, someone like Mother Teresa, like Tony Blair, or Bono. At least those were the three big names that came to mind whenever I thought of the National Prayer Breakfast. They had been keynote speakers, as had many other luminaries. So I knew I wasnt being asked to be the keynote speaker. But the very idea that I might be invited to take part in any capacity was a huge honor, and I looked forward to hearing from Senator Sessions.

I wondered what role they might ask me to play. Perhaps I would be invited to give a short speech, like the one my New York firefighter friend Joe Finley had given in 2002. Joe had been one of the firefighters at the World Trade Center the day the towers came down. My dear friend B. J. Weberwho actually was connected with the Fellowship, the folks who put on the prayer breakfasthad befriended Joe and suggested that he speak at the breakfast. So at the breakfast in 2002, Joe gave a short speech of five or six minutes, recounting his experiences on that terrible and memorable day.

Whatever role I would play, the thought of being involved in any way was humbling and exciting. I might even get to meet the president. Not to mention the keynote speaker! Whoever that might be. Waitmaybe it would be Tim Tebow! The previous year it had been the film director Randall Wallace, who wrote Braveheart and directed Secretariat. They never told you who the keynote speaker was ahead of time. But it really could be anyone. Still, I tried not to get too excited about any of it, because these inquiriesFoncies phone call, for examplewere usually just tentative feelers and might actually mean nothing. I recalled that when George Pataki was governor, I had been told over the phone that I was chosen to speak at the New York State Prayer Breakfast in Albany, only to have the invitation mysteriously rescinded a few weeks later. Id rather not get my hopes up to have them dashed. So I took on a stoic attitude.

Later that day, I thought more about the National Prayer Breakfast. The first time I had ever heard about it was through B. J. Weber, whom I mentioned, and my friend Jim Lane. I came to know Jim in 1994, when I was living in New Canaan, Connecticut. He and I started a mens Bible study that met in his living room that year, which in the years since has grown and grown into something called the New Canaan Society. Jim and B. J. would go to the National Prayer Breakfast almost every year, but I hardly knew what it was. Then, in 1997, thanks to the two of them, I went too.

And who could forget that prayer breakfast?

It took place just two weeks after the Lewinsky scandal brokelike a rotten eggall over the culture. Of course that hadnt been planned. On the contrary, it must have been a nightmare for the president and for the people putting on the prayer breakfast. The tradition was that the president always appeared at this event and spoke. So I remember thinking that the very idea of President Clinton walking into a room filled with Christian conservatives was the proverbial nonstarter. I refused to believe he would show up. Somehow he just had to find a way to wriggle out of this extremely awkward obligation. I had a seat near the very back of the room, which is so vast that the people on the dais in the distance seem like ants. But then in walked Bill Clintonor at least thats who I assumed it was, since everyone stood and the band played Hail to the Chief as a tiny figure crossed the stage and took its position near the center of the long dais.