New shirts, stickers encourage Christians to “pray for Obama,” …to die

What on the surface looks like a simple Christian plea promoting prayer for President Obama (via Psalm 109,verse 8)-somewhat condescending, but in line with the whole “pray for them” concept- is actually quite sinister underneath.

At first, it seems critical, but not that bad:

Let his days be few; and let another take his office.

Okay, not a particularly altruistic concept, but check out what follows:

Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.

Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg: let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places.

Rachel Maddow covered the trend on her show, unaware of the total context of the psalm, and former right-wing evangelical leader Frank Schaeffer informed her of the more “threatening” nature of the verse. Schaeffer went on to say the phrase was a veiled way of “trawling for assassins,” Schaeffer opined:

“This is the Old Testament biblical equivalent of calling for holy war. … And what surprises me is that responsible — if you can put it that way — Republican leadership, and the editors at some of these Christian magazines …. do not stand up in holy horror and denounce this.”

“I would just say to them, ‘Where the hell are you?'” Schaeffer concluded. “‘This is not funny any more, and be it on your head if something happens to our president.’ … There are not many steps left on this insane path.”

Over the last 8 years of heavy Bush criticism, I don’t recall seeing many sentiments more aggressive than something about a village missing their idiot. Coded calls for the President’s death were not commonplace on promotional items, and people hated that guy. Consider too, the implicit ill will is not just directed at President Obama, but lobbed at his wife and children as well, wishing not only the loss of their husband and father upon them, but poverty and starvation as well.

Personally, I think Gawker gets it right when they point out this bit, also from Psalm 109:

Let mine adversaries be clothed with shame; and let them cover themselves with their own confusion, as with a mantle.

[Gawker]