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The latest empty cliché that one hears out of the mouth of Christians is “Pray for Ukraine.” But do Christians who utter this pious platitude even know what they mean when they say it?
I suppose that it is supposed to mean that we should pray for the people of Ukraine who are suffering because of the unjustified Russian invasion of their country. If only things were that simple.
Some observations are in order.
This appeal is based on the overly simplistic yet false and evil notion of Ukraine, good; Russia, bad.
This trite expression in the form of a prayer request is virtue signaling at its worst.
I think we are at the point now where someone saying “Pray for Ukraine” is the verbal equivalent of someone wearing a face mask.
If U.S. soldiers are heroes for following their government’s orders, then why aren’t Russian soldiers heroes for doing the same?
The Ukrainian nationalists (and the Christians who hang on their every word) who compare Putin to Hitler are gravely insulting Jews.
How come I have never heard any Christians say that we should pray for the ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine who were shelled for the past eight years by the Ukrainian military?
Where were these Christians when the U.S. military was killing Vietnamese, Laotians, and Cambodians by the millions during the Vietnam War?
Why are these Christians silent about Cubans suffering because of the U.S. embargo against Cuba?
Would Christians be saying “Pray for Yemen” if the United States was not supporting Saudi Arabia in its war in Yemen.?
And what about the people of Saudi Arabia suffering under the brutal rule of the Mohammed bin Salman regime? Shouldn’t we pray for them? Oh, I forgot, they are Muslims.
How many of these Christians expressed any concern about all the widows and orphans that the U.S. military made over a twenty-year period in Afghanistan?
How many of these Christians offered up prayers for the people of Iraq—a country that never attacked the United States—when hundreds of thousands of them were injured, maimed, or killed during the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq and, before this, as a consequence of the brutal sanctions that the United States imposed on the Iraqi people?
Why should we take any of these Christians seriously when they say “Pray for Ukraine”?
What Ron Paul said back in 2014 about the Russian annexation of Crimea is still just as true today: “Why does the U.S. care which flag will be hoisted on a small piece of land thousands of miles away?”
So, yes, pray for Ukraine. But pray for the civilians of the world who are on the receiving end of bombs and bullets from any army. And pray especially for the civilians of the world who are on the receiving end of weapons made in the good ole USA by merchants of death like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, General Dynamics, and Northrop Grumman.
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Laurence M. Vance [send him mail] writes from central Florida. He is the author of The War on Drugs Is a War on Freedom; War, Christianity, and the State: Essays on the Follies of Christian Militarism; War, Empire, and the Military: Essays on the Follies of War and U.S. Foreign Policy; King James, His Bible, and Its Translators, and many other books. His newest books are Free Trade or Protectionism? and The Free Society.
Featured image is from OneWorld
