I told you last week about Texas Governor Rick Perry’s plan to hold an all day prayer-and-fasting summit (called “The Response”) at Houston’s Reliant Stadium this August. The purpose of the event, according to Perry’s office, is to summon divine assistance to lift the United States out of its doldrums. Apparently the event organizers didn’t get the memo. Via Right Wing Watch, the spokesperson for The Response, Eric Bearse, told the American Family Association yesterday that the purpose of the summit is, in part, to convert non-Christians:
A lot of people want to criticize what we’re doing, as if we’re somehow being exclusive of other faiths. But anyone who comes to this solemn assembly regardless of their faith tradition or background, will feel the love, grace, and warmth of Jesus Christ in that assembly hall, in that arena. And that’s what we want to convey, that there’s acceptance and that there’s love and that there’s hope if people will seek out the living Christ. And that’s the message we want to spread on August 6th.
They’re not excluding people of other faiths! Quite the opposite: they’re hoping people of other faiths show up and find Christ. There’s a big difference, really. Perry has invited the governors of the 49 other states to attend his rally. So far, only one, Kansas’ Sam Brownback, has said he’ll be there. Given the context—it’s being co-hosted by the American Family Association, which is considered by the Southern Poverty Law Center an anti-gay “hate group”—and the now-stated intent to proselytize, it’s not hard to see why mainstream leaders are steering clear.
