13 Comments

David Nickol
July 25th, 2011 | 10:37 am

It was bound to happen sooner or later—product placement in prayers.

Matthew Schmitz
July 25th, 2011 | 10:58 am

He’s riffing on Talladega Nights (the reference to the “smoking hot wife” is the giveaway). Here’s the link, but beware language and theme: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5A0-u85aAYg

pentamom
July 25th, 2011 | 1:40 pm

Either this is a blasphemous joke, or it’s someone losing all biblical perspective on prayer in the service of the “God cares about everything so we should pray about it, and everything comes from Him so we should thank Him for it” view. That’s a true view as far as it goes, but it has to function within a biblical context about what prayer is and is for.

CrystalDawn
July 26th, 2011 | 8:11 am

Shame on ya’ll. My husband has referred to me as his smoking hot wife, and he has never seen Talladega Nights. As far as product placement in prayers, that’s absurd. There is nothing wrong with thanking God for the cars by their particular brand. Ya’ll need to clean up your thinking and get your own hearts right with God before casting judgement on another. As far as boogety, boogety, boogety, it is a NASCAR tradition

Boogety, Boogety, Boogety, An Update » First Thoughts | A First Things Blog
July 26th, 2011 | 11:01 am

[...] on the NASCAR prayer featured in Boogety, Boogety, Boogety, posted yesterday: a report titled Pastor Defends Calling Wife Smokin Hot Before Nascar Race. The [...]

JDD
July 26th, 2011 | 3:08 pm

At the risk of alienating everyone…

Loved it. Maybe you just have to be in the right mood, or maybe you just have to assume the best, or just realize that you weren’t raised in NASCAR Country if you weren’t, (I certainly wasn’t. My loss.)

I could have done without the “product placement” as well – but I *have* prayed in thanksgiving for air conditioning and grilled chicken before at a family gathering. Trying to be funny? Actually no – though I knew it would bring a smile. Just truly grateful for God’s provision, and expressed it out loud.

Here – I simply heard a pastor praying in his own authentic manner. A for trying to figure out his interior disposition, his real motives… let’s spend our time on more important matters.

Gregory K. Laughlin
July 26th, 2011 | 9:38 pm

Interestingly enough, our Lord taught his disciples how to pray and it sounded nothing like this.

JDD
July 27th, 2011 | 10:55 am

“Interestingly enough, our Lord taught his disciples how to pray and it sounded nothing like this.”

We’ve also been given Psalm 148, and even Psalm 99.

http://www.usccb.org/nab/psalms/ps148.htm

http://www.usccb.org/nab/psalms/ps099.htm

Gregory K. Laughlin
July 28th, 2011 | 6:58 am

Indeed, the whole book of Psalms is full of prayers, as is much of Scripture. None of them include product endorsements, “smoking hot” wives or the three-fold boogety.

Gregory K. Laughlin
July 28th, 2011 | 7:09 am

JDD, I assume he meant well and certainly we should praise God for His gifts, but prayer is to be directed toward God, not toward a human audience, who are to be entertained by it. The same is true of worship. I left a SBC mega-church for a small, liturgical Presbyterian one largely for this reason. Rick Warren was right about at least one thing: it’s not about us.

JDD
July 28th, 2011 | 12:30 pm

Gregory,

Interesting conversation – I’m glad someone’s still checking this thread…

“Indeed, the whole book of Psalms is full of prayers, as is much of Scripture. None of them include product endorsements, “smoking hot” wives or the three-fold boogety.”

Product placement – of course not. And the point’s been made about the “threefold boogety” being part of NASCAR tradition.. (lowercase “T”!) You’ve got me thinking about the second point, though. The language is far different, of course; is it really that different from Song of Solomon? No need to belabor this point – just thinking out loud.

But what you’ve said here is significantly different from saying this prayer was nothing like the Lord’s prayer. I’m trying to sift out the good here – I heard a filial call to the Father, exclamations of God’s power and majesty, thanksgiving, petitions for help. In any case, it’s not perhaps how I would pray – but at the same time I’m not in agreement with those posters who essentially conclude the man is an egomaniac, or – come on – blasphemer.

“but prayer is to be directed toward God, not toward a human audience, who are to be entertained by it. The same is true of worship.”

By his own comments, I agree he seems to say that his prayer was somewhat directed towards the ‘audience’ – though I don’t share Mr. Mills’ complaint that evangelizing is here being used as an ‘excuse’ to pray such. I do agree with another poster that often, (especially on the radio,) the ‘closing prayer’ really just turns into the end of the sermon. Saying he was just trying to entertain is, I think, unfair. I think about Jesus’ spontaneous public utterances of prayer – including exclamations of praise that didn’t sound at all like the Lord’s Prayer – and I wonder how the people of his time would have taken it. Perhaps they would have thought the same criticisms.

It’s interesting that you make the distinction between prayer and worship, because I was thinking beforehand that there may be different definitions here of what is worship, what is prayer, what is praise. Wasn’t this pastor charged with leading those listening in a corporate prayer. Is it wrong that it became an exclamation of praise?

PleasantDrive
July 30th, 2011 | 10:51 am

This prayer has been auto-tuned so the audience will become over 100 million people around the World by the end of this year.

Why not let the unwashed watch and the Lord judge whether or not it’s proper?

Peter von Kaehne
August 3rd, 2011 | 8:55 am

I am with JDD. Even to me as a continental European, opposed to car racing and never likely to call me wife “smoking hot” – and certainly not in public – I can understand his feelings, his gratitude towards God and find this is – at the worst – a family occasion gone wrong:

Someone thought it would hilarious to show off a small town minister doing something clever people would think is daft.

Re product placement – it sounds odd until you realise that he probably simply named everyone participating/supporting. This is not about winning but about fun/enjoyment and gratitude for it. And that includes gratitude that companies sponsored something clearly of importance for his community.