Ethics

Praying to End Crime

By Ed Brayton

While the folks in San Francisco are praying for lower gas prices, the mayor of Birmingham, Alabama just held a "sackcloth and ashes" prayer meeting to try and solve crime and other problems facing the city.

More than 1,000 people gathered at Boutwell Auditorium Friday night, wearing burlap sacks, their foreheads dabbed with ashes, to observe what was proclaimed by Birmingham Mayor Larry Langford as "a day of prayer in sackcloth and ashes."

The night featured collective prayers for forgiveness and fiery sermons calling for the city to repent in order to stop the violence plaguing the city.

"Let there be so misunderstanding: Satan is at work in this town," Langford said. "And It is time to pray."

Full post as published by Dispatches from the Culture Wars on April 30, 2008 (boomark / email).