Taking Tucker Carlson's Challenge

Before his dismissal from Fox News, Tucker Carlson issued an important challenge to Americans.

Everyone’s probably heard about Tucker Carlson’s departure from Fox News by now. Reports suggest that it was Carlson’s speech on April 21st at the Heritage Foundation that caused the firing, particularly his closing remarks about prayer.

I only came upon this speculation as I was sitting down to write this piece, intending, oddly enough, to write about those specific prayer remarks. You see, they surprised me. It’s not often that you hear such a looming public figure like Carlson say such a thing in such a public venue. Nor is it often that a figure from the news media says something that challenges me so deeply.

Carlson spent much of his speech talking about the challenges and evils we face today, acknowledging the overwhelming nature of them. And then he said:

Maybe we should all take just like 10 minutes a day to say a prayer about it. I’m serious! Like, why not?

And I’m saying that to you not as some kind of evangelist, I’m literally saying that to you as an Episcopalian. The Samaritans of our time! I’m coming to you from the most humble and lowly theological position you can. I’m LITERALLY an Episcopalian, okay? And EVEN I have concluded it might be worth taking just 10 minutes out of your busy schedule to say a prayer for the future. And I hope you will.

“He’s absolutely right!” I thought. Oh, sure, I pray for the country. But often when I do, it’s just a quick, five-second little mention in my morning prayers. And yet, I sit there and shake my head at the breakneck speed with which we’re headed toward the cliff, wondering what we’re going to do.

The answer, as Carlson suggests, is right in front of us: pray.

His suggestion has good historical backing, too. According to a letter written by John Adams to his wife Abigail in September of 1774 when war with Britain seemed imminent, the colonial leaders met together for a council and felt led to pray. They called an Episcopalian minister in and he “prayed with such fervour … for America, for Congress, for the Province of Massachusetts Bay, and especially for the town of Boston.’” As we all know, those colonists eventually won that impending war against all odds.

Several years later, some of those same leaders met together for the Constitutional Convention. Contention was the name of the game, and it looked as if the hard won efforts in the Revolutionary War would be in vain. But then Benjamin Franklin got up and made an impassioned speech, urging his fellows to seek God’s guidance in this huge task:

I therefore beg leave to move that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessing on our deliberations, be held in this Assembly every morning before we proceed to business, and that one or more of the clergy of this city be requested to officiate in that service.

Accounts vary as to whether the assembled attendees took Franklin’s advice, but we do know that the Convention that seemed to be on the verge of dissolving continued, eventually producing the Constitution, the law of the land.

But prayer has also been a lifeline for nations in more recent times. As recorded in God’s Mighty Hand, an Englishman named W. Tudor Pole was challenged to pray daily at the beginning of World War II.

One day during the beginning of the war, while doing business in London, Big Ben chimed its time. The clock struck nine. Inspired, he came up with an idea that every day at the stroke of nine citizens should remember to have a moment of silent prayer for the progress of the War. Since Mr. Pole was an influential man in the city of London it did not take long that citizens at the stroke of nine from Big Ben would bow their heads and have silent prayer. This soon caught on and thousands, from the Prime Minister, King and Queen, Parliament, and the common labor, at the stroke of nine prayed for British victory and world peace.

If these people throughout history have used prayer to such success, then why can’t we? Why can’t we take Tucker Carlson’s suggestion and spend 10 minutes of our day praying for our country, its local and national leaders, its citizens, and its institutions?

So I am determining to take Carlson’s challenge for the next year, taking 10 minutes each day to earnestly pray for our nation. It’s a fitting time, too, for this week marks the arrival of the annual National Day of Prayer.

But I’m hoping I won’t be alone in taking this challenge. I’m hoping you, too, will be challenged to take 10, or even five minutes a day to pray for this messed up nation of ours and its poor befuddled citizens—which includes each of us, by the way! If even just the people reading this post will do this, we will have hundreds of people pleading with God for the future of our country, and who knows the many positive outcomes those prayers might have!

Putting myself out there and publicly committing to do this is a bit daunting, but I believe doing so will help me stick to my promise. So if you, too, purpose to do this, why not let me know by either liking or replying to this post? And then let’s sit back and see what our earnest prayers joined together will yield. It may be our last resort, but it’s also the best.

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