Little Rock, USA - A minister who endorsed Republican Mike Huckabee's presidential bid is asking his followers to pray for the deaths of those who are challenging his church's tax-exempt status because of the political statement.
The Rev. Wiley S. Drake of the First Southern Baptist Church of Buena Park, California, called for "imprecatory prayer" targeting Barry W. Lynn, Joe Conn and Jeremy Leaming of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
"The prayer does call for serious, serious punishment on people. But I didn't call for that, God did," said Drake, who completed a term in June as second vice president of the Southern Baptist Convention.
Drake used church stationery and an Internet radio program to endorse Huckabee, a former governor of Arkansas who is a Southern Baptist minister.
The Americans United for Separation of Church and State asked the U.S. tax agency, the Internal Revenue Service, to investigate whether it was proper for Drake to endorse Huckabee. Churches that endorse candidates are subject to losing their tax-exempt status.
Drake said in a telephone interview Thursday that neither he nor the church violated the law and insisted he could use church stationery and the Internet program to "personally" endorse a political candidate. He said the Bible calls for imprecatory prayer when someone "attacks the church."
On his Internet show, in a news release on ChristianNewsWire and in an e-mail to Americans United, Drake called on others to pray that the Americans United officials be punished.
He gave as examples of imprecatory prayer:
"Persecute them. ... Let them be put to shame and perish."
"Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow."
"Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg."