Most of us have heard about Steve Anderson - the pastor in Phoenix who has been praying that Obama would die and go to hell. For the most part, people have written him off as being a crazy who is completely on his own at the lunatic fringe. Unfortunately, he is not alone at the fringe. He represents a growing movement. There was a t shirt and bumper stickers being sold on the web with the slogan, "Pray for Obama Psalm 109:8. Sounds innocent enough. Even the verse itself falls pretty squarely in the American tradition of political discourse - "Let his days be few; and let another take his office" (KJV) It becomes much more sinister when the following verse is read - "Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow."

Nobody who purchased that t shirt or bumper sticker did so without reading the verse in its context. Nobody who wore it did so without knowing that they were calling for the death of the president of the United States. Ronald Kessler, who wrote a book about presidential security says that death threats against Obama are up 400% over George Bush. It is no wonder... people are hearing "death to the president of the US" from pulpits... and not only from radical Muslim imams in the Middle East, they are hearing it from "Christian" fundamentalist pastors in the US.

Let me say this as clearly as I can. This slogan is not funny or cute. It is heinous. These people are not "biblical" or "Christian." They are using proof texts to back up political ideologies and trying to bolster their cases by attributing their views to God. And finally, any Christian who does not condemn these misuses of the Bible and of Christian theology is culpable for anything that may happen.