Reuters reports that Texas Governor Rick Perry has teamed up with the American Family Association to launch his own Lou Engle-like all day prayer rally:
Saying “there is hope for America, and we will find it on our knees,” Texas Governor Rick Perry has invited other governors to join him in a “solemn gathering of prayer and fasting” in August in Houston, according to the event’s website.
Perry, who said recently he is considering a run for the Republican nomination to contest the presidency in 2012 against Barack Obama, has frequently made calls for prayer while governor.
“I sincerely hope you’ll join me in Houston on August 6th and take your place in Reliant Stadium with praying people asking for God’s forgiveness, wisdom and provision,” Perry wrote in materials promoting the event, called “The Response, a Call to Prayer for a Nation in Crisis.”
A message on the event’s website says it is in response to a historic crisis and calls it “a non-denominational, apolitical Christian prayer meeting,” with the goal “to rise up and make a sound that will be heard in heaven.”
The site says Perry “has invited all US governors as well as many other national and Christian political leaders.”
“Right now, America is in crisis,” Perry says in a message on the site. “We have been besieged by financial debt, terrorism, and a multitude of natural disasters. As a nation, we must come together, and call upon Jesus to guide us…”
Perry’s spokeswoman could not be reached for comment on the August event on Sunday.
Eric Bearse, a spokesman for The Response, said on Sunday: “The governor told the American Family Association about a month ago that we need to call Americans together for a time of prayer.”
Bearse said the Mississippi-based American Family Association, a conservative Christian activist group, is paying for the event, and admission will not be charged.
According to the event website, the prayer rally will take place at Reliant Stadium in Houston and last from 10 am to 5 pm and will feature Don Wildmon and Buddy Smith of the American Family Association, Jim Garlow of Renewing American Leadership, David Lane, who was involved in the effort to remove the Supreme Court Justices in Iowa and is behind the various “Restoration Project” events across America, former Congressmen Bob McEwen, as well as several leaders associated with Lou Engle and/or the International House of Prayer in Kansas City.
