American Family Association radio host Sandy Rios said today that yesterday’s memorial service for the victims of the Boston Marathon bombing, along with the “Boston Strong” slogan, are demonstrations of human pride that could cause God to stop protecting the city.
Rios said that because the mourners gathered in Boston didn’t thank God for preventing a more damaging attack that “could’ve been a whole lot worse” with “thousands of casualties,” now God may allow another terrorist “onslaught” to take place:
“Because we have denied him and ignored him and refused to acknowledge him, we cannot assume and in fact we can probably likely count on the fact that God, unless he does on behalf of the people that are called by his name, those of us that serve him, unless he hears our prayers above what we see happening in this country, I’m not sure that there will be something to stop the next onslaught.”
In fact, the memorial service yesterday started with a speech from Rev. Liz Walker of the Roxbury Presbyterian Church, Boston Mayor Marty Walsh started his speech by quoting from the Epistle of James, and several speakers mentioned God.
The overall things that come to my ears in the face of what happened a year ago just seem empty. It’s like going to a funeral and remembering someone’s life when there is no thought to who God is and to our place in the universe, that’s what was missing. When they start talking about, ‘We are Boston Strong,’ and I addressed this when this happened last Spring and they started talking about ‘Boston Strong,’ this is not the first time I’ve mentioned this, something in me just, just—I close my eyes and I think, oh please, don’t go there. What they’re saying is, ‘We are so fabulous, our response to this was so wonderful.’ You heard Joe Biden say, ‘We are strong, we’ll never stand down, we respond, we endure, we own the finish line.’
No, no, really, the truth of the matter, last spring, a year ago yesterday, was—only by God’s grace was it not worse than it was, only by God’s grace Boston could’ve been wiped out, there could’ve been thousands of casualties, it could’ve been a whole lot worse, they could have been devastated as a city, they could have been in a situation where they couldn’t recover. It’s only by God’s grace and mercy that it wasn’t worse than it was. It was not because of ‘Boston Strong.’
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And I have to say, because we have denied him and ignored him and refused to acknowledge him, we cannot assume and in fact we can probably likely count on the fact that God, unless he does on behalf of the people that are called by his name, those of us that serve him, unless he hears our prayers above what we see happening in this country, I’m not sure that there will be something to stop the next onslaught.
