Did it Hit Too Close to Home?

I received an email yesterday from a friend that discussed an opening prayer at a session of the Kansas House of Representatives. Well, it was a cool message, but I had to find out if it was true...I'm sure all of you have received some far-fetched emails before! I checked it out with snopes.com and it was true, so here's the story:

"Thought you might enjoy this interesting prayer given in Kansas at the opening session of their Senate. It seems prayer still upsets some people. When the guest Minister was asked to open the new session of the Kansas Senate, everyone was expecting
the usual generalities, but this is what they heard:

Heavenly Father, we come before you today to ask your forgiveness and to seek your direction and guidance. We know Your Word says, 'Woe to those who call evil good,' but that is exactly what we have done.
We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and reversed our values.
We have exploited the poor and called it the lottery.
We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare.
We have killed our unborn and called it choice.
We have shot abortionists and called it justifiable.
We have neglected to discipline our children and called it building self esteem.
We have abused power and called it politics.
We have coveted our neighbor's possessions and called it ambition.
We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of expression.
We have ridiculed the time-honored values of our forefathers and called it enlightenment.
Search us, Oh, God, and know our hearts today; cleanse us from every sin and set us free. Amen!

The response was immediate. A number of legislators walked out during the prayer in protest. In 6 short weeks, Central Christian Church, where Rev. Wright is pastor, logged more than 5,000 phone calls with only 47 of those calls responding negatively. The church is now receiving international requests for copies of this prayer from India , Africa and Korea . Commentator Paul Harvey aired this prayer on his radio program, 'The Rest of the Story,'and received a larger response to this program than any other he has ever aired."

What a cool story...critics of the prayer possibly felt it hit too close to home...maybe they didn't want to offend their constituents in this politically correct world. We should all be offended, however, at the state of this nation and the "anything goes" attitude of the greater culture! Snopes did mention that the author of this prayer was not Reverend Wright, but Bob Russell, who delivered his version at the Kentucky Governor's Prayer Breakfast in Frankfort in 1995. It's awesome that this powerful message originated right in my home state.