Turn on Christian cable television programs, and you constantly hear, “Pray for Ukraine.” Listen to almost any Christian radio broadcast, and you constantly hear, “Pray for Ukraine.” Attend almost any evangelical church, and you will hear the pastor plead, “Pray for Ukraine.” Christian libertarian writer Laurence Vance has written a very timely and insightful treatise in this regard: The latest empty cliché that one hears out of the mouth of Christians is “Pray for Ukraine.” But do Christians who utter this pious platitude even know what they mean when they say it? I suppose that it is supposed to mean that we should pray for the people of Ukraine who are suffering because of the unjustified Russian invasion of their country. If only things were that simple. Some observations are in order. This appeal is based on the overly simplistic yet false and evil notion of Ukraine, good; Russia, bad. This trite expression in the form of a prayer request is virtue signaling at its worst. I think we are at the point now where someone saying “Pray for Ukraine” is the verbal equivalent of someone wearing a face mask. If U.S. soldiers are heroes for following their government’s orders, then why aren’t Russian soldiers heroes for doing the same? How come I have never heard any Christians say that we should pray for the ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine who were shelled for the past eight years by the Ukrainian military? https://earthnewspaper.com/pray-for-ukraine-pray-for-america-by-chuck-baldwin
