In Detroit, when all else fails, they try prayer

Some people in Detroit, finding themselves at the end of their collective ropes, are giving prayer a go.

I wonder how many of these folks have tried prayer before only to discover that the line between earth and heaven somehow got disconnected.

But now they're desperate.

Nick Bunkley, writing for The New York Times, describes last Sunday's service at the Pentecostal Greater Grace Temple in Detroit where Bishop Charles H. Ellis III, surrounded by three shiny new SUVs in the chancel area, led his congregation, many of which had some connection to the auto industry, in prayer.

"I don't know what's going to happen," said the bishop, "but we need prayer."

A couple of U.A.W. vice presidents repeated that theme. "We have done all that we can do in this union, so I turn it over to the Lord," said General Holiefield. James Settles Jr., told the worshipers "to continue your prayers, so we can see a miracle next week."

Bishop Ellis, in a moment of theological lucidity, suggested the congregation not pray that Congress give the car companies a bail-out, but rather that the car companies survive the economic meltdown.


Desperate times call for desperate measures as someone once said somewhere I think. The people in Michigan are desperate. Hope is fleeting. Thus, Bishop Ellis provides this quotation from Romans: "I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us."

Whatever that means.

Cardinal Adam Maida, Roman Catholic Archbishop of the Detroit area, sent out a letter to the faithful encouraging them to keep the faith. "At this darkest time of the year, we proclaim that Christ is our light and Christ is our hope," saith the AB.


All of these spiritual exhortations are mere placebos, and prayer is going to get the people nowhere. They might sound good and make folks feel better, but they're not going to get the job done.

Archbishop Maida knows that. So he got together with a bunch of other religious poohbahs from Detroit "to call on Congress to approve the $34 billion in government-backed loans that they automakers have requested."

It would appear that, at this point, it is more effective to "call on Congress" rather than to call on God.