What’s (amusingly) wrong with the following picture:

It’s a bunch of Christians praying fervently to God in front of a statue of a bull for his (God’s) help in fixing the financial market. This was apparently the idea of a noted Christian “leader” by the name of Cindy Jacobs who’s been hearing the voice of God a lot lately and passes on his message in this article at the 700 Club:

In January of this year, Cindy Jacobs was in a worship service when the Lord spoke to her, “Cindy, the strongman over America doesn’t live in Washington, DC – the strongman lives in New York City! Call My people to pray for the economy.”

[...] The Lord further said, “October 29 was Black Tuesday, the day the stock market crashed, and Satan wants to do it again.” We must be proactive in prayer. At the beginning of the year many intercessors began to hear from the Lord that without divine intervention, a major shaking was coming to Wall Street. This would spread until there were food shortages. Some think that 2009 would be worse than 2008. Of course, it goes without saying that this would affect markets around the world.

Who knew God gave a shit about the stock market? All that talking by Jesus of giving away all your money to the poor and chasing off the money changers was just him pulling our leg. God DOES care about money (which explains why the clergy are always asking you for it on his behalf) and he’s willing to help so long as we’re willing to pray to him asking for it:

“We are going to intercede at the site of the statue of the bull on Wall Street to ask God to begin a shift from the bull and bear markets to what we feel will be the ‘Lion’s Market,’ or God’s control over the economic systems,” she said.  “While we do not have the full revelation of all this will entail, we do know that without intercession, economies will crumble.”

Wait a minute… wasn’t there something in the Bible about a golden calf and Moses and God not being too happy about it? Yes, yes there was. Granted those ancient Jews were praying to the statue itself and not to God while laying hands on the statue like they did in New York, but still that’s gotta be an annoying thing to be reminded of. It also seems somewhat against the message of Jesus to be begging God for money. Not that God can’t afford it seeing as he’s got all these suckers followers giving him money all the time. I guess it all depends on how you interpret the whole “ask and God shall provide” idea. I realize I’m no religious authority, but it seems to me that this particular venue was an awkward choice.