WND EXCLUSIVE

'POWER OF PRAYER' AIMS AT HEALING BROKEN AMERICA

'Snapping' author Kupelian joins Christian thought-leaders in powerful new project

Paul Bremmer

When Nancy Schulze, co-founder of the American Prayer Initiative, was asked to recommend writers for a special Washington Times feature on the power of prayer, one of the names on her final list was best-selling author David Kupelian, who has been WND’s managing editor since 1999.

“David Kupelian is one of the precious few in this country who are truly, truly writing, understanding the depth of what we’re dealing with in this country from a spiritual point of view, who is not a pastor or a theologian per se,” Schulze told WND in an interview. “He’s just eloquent about what has really happened to this country.”

The result was the appearance of Kupelian’s piece, “Freedom from the Dark Side,” in the publication’s “The Power of Prayer For America’s Future.”

The project had its genesis several years ago, when Schulze was giving a talk at the Council for National Policy about the American Prayer Initiative, and Washington Times President Larry Beasley just happened to be in the room. After the talk, he approached Schulze, gave her his card, and said he was interested in hearing more about the API.

Then last September, Beasley called Schulze and said the Times was thinking of publishing a special report on the power of prayer. He asked if the API would like to occupy the centerfold of the report, and also if Schulze would secure writers to contribute op-eds about the power of prayer from their points of view.

Schulze immediately contacted Vonette Bright, her co-founder of the API, as well as several other women of faith who had helped launch the project, including Shirley Dobson, Penny Nance and Janet Parshall. They each agreed to write a piece for the prayer feature.

The Times then asked Schulze if she knew anyone else, and she certainly did. She kept suggesting writers until the special report reached 43 pages. That initial report, titled “The Power of Prayer: To Enhance Your Life and Restore America,” was published Nov. 30 and included contributions from Dr. Ben Carson; Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky.; Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C.; Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah; Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla.; WND columnist Star Parker and many Christian thought leaders.

The contributions, however, overwhelmed the space available, and a second report was published Dec. 31, titled “The Power of Prayer: For America’s Future.”

It included contributions from more legislators (Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C.; former Rep. Bob McEwen, R-Ohio; and former Oklahoma Republican State Sen. Ed Moore), pastors (such as Rev. Anne Graham Lotz, pastor Max Lucado and Rev. Dan Cummins), bishops (Bishop Gregory Mansour and Archbishop George Augustus Stallings, Jr.), and many Christian authors and thought leaders.

image: http://www.wnd.com/files/2015/10/david-kupelian-150x150.jpg

David Kupelian

There were 37 entries in the second report in addition to Kupelian’s article on the Lord’s Prayer, titled “Freedom from the Dark Side.”

Schulze said she had previously read Kupelian’s 2005 book, “The Marketing of Evil,” and interviewed him on her radio show. More recently, she read Kupelian’s newest book, released in mid-October, “The Snapping of the American Mind: Healing a Nation Broken by a Lawless Government and Godless Culture.”

“His ‘The Snapping of the American Mind’ brought him to mind as a potential contributor to ‘The Power of Prayer’ special report, so that’s when I called him, and he agreed to write,” Schulze said.

Kupelian was grateful for the chance to participate.

“It’s an honor to be included in this prayer project alongside so many well-known Christians,” he said. “But I have to say, having read through the whole thing, the most powerful witness of them all, to me, is that of the brutalized Middle Eastern Christians interviewed in Ellen Vaughn’s piece, who display such admirable and unshakable faith in God in the face of ISIS atrocities.”

Schulze, for her part, said she doesn’t have a favorite article from either report. She simply appreciates the many vantage points that were represented.

“The people who wrote from such different points of view,” she said, “I mean, there were historians that wrote from a historical point of view – Bill Federer and David Barton. Roma Downey, who is an actress and producer herself, wrote from a very personal point of view about growing up in Northern Ireland and having to duck below her desk in school to avoid bullets. Another writer that comes to mind who was just extraordinary is Gen. [William] Boykin,” who related an incredible story of his life-and-death prayer being instantly answered on the battlefield.

Schulze said the Washington Times prayer features have given the American Prayer Initiative a welcome burst of exposure. Bright, who with her husband, Bill Bright, had founded Campus Crusade for Christ, and who passed away shortly before Christmas, had worked with Schulze to establish the API to help Americans pray, because research has shown 80 percent of American Christians are unsure how to do so. The API website offers a compilation of prayers arranged by topic, with one prayer topic for each day of the month. The prayers frequently reference the founding principles and constitutional roots of America.

Nothing could be more timely or needed for today’s America, says Schulze, because “very tenacious secular forces” have been doing all they can to put up a firewall between Americans and their faith. Yet it was principles born out of Scripture that formed the foundation of America and made it a great nation, Schulze insisted.

“It’s gotten to the point where we are so far off base from where we started as a country, we are so far removed now as a culture from where we started and from what made us great, that it’s our belief, those of us that founded the American Prayer Initiative, that unless and until we as a people reconnect or connect with the Creator and the One upon whom the founders of this country relied for aid in founding the country – unless we get back to a relationship with the Almighty, I don’t think the country is going to pull out of the downward spiral,” Schulze said. “That’s the reason for the American Prayer Initiative.”

SPECIAL OFFER: Get your copy of David Kupelian’s “The Snapping of the American Mind: Healing a Nation Broken by a Lawless Government and Godless Culture” – autographed and personalized – at a special discount at the WND Superstore!

Also, get Kupelian’s culture-war bestseller, “The Marketing of Evil” – now available in paperback – and the acclaimed sequel, “How Evil Works,” also in paperback – all available, autographed by the author, at the WND Superstore!

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2016/01/wnds-kupelian-featured-in-washington-times-prayer-project/#rZSsBWdar7k0Py9a.99