Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council, has a new sheeple grooming scheme in play.  It’s called “Call 2 Fall”.  On the surface, it looks harmless enough.  He’s asking clerics to set aside a few minutes during services on Sunday, July 5, 2009  and “call their people to get on their knees and faces before the Lord in repentant prayer to forgive our sins and heal our land.”  Perkins says his inspiration is 2 Chronicles 7:14.  That may indeed be his inspiration, but his goal is decidedly profane.  A look at the Call 2 Fall materials sent out by Cindy Honcoop of the Washington Eagle Forum and Protect Marriage Washington makes clear that “submission” will entail more than just genuflecting.Here is the scheme:

1. Tell people that God requires humble submission before He’ll answer your prayers.

2. Create a public event where peer pressure will come to bear because lack of submission will be obvious to the community.

3. Assert that this is God’s scheme (rather than Perkins’s), making refusal more problematic.

4. Reinforce that if you submit, God’ll do stuff for you.

5. Bait & switch by explaining that humility isn’t just kneeling for 3 minutes, it’s becoming a political minion, see Tony Perkins for your marching orders.

This is how the Washington Eagle Forum leads its members down this particular garden path:

The “Call 2 Fall” national prayer initiative is based on Scripture, from which we envision three essentials necessary for God’s blessing: a proper attitude, a prayerful action, and a promise based anticipation.

A Proper Attitude: Humility and Dependence Upon God

Why we do things is of great concern to God. God looks upon our hearts. We believe God requires genuine humility in His people before He intervenes on our behalf.

A Prayerful Action: Kneeling Together Before the Lord

The Call to Fall is a call for God’s people to publicly, corporately manifest humble, dependent hearts by bending our knees before Almighty God on July 5th, 2009.

In Scripture, bending the knee is an act of humility, reverence and submission. Some of God’s greatest leaders demonstrated their deep humility by bending their knees in prayer before almighty God.

A Promised-Based Anticipation: God will Answer

We believe that God Himself is the originator of the “Call to Fall.” If we will do our part, we can surely anticipate that He will do His. In fact, Scripture is filled with promises for those who humble themselves before the Lord:

…As a People of the Word we are called to build our nation & its God-given institutions upon the righteous foundations of His eternal Moral Law lest we be overtaken by wicked ideologies & fall prey to the control of profane & depraved men.

As Free Christian Citizens we are called to establish righteous civil government: to pray, vote, boldly proclaim God’s Word in the public square and openly support & elect Godly officials. We are charged to publicly denounce, withstand & defeat officials who despoil our Godly heritage or defy God’s eternal law by their public actions or private behavior.

Two of the board members for Protect Marriage Washington are heavily into this.  One is Cindy Honcoop of Washington Eagle Forum (an affiliate of Schlafley’s Eagle Forum).  The other is failed state legislative candidate Ron Boehme.  Boehme is so into it that he writes insane blog posts about it that contradict each other (blog vs. blog).

The Call 2 Fall website claims that over 22,000 people and churches have committed to doing this, but there is no listing available so there is no way to find a local church to attend if you wanted to join the herd.  But I think Tony Perkins could care less about playing matchmaker for people and churches.  He satisfies his primary concern by requiring people who sign up to provide an email address and zip code.  That’ll come in real handy when he wants to convince candidate X or senator Y that he has Z number of people in their district on speed dial.