“We just need to pray for the president!”

This is one of the most common responses I receive online. Especially in response to critiques of the current president and his administration.

In many Christian circles, the exhortation to “pray for the president” is presented as a biblical mandate grounded in Scripture—most often drawn from Paul’s instruction in 1 Timothy 2:1-2, where believers are urged to offer “supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings” for all people, “for kings and all who are in high positions.” Properly understood, this is a call for Christians to be people of peace, lifting up their leaders in prayer not as an act of political loyalty but as an expression of trust in God’s sovereignty and care for the common good.

However, in practice, this noble exhortation has often been weaponized—used not to cultivate faithful prayer or prophetic witness, but to shut down critique and silence dissent. When Christians invoke “we must pray for the president” only when a political leader they support is criticized—especially for immoral or unjust behavior—they distort both the meaning of prayer and the character of Christian witness.

Prayer is misused and abused when it becomes a substitute for justice or a shield against accountability. As an example, think of the use of “thoughts and prayers” after school shootings while failing to take any substantive action to prevent ongoing gun violence in our country.

The prophets of Israel were deeply prayerful—yet they relentlessly denounced the sins of kings, priests, and people alike. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amos, Micah, and others prayed fervently for their leaders and spoke truth to power. Their devotion to God fueled their confrontation of corruption, violence, and exploitation. To reduce prayer to a form of political insulation—“We must pray for the president, not criticize him”—is to gut it of its prophetic depth.

Jesus himself prayed for those in authority (even as they crucified him), but he never hesitated to call out the hypocrisy of religious and political leaders. When prayer becomes a way of bypassing the hard work of truth-telling, repentance, and justice, it is no longer prayer in the biblical sense. It becomes pious cover for moral laziness or complicity.

Perhaps even more troubling is the inconsistency with which this phrase is deployed. When a president from the opposing political party commits a moral failing, many Christians do not respond with calls to pray. They respond with outrage, denunciations of evil, and—too often—apocalyptic language, such as labeling a leader “the antichrist,” “demonic,” or an “enemy of God.”

But when a favored political figure does the same—or worse—suddenly the mood shifts. We are told that “no one is perfect,” that “we must pray for our leaders,” and that “God uses flawed people.” What was previously treated as evidence of spiritual warfare is now recast as God’s mysterious providence.

This inconsistency reveals not theological conviction but partisan allegiance. It betrays the command of Jesus in Matthew 7:5: “You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye.” When Christians use prayer as a shield only for leaders they support, and as a weapon against those they oppose, they bear false witness—not only against their neighbor, but against God.

Appeals to pray instead of critique are often framed as calls to “unity.” But unity that demands silence in the face of evil is not biblical unity; it is conformity. Paul’s vision for the church was not the avoidance of conflict, but a community marked by mutual accountability, truth-telling in love, and a shared commitment to righteousness (Ephesians 4:15, 25).

When the church refuses to hold political leaders accountable, it loses its prophetic voice. It becomes a mouthpiece of the empire rather than a witness to God’s Kingdom. The church must always be ready to fall to its knees before the God of truth and speak against injustice—even when (especially when) that injustice is committed by those in power.

A prayerful church must also be a truthful church. And a church that silences dissent, especially when it comes from those crying out for justice, ceases to follow the Jesus who overturned tables, rebuked kings, and welcomed the marginalized.

At the heart of this selective application of prayer is a theology more interested in power than in the cross. It reflects an idolatry of political dominance, cloaked in religious language. It seeks to protect those in power because they are “ours,” rather than asking whether they reflect Christ’s call to serve the least, speak truth, and act justly.

The cross of Christ critiques all human power. It reveals that true authority is not found in domination or rhetoric or political cunning, but in humility, sacrifice, and love. Christians are called not to align uncritically with any ruler, but to measure all rulers by the standards of Christ—who welcomed children, fed the hungry, healed the sick, and confronted the powerful.

We must also not forget about the presence of imprecatory prayers and prayers of lament found all throughout the Bible. Imprecatory prayers show the speaker calling on God to judge or bring down oppressive forces (e.g., Psalm 10, Psalm 94). While prayers of lament often critiques unjust systems or situations and demands that God act. For examples, look at the Book of Lamentations, the prophets, or Jesus weeping over Jerusalem (Luke 19:41–44). While these can be controversial, it is important to note that these prayers are deeply honest cries for justice and often emerge from oppressed communities.

When we refuse to hold leaders accountable—when we equate criticism with disloyalty, or silence dissent with calls to “just pray”—we abandon the way of the cross for the safety of proximity to earthly power.

To pray for our leaders is indeed biblical. But if that prayer is genuine, it will always be accompanied by a willingness to speak truth, pursue justice, and hold power accountable. Anything less is not prayer; it is political theater.

Christians must reclaim prayer as a prophetic act—one that names injustice, weeps for the oppressed, hopes for redemption, and cries out to God for transformation. To pray for the president, then, must include praying that they be humbled, convicted, and reformed if they lead unjustly—and it must include the courage to say so.

Otherwise, we are not praying for our leaders. We are praying to them.