Friday, June 22, 2012
Jesus unmentionable
Mohammed would be fine, of course
For the past seven years Pastor Terry Sartain has ministered to police officers and their families in Charlotte, N.C. Whenever the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Dept. invited him to deliver an invocation, he prayed in “the name of Jesus.”
But not anymore. Volunteer chaplains in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Dept. will no longer be allowed to invoke the name of Jesus in prayers at public events held on government property.
Major John Diggs, who oversees the chaplain program, told
television station WSOC that the policy is a “matter of respecting that people may have different faiths and that it is not aimed at any one religion or denomination.”
The pastor said he’s prayed “consistently” in the name of Jesus at past police department events without any issues. “I’m very sad about it,” he said. “I’m a pastor and Jesus is the only thing I have to offer to bless people – his life and his person.”
The police department said he could still pray – just not to Jesus. So to whom was the Christian minister supposed to pray? “That was my question,” Sartain said. “If I’m going to pray – what should I pray?”
He said the police department wanted him to deliver a “secular prayer.” “Even when I wasn’t a Christian – in my past – I didn’t even know what a secular prayer was,” he said. “Why even pray if it’s to the one who’s in the room? That could be anybody.”
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15 comments:
sec·u·lar/ˈsekyələr/
Adjective: Denoting attitudes, activities, or other things that have no religious or spiritual basis: "secular buildings".
prayer/pre(ə)r/
Noun: A solemn request for help or expression of thanks addressed to God or an object of worship.
So by definition, a "secular prayer" is an impossibility.
But they will allow for allah,muhammed,gaia,budda or satan
O nothing, do nothing for anyone because being nothing you can do nothing. Amen.
Yeah like that's going to be an encouraging prayer.
freedom of expression and freedom of religion. How do they come up with such a limitation?
Because a witch-doctor or anyone could claim the right to offer a "prayer". Just keep religion and superstition out of the public arena, where most of the public would not be subscribing to any particular religious point of view.
Where do you get "Mohammed would be fine"? They're simply asking that the chaplain's "sanitize" the prayers, so that the Jewish members of the force (for example) are acknowledged as well. Just because Sartain isn't smart enough to figure this out doesn't mean it isn't the right thing to do.
I thought you "stand with Israel." You sure don't seem to support their faith.
@Nameless Cynic
"Supporting their faith" does not mean abandoning yours.
Annon 12:24,
Excellent observation.
By definition then a "secular prayer" could also be deemed an oxymoron.
"The police department said he could still pray – just not to Jesus. So to whom was the Christian minister supposed to pray?"
I would have thought that most Christian ministers would pray to God the Father, in the name of Jesus Christ - as He taught us to do.
Except perhaps for Catholics I thought this was common across Christianity. Am I wrong?
In the Book of Martyrs many were killed for not praying to idols or other Gods. By telling a minister that he cannot pray to Jesus they are not inventing something new, they are instead returning to something old.
Anon 5:46 PM, unfortunately, we only have the specific wording of the article to work with, but I wager that "he could still pray – just not to Jesus" also very much means that "he could not pray in the name of Jesus" as well. The whole point of these kinds of restrictions is to do nothing more than to remove the "J" word from public use.
Technically, the whole point of these restrictions is to make the ceremony more inclusive for more people; to allow people of different faiths to not feel like they are being pushed to the side while the "open-minded" Christians show how they feel that their faith is more important than theirs.
By the way, it's cute how many of these comments are labeled "Anonymous" - of course, if I was coughing up some of these thoughts, I wouldn't want to claim them, either...
(Please ignore the pronoun confusion in that first paragraph, by the way. This whole "third person" thing is difficult...)
Well said Nameless Cynic - I was even going to type something similar to your comment, even as another nameless.
Some members of religions or denominations think they have some 'divine right' to monopolize the 'public square' (which is akin to fanaticism and extremism).
Religion wrecks everything.
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