2008.11.30
Discuss Sunday's commentary and letters
The state should pray in Christ's name
Tom Taylor
Taylor, of Roanoke, is retired from Norfolk Southern Corp.
In 1946, an adventurer named John Caldwell tried to sail single-handed across the Pacific Ocean in a 29-foot sailboat. After several months at sea and nearly dead from starvation, Caldwell wrecked on a coral reef off an island of Fiji. The islanders rescued him and, with considerable cost and effort to themselves, nursed him slowly back to health. They dove down into the water and retrieved his valuables, including his wedding ring, and gave it all back to him.
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Read Sunday's letters here.
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It's amazing. Not content with having the freedom to worship as they see fit, Christians like Tom Taylor want the freedom to make the State (and by default, its citizens) worship as they see fit.
Tom, the State represents everybody, regardless of beliefs (or non-beliefs). The State has no business raising any religion above all others, and is the foundation of the First Amendment. I'm sorry that your own belief is so shallow that it is threatened by that fact.
As I've said before; if Muslims or Hindus ever became the majority in your area, or in the US itself, you'd agree with me quick enough that Church and State should be forever separate.
Comment by Rob Miles — November 30, 2008 @ 8:58 am
Wow, how did those missionaries survive those heathens?
I appreciate Tom's opinion, but he is so wrong on so many levels it is beyond my meager vocabulary. Thank God for a Representative Democracy that was founded on restraint from tyranny, even the Christian kind.
If he wants a country that tells you how to pray and to whom, I can make him a list but something tells me he wouldn't want to go there.
Be careful what you wish for, Rob's point is well taken. A secular government protects both sides. Amen4!
Comment by Sandi Saunders — December 1, 2008 @ 12:15 pm
You guys didn't even read the letter. He didn't say the chaplains must pray in Jesus name. He said they should be ALLOWED to pray in Jesus name. They should have the freedom to speak the word. A govermnent chaplain speaking the name of Jesus does not constitute Congress establishing a national religion.
Comment by Henry — December 1, 2008 @ 12:53 pm
Not knowing exactly what the duties of a VSP chaplain are, I find myself agreeing with Henry on this given what i think I know. I think the ban on saying Jesus' name in a prayer, especially if the prayer is requested by a Christian officer, seem pretty dumb to me. If the chaplains were asked to perform a prayer for an officer of another faith, I would fully expect them to conduct the prayer as it would be done in that faith, invoking the name of God in whatever manner appropriate to that particular religion. If the situations where prayers are said are for a larger audience where there may be non-Christians present, then I think the chaplains ought to make the prayer as broad-based as possible as to not disrespect officers who are not Christian.
Comment by Other John — December 1, 2008 @ 1:12 pm
As I understand it, the edict is that the prayer would not be "in Jesus' name" when it was a public or open forum. To my knowledge there was no such restriction in a one on one or similar situation and you could say your prayer any way you felt led to say it. So who needs to read what? I read and comprehend pretty well: No, they should not be ALLOWED to say it any way they want in a public forum/gathering. All Chaplains like all Clergy and Lay Leaders should respect the people they are praying with and refrain from such behavior without a rule forcing respect for all but evidently they cannot control their zeal.
Comment by Sandi Saunders — December 1, 2008 @ 1:43 pm
OJ: the chaplains, even though they volunteer in that role, represent the State at official functions. As such, they should be limited to a non-sectarian prayer in official functions. Otherwise they give the impression that the State is holding Christianity above all other beliefs.
I don't expect (or, in fact, trust) volunteer chaplains to know enough about other faiths to be able to conduct ceremonies for them properly; and there's no need for it. Keep the ceremonies non-sectarian and generic.
Better yet, there shouldn't be any official chaplains or ceremonies at all. That would eliminate the problems before they even start.
Comment by Rob Miles — December 1, 2008 @ 2:09 pm
I will agree with you for the large functions where there is a diverse audience where a particular prayer may not represent the people it is being spoken to. However, I still feel that for smaller audiences where the people do want their faith reflected in a prayer, that it should be ok. Maybe there needs to be a similar chaplaincy program to that of the military. They have chaplains of all major faiths and even some atheist chaplains (sounds like an oxymoron) to help with counseling soldiers. I don't see a fundamental problem with providing services in such a fashion where the chaplains are of more than one religious background...since it does not imply a sanctioning of any religion, but rather an equalitable treatment of all relgions represented.
Comment by Other John — December 1, 2008 @ 2:18 pm
It is interesting that Taylor quotes Patrick Henry in support of his argument. What of other "founding fathers"? What if we chose to look to Thomas Jefferson:
"The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter" .
Many of the other prominent contributors to the founding of the US refer to themselves as Deists but not necessarily believing that Jesus was God.
P.S. I am a Christian.
Comment by joe(not the plumber) — December 1, 2008 @ 3:46 pm
Hey guys, is this roundtable great or what? I hadn’t discovered it until yesterday. So here’s my two-cents worth: If America had simply dropped from another planet with no founding philosophy or history, then the state would indeed be justified in separating itself from all religions, all religious observance, and from following the ethics or teachings of any religion.
But that’s not the way it happened. Please look at my (Tom Taylor’s) web page. (www.iLuvgoodnovels.com) At the bottom of the home page is a link to a small gallery of my articles. Please consider specifically “Mr. Jefferson’s Famous Wall” and “Why we owe our Democracy to a Judeo-Christian Heritage.” I believe they make the case that we would not have a nation of liberty-under-law, human rights, and representative government apart from the influence of our Judeo-Christian heritage; and that when the Founders separated church and state, they did not mean the government must be separated from all Christian ethics and observance.
If we separate our government from all religious influence, then we have a “godless government?” Who wants to live under that? Too many Americans have died through the years to protect us from godless governments. There have been many mistakes and atrocities committed by those claiming (falsely) the name of Christ to be sure; but they pale in comparison to the horrors committed by godless governments. (Hitler: six million Jews, Stalin and Kruschev: thirty million or more Ukrainians plus unknown deaths of their own Russians; Pol Pot: two million Cambodians, etc.)
Thanks for reading.
Tom Taylor
Comment by Tom Taylor — December 4, 2008 @ 10:09 am
For Tom, a couple quotes from Mr. Jefferson regarding his thoughts on religion:
"I do not know that it is a duty to disturb by missionaries the religion and peace of other countries, who may think themselves bound to extinguish by fire and fagot the heresies to which we give the name of conversions, and quote our own example for it. Were the Pope, or his holy allies, to send in mission to us some thousands of Jesuit priests to convert us to their orthodoxy, I suspect that we should deem and treat it as a national aggression on our peace and faith." --Thomas Jefferson to Michael Megear, 1823. ME 15:434
"Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law." [Thomas Jefferson, February 10, 1814]
"Because religious belief or non-belief is such an important part of every person's life, freedom of religion affects every individual. State churches that use government power to support themselves and force their views on persons of other faiths undermine all our civil rights. Moreover, state support of the church tends to make the clergy unresponsive to the people and leads to corruption within religion. Erecting the "wall of separation between church and state," therefore, is absolutely essential in a free society." ["Thomas Jefferson on Politics & Government", Section 46: Freedom of Religion]
And if that's not quite enough, from the 1796 Treaty of Tripoli Article 11: "As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries."
Food for thought...
Comment by Other John — December 4, 2008 @ 10:48 am
#9 I could not disagree with with you more. Or as James Madison aid, "Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise....During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in laity; in both, superstition, bigotry, and persecution.
Or Tom Paine,"All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit."
#2 That was funny.
Comment by Bill Hudson — November 13, 2009 @ 4:28 pm