Ridiculing VP Pence for Praying in Public
There is a picture of VP Mike Pence praying with officials in charge of dealing with the coronavirus emergency. It is being ridiculed on liberal sites all over the country.
There are good reasons for this ridicule. First, Pence has a long history of opposing science-based solutions. He once refused to accept a link between smoking and cancer. When he was a Governor of Indiana he resisted science-based solutions to urgent problems. While his spokesman has said Pence does not support conversion therapy, use of religion to change sexual orientation, Pence himself has never said directly he does not support it.
Use of praying photo ops such as Pence's, national days of prayer such as what Trump just declared or appearances in the National Cathedral which W. Bush did after 911 are clever uses of religion. They present the opportunity to distract the public's attention from failures in administrations.
Even if public prayers and talk of public prayers only takes a few minutes, those minutes would have been better spent obtaining testing kits for the nations. Other countries had them at the ready but the U.S. did not. Other countries left out the prayers and put in place adequate staffs to deal with national disasters. W. Bush, as I recall, had a former golf course manager to handle national disasters. His expertise probably was in replacing divots.
National problems that require skilled decision making on a timely basis are when we see whether or not political leaders are up to the job they were elected to do. When they highlight their prayers instead of their competence we can easily see they are not the right for the job.
I think your time would be better spent working on getting test kits to people in your city. But you would rather spend your time criticizing people who ARE getting test kits to people around the country AND who pray.
ReplyDeleteI'm surprised you haven't caught wind of the soccer team who booted a player from their squad for trying to obtain an abortion for his girlfriend.
I, for one, will spend some time today praying for people with coronavirus, their friends and relatives, and the people who can help them. While you were mayor of Fargo, the only healthcare in town was obtained from St. Luke's, St. John's and St. Ansgar's. Sure seems like religious people pray AND provide healthcare.
The C Street Cult or The Fellowship or The Family or the “Christian Mafia” as they like to call themselves is a secretive world class political/policy lobbying outfit peddled as a Christian church-like organization that holds a 501(3)c status with the IRS. “Jesus didn't come to take sides. He came to take over." Pence was outed as a member while serving in the House of Representatives. The Family’s influence in Washington is ubiquitous. It reportedly has rhizomes of political and policy influence in many overseas countries as well. They hold one public shindig a year, none other than “The National Prayer Breakfast”. Many of us are concerned with the ease which Christianity manages to scale, breach, or slither under the fabled wall separating church and state. The neutrality inherent in secularism has been routed by Christ’s warriors. It’s time for the spirits of Madison, Jefferson, and Paine to exorcise this “holy” ghost currently haunting the three branches of our government. It’s time for voters to dismiss its purveyors.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry but the tin-foil hat is the symbol which emerged from my mind after reading your paragraph.
DeleteIt's really hard to be too secretive when you're a 501(c)(3), unless you are left wing. Under Obama, it was impossible to become a 501(c)(3) if you were religious or conservative.
Jesus came to die for mankind's sin. He never advocated an earthly "take over". He advocated for repentance, belief in His Father, Himself and the Holy Spirit. He advocated for good works, charity, and love for one another.
If "The Family" is so powerful, it seems it lost its hold on Nancy, Chuck, AOC, Tlaib, Omar, etc. Where was "The Family" when Obama and Clinton were elected?
"The neutrality of secularism" is a phrase/oxymoron which shows the bias of those who believe secularism is unbiased. 'We are secular - no praying'. If you tell me Nancy Pelosi is a secularist, I will know exactly what you believe.
Everyone can advocate for what they want in government, insofar as it doesn't violate the Constitution. Even then, they can advocate for amending the Constitution. As it stands now, liberals' message isn't selling very well. What Trump is selling (and doing) is selling just fine, thank you.
Matt--It's fun to have you on this board. To read the most peculiar reasoning any human can come up with is a form of education.
DeleteReading this post, I learn that secularism, which actually shows no preference for any particular belief, advocates a religion called secularism. If Christianity, one of hundreds of religions in the world, is put into government, everyone will have more religious freedom than if the government is secular.
That is why if the religious view that one fertilized cell is a human being and gay marriage is not Biblical are put into law, making abortion and gay marriage not legal, everyone will have more religious freedom.
Matt Noah Mar 14, 2020 @ 9:15 PM
Delete“tin-foil hat”
Welcome back Matt. Oh there are several Democratic Party members in the “Christian Mafia”. Read all about it. [ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fellowship_(Christian_organization) ] By definition secularism is “the principle of the separation of the state from religious institutions” or more to your disliking, an “indifference to or rejection or exclusion of religion and religious considerations”. re; “As it stands now, liberals' message isn't selling very well.”
That sir is my point. To use Trump’s term, Washington is “infested” with conservative Christian idealists. As you know mandatory prayer in public schools was prohibited by a series of Supreme Court decisions in 1962. Some Christians to this day want that overturned. The whole darn issue is the superiority complex in the psyche of some Christians that leads them to believe their take on morality is superior to all others. The sentence “Jesus didn't come to take sides. He came to take over.", I believe is a mutatis mutandis reading of Joshua 5:13-15. I leave you with my interpretation of God commanding Abraham to murder his son Isaac only to be called off not by God himself but by a messenger. The messenger was the surfacing of doubt in Abraham’s mind, a moment of disbelief, a moment of atheism. Doubt saved Isaac but not a ram. Morality depends on doubt, on atheism. No need to be sorry Matt. If you are getting mixed messages from a supernatural being I’ll gladly share my tinfoil Derby. It’s the moral thing to do.
Jon; As you well know, I / we are against mixing church and state. In this case though, I see this as not being even close to an official act of government, nor is there any indication that it is. but individuals exercising their freedom to pray if they choose to do so. The Lord's Prayer takes no more than 30 seconds. A pause to pray for even one minute would have no impact on a time line to "get r done". A one minute prayer is a long prayer. Your concern for efficiency of time regarding this is simply foolish, and again reveals your penchant to find any excuse no matter how small to piss and moan about anything related to Christianity.
ReplyDeletehelper "...your penchant to find any excuse to matter how small to piss and moan about anything related to Christianity."
ReplyDeleteI piss and moan when I see officials pretending that some mythical force can solve a problem which requires humans to solve it. Yes, it took maybe a minute. But it signals an intent to avoid taking responsibility. Trump has already said he takes no responsibility. If one could ask Pence probably he would say he is praying and it's in God's hands.
you probably won't publish this but at least you may read it. somebody dares to pray in public. you immediately see some sort of constitutional crisis. and/or you piss and moan because someone expresses their religious convictions in public. get a grip, man. can't you see that you are grossly over reacting. conjuring up monsters where none exist. besides it's bad manners. oafish as I said.
DeleteUnknown "oafish as I said."
ReplyDeleteSo you disagree with John the Baptist in the Bible when he spoke of the Pharisees, "..do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets." Mathew 6:2
You would have been right in there blowing a trumpet so people noticed you praying in the streets.
Jon equates goodness with the ridicule of a fellow US citizen for expressing his free-thought belief. One would expect the opposite of a man who wants to be known as a free-thinker. There is no surprise here. Free-thinkers are actually people who do anything but think freely. They want to stifle speech which does not conform to their narrow worldview of an anti-theist society.
ReplyDeleteI'll wager that if Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer organized a prayer day event in the capitol rotunda that Jon & co would stand up an applaud.
Delete