NORFOLK
As an unabashed evangelical Christian, columnist Cal Thomas knows how some people see his kind.
“Good morning, religious fanantics, Bible-thumping bigots and underminers of the constitution!” he declared wryly to 800 guests at the South Hampton Roads Leadership Prayer Breakfast at Norfolk's Scope this morning.
The Christian crowd laughed along with Thomas, a conservative commentator who layered wit with his cultural critique and personal embrace of Jesus Christ.
He rued the possibility that post-recession Americans will return to their “old ways” of seeing success as the incessant pursuit of consumer goods. “We have more stuff, but are we happier?” Thomas said. “Is that the meaning of your existence?”
A better way – the “test-marketed” prescriptions – are Scripture’s guide for the age-old quest for “love, life, living” and Jesus, Thomas said.
The breakfast, which all five South Hampton Roads mayors attended, is part of a national movement “to support in prayer government at all levels,” according to the sponsor, the Law Enforcement Officers Fellowship.
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free exercise
If it's true that "all five" mayors attended (and I have no reason to doubt the veracity of the author's claim), then yes, they were exercising their First Amendment right to pander to a credulous voting public.
Please God....
.....keep me from using hair dye as bad as Cal Thomas's.
Is it real
or is it a toupee?
Revisionism raises it's ugly head again...
" But let's keep things separate, as the Founding Fathers intended it. If some of these self-professed Christians would be a little more civil and Christ-like in their behavior at public meetings and in their dealings with their neighbors, perhaps government would run more smoothly."
Since Jesus called us to be the salt (salt saves)of the Earth, and not the sugar(which decays) I don't think you'd like our behavior in public.
No founding father except Thomas Jefferson ever used that phrase "separation of church and state".The only time he used it was in a private correspondence to some church officials advising them that the amdendment was to protect the church from the state,not the other way around. Man, I wish you revisionists would actually READ documents and stop listening to the lies you are being fed by liberals with an agenda ! The first argument in Congress was who was CHRISTIAN enough to lead them in prayer ! I even have a copy of that memorbila they published to commemorate that day !!
I've met Cal Thomas.....
I've met Cal Thomas. I wasn't impressed. Its my perception that he likes to stir up controversy to increase his stature and revenues. He likes to play the Christian victim card, which is ironic since Christ never did!
There goes another good idea ruined.
The annual Norfolk prayer breakfast used to be a very open and inclusive event, celebrating and reinforcing the positive values of all faiths and calling on all who attended to be good stewards. Now it appears its sponsors have changed this event into just another divisive "Christian" event intended to drive more Christian theology into the government that represents Americans from a much wider array of faith perspectives than just Christianity.
I have nothing against Christianity. But I resist the notion that it's the only path.
Let people pray all they want in their homes, in their cars, in the privacy of their minds and with kindred souls in their churches. Let people in government take a moment now and then to meditate quietly on the importance and responsibility of their work. But let's keep things separate, as the Founding Fathers intended it. If some of these self-professed Christians would be a little more civil and Christ-like in their behavior at public meetings and in their dealings with their neighbors, perhaps government would run more smoothly.
Prayer breakfast
Let people pray all they want in their homes, in their cars, in the privacy of their minds and with kindred souls in their churches.
Then you are saying a family cannot join hands pray the traditional Catholic Before Meal Prayer in conversational tones and make the sign of the cross in a resturant before eating.
You are saying that a voluntary group of citizens cannot gather because some of them happen to be public officials.
Then you are saying that a brother and sister cannot join hands and pray before eating lunch at school the 2nd Circuit had to overturn school suspensions for that crime.
Watch what you say. I bet you beleive flag burning and nude dancing are free speech too.
Bigotry
Let me express my radical beliefs.
If you don't like religion playing a big part in proples lives, There are plenty of places that agree with you and I'm sure their door is open.
prayer breakfast response
cfrederick should not mislead the readers when saying "But let's keep things separate, as the Founding Fathers intended it"
That's not what the founding fathers said or intended. The Bill of Rights, however, "prohibits Congress from making any law respecting an establishment of religon or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."
It's about making laws and nothing else....
cfrederick and other's misrepresenting the Bill of Rights does nothing more than misinform the masses. Everyone would be better citizens if they read the actual documents in question before believing what is written in the ether...
There's nothing confusing about this.
The Founding Fathers declared independence from a country whose monarchy was heavily influenced by a state church.
The Virginia Company of 1607 was a commercial venture. It pledged Virginia to the Church because that was the convention of the time for laying stakes to new territory. (The Spanish had already been here and stuck a flag in Virginia ground in the name of the Pope for the same reason.) The New England Puritans, whose fundamental faith is perhaps closest to that of many modern evangelical Christians, came to the New World expressly to find a place where they could practice their interpretation of faith unrestricted by the dogma of the Church of England.
Some of the Founding Fathers were what we would today call men of Christian faith. Some were not. But what they all agreed on was that America's representative form of government would not be subject to the dogma of any single faith.