The Roanoke, Virginia Times reported on Wednesday that Roanoke's vice mayor, Sherman Lea, who is also a minister, is asking that his name be removed from the list of clergy who offer invocations before city council meetings. His request came after council members and the ACLU received an e-mail from a Roanoke citizen complaining about Lea's Dec. 15 invocation which included several Christian references. Lea says he would rather not offer prayers than compromise his beliefs by eliminating possible references to Jesus. [Thanks to Scott Mange for the lead.]
Friday, January 02, 2009
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9 comments:
Now that is a man of principle! We could learn a lot from his example. He has put the interest of the community (a potential lawsuit) above his personal interests. A True Citizen!
Good job Mr. Lea.
-American Atheist
He is the victim. Why don't you criticize the phony plaintiffs? They are the ones attacking the community like flesh tearing minks.
TL-DR
-American Atheist
A.A.
Rataytay.
What is "rataytay"?? How do you pronounce it and what does it signify??
It's the minister's critics that should be ashamed about threatening lawsuit. Freedom of religion and speech means the man should pray anyway he pleases --and prayer at public meetings is fine if it reminds us all to be accountable to standards beyond our selfish interests.
This is a classic WWJD "what would Jesus do?" moment and the clergyman failed miserably.
Foresaking an opportunity to tastefully and tactfully share his faith in a community forum by offering an uplifting prayer to God with enough generality to embrace others' "denominational differences" is idiotic and definitely not what Jesus would do.
The complaining "citizen" is the true cretin here, but the minister isn't a rocket scientist either.
Your idea of WWJD is based on what, Bob? Jesus was rather exclusive in his claims about himself and the necessity of belief in Him as the Son of God/Son of Man. He did teach us to pray the Lord's prayer which is fairly generic as a prayer to the Almighty. But He also said that what we asked in His name would be done --so there are Christians who think they should pray in Jesus' name if their petition is to be heard and answered. This belief does not hurt people who believe differently. True tolerance means we let people pray according to their own religious traditions --even in public and gov't forums --freedom of religion --freedom of speech without gov't interference.
"This belief does not hurt people who believe differently. True tolerance means we let people pray according to their own religious traditions --even in public and gov't forums --freedom of religion --freedom of speech without gov't interference."
Ideally this is true, but invariably people can't seem to keep from using such a platform to proselytize.
And so what if they DO proselytize in a prayer, praising Jesus as God's Son, e.g. --does it really do anymore than annoy those who don't approve of his proselytizing? Does it convert anyone? I'm sure not. So what is really the harm of such free speech? There are lots of ways in which people show bad manners; need the gov't step in??
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