Prayer and Politics

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/10/14/pray-for-the-president-yes-thou-shalt/

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/Religion/post/2009/11/bumper-stickers-for-psalm-1098----a-wrong-hearted-prayer-for-obama/1

http://www.presidentialprayerteam.com/morality-in-america/

http://www.presidentialprayerteam.com/opinion/

I’ve already talked about President Obama a bit in relation to religion, let alone the racism that still persists in small amounts. This time, it’s not so specific. Instead of claiming Barack Obama is a Muslim or questioning his Christian credentials, now people have started praying for him, though I dunno what exactly they’re praying for, since at least a few groups advocate it in the vein of Psalm 109:8. When they say you should pray for Obama, maybe they should reconsider the one based in Psalm 109: 8. It says in context of the Psalm as a whole that the leader they speak who should not rule long and be replaced by another is a servant of Satan and that they wish death upon him implicitly. Is this a Christian thing to do, even if this is derived from Jewish tradition of ketuvim (writings of wisdom, etc)? There are verses in Christian thought that allow compassionate prayer for an official in power, such as 1st Timothy 2:1-2. Since many people seem to think Obama is ungodly, Christian or not, do they advocate something bad happening to him, God opening his eyes, or, if they agree with him, that God protect him? It all gets a bit complex, though I imagine a lot of it gets into the nature of what Christians believe in regards to people in government and God putting them there allegedly, basing it on Romans 13:1. Pastor Jeffress apparently recanted in part about his own issues I mentioned last week with telling people to vote for a Christian by saying “it is much better to vote for a non-Christian who embraces biblical values than to vote for a professing Christian like Barack Obama who embraces un-biblical values.” This is one of the fundamental things about Christian voters I observe: they focus entirely on values instead of even remotely on policies unrelated to those values or consider them without moralizing fixation on whether abortion should be illegalized or just limited, for example. This isn’t the case for all, but it doesn’t help when the loudest voice speaking is also the most divisive in Christian involvement with politics.

Understanding even a bit about the general practices of Christians in terms of their prayers for candidates is especially germane. Christians have the notion that the candidates are put in place by God, but for a few reasons. Probably one of the most common is to motivate the faithful to campaign in some way, shape or form against the leader’s immoral/non Christian policies and such. This is especially the case with those that believe the end times are upon us and that corruption will spread across the world. But nonetheless, Christians are told not to hold ill will against the leaders ultimately, which, if taking the Psalm 109 prayer for Obama into account, isn’t applied so consistently. Many Christians forget that God is the ultimate judge in their system and start making rash claims like “Obama is the Anti Christ,” even though there have been many presidents before him no doubt predicted and speculated to be the most derided person in the Bible next to Satan/Diabolos. Heck, the term is used outside the Revelation context, like 1 John, to suggest that anyone who isn’t Christian is against Jesus. That mentality of “If you’re not with us, you’re against us,” remains fairly popular with the masses and isn’t dissuaded by well meaning and somewhat more understanding pastors, ministers and theologians who say that we can disagree and remain civil. The worst part of this is that the masses are likely to believe prayer has power and thus their prayers, even if they don’t work, reflect a bad tendency that I hope isn’t the case with the Psalm 109 bumper sticker mentioned earlier.

With prayer, there are a few things they wish upon the president, none of which is ultimately secure, though I suppose that’s part of praying to something that might as well not be there (to outsiders). They pray for wisdom, for protection, and for advancement of values they believe are held by non Christians as well. At least they’re being somewhat fair minded about that subject. On the Presidential Prayer Team website, which is the most prominent examples of people praying for presidents as far back as George W. Bush, it seems, they admit openly that there are values held by even “liberals” that “conservatives” like themselves advocate, though I can imagine you could polarize the issue a lot in terms of hot button issues like abortion rights, gay marriage and freedom of/from religion for just three among many others. Nonetheless, there is at least some bridging of the gap, so this isn’t so much the “us” and “them” mentality that the congregations manifest from time to time.

Fundamentally the problem lies with something much deeper. Like Rick Perry and his call to pray for help instead of trying to fix problems without pleading to entities that may not exist or care about humanity if they do, this praying for the government is a waste of time that, while they have a right to do it, I don’t think benefits anyone in the long run, but only instills a sense of delusion that prayer is your first solution to problems instead of action. One can pray when you have downtime, perhaps, but to pray in any time of crisis instead of initially acting with survival as your prime concern is a mistaken order of priority. No one’s stopping you from praying, contrary to the sensationalizing of protests by the FFRF against school sponsored prayer in the news. But praying for the president is the least of your concerns as opposed to praying for the country as a whole, right? But even if you think praying for the country will do you any good, wouldn’t it be better to devote time and energy to actually trying to change the country instead of sitting around getting encouragement from a sense of piety along with patriotism. The two don’t need each other and even Jesus says so; “Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s and unto God the things which are God’s” Matthew 22:21. Or a more pertinent one for rapture eager believers, which didn’t happen October 21st (surprise!): “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But now (or 'as it is') my kingdom is not from the world” (John 18:36). Until next time, Namaste and aloha.

Public Prayer Not Always Privately Protected

http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2011/05/27/judge-blocks-va-from-barring-jesus-christ-from-memorial-day-prayer/
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7583145.html#ixzz1NYpWcU00

I must report disappointment on secular affairs in Texas, unfortunately. A federal judge declared that the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs cannot remove the mention of Jesus Christ from an invocation by a pastor at Houston National Cemetery. The minister in question has done invocations in the past, but according to his testimony that he had mentioned Jesus in the past prayers, it would appear the violation flew under the radar like many have in the past. But this time around, he seems to be confident he will go through with it, as he has the backing of the Liberty Institute, which reminds me of a conservative mirror image of the ACLU, the American Center for Law and Justice. Yet again, we have a problem of interpretation of the establishment clause and the 1st amendment’s general protections of freedom of speech, not to mention the 9th amendment’s protection of minority rights from being dashed to pieces by majority tyranny.

Judge Lynn Hughes said the government cannot "gag citizens…in the interest of national security, and it cannot do it in some bureaucrat's notion of cultural homogeneity," I don’t see any relevance to the first part of the critique. Issues of government endorsement of religion in violation of the establishment clause of the 1st amendment aren’t concerned whatsoever with national security. The U.S. is not in imminent danger from terrorists because some preacher flubs up and forgets to be inclusive in a public prayer. But it is a serious problem when people continue to do this in the name of tradition. The second critique still seems to miss the point. Many people judge that being politically correct is stifling free speech. But in this context, free speech isn’t what is at issue; what is the problem is prayer that started off trying to be inclusive and ends excluding every faith but Christianity through this pastor’s invocation as represented by the federal government; through invitation I might add. No one’s saying he can’t go forward with his prayer, but the touchy issues of inclusivity and exclusivity can have the reverse effect and make many pastors get too enthusiastic about their faith and trample over everyone else’s. This is why a moment of silence is a more practical and equitable solution to these issues. But as the Bastrop story demonstrates, people can find loopholes to get around that as well. This incident in Texas would be harder to defend, except by saying the pastor is a private citizen in the context of being clergy. But once he does an invocation as part of a public and federal ceremony, I don’t think he can hide behind his “protected” position anymore.

The Liberty Institute responded in the vein of the judge’s sympathies by saying that the government “cannot stifle private speech on public land,” I cannot imagine where they’re getting this justification. That’s like saying a KKK Grand Dragon can just stand out in the street corner and spout racist epithets and teachings. No one would say that’s protected. If a cemetery funded by the government is considered a public area, then private speech is protected to the extent it isn’t inflammatory or exclusionary. You don’t have a justified freedom to yell “Fire!” in a crowded theatre, even if you technically have the potential to do so; similar to shouting racial slurs at minorities in the streets; you could do it, but it’s hate speech. And the inverse of the claims by the Liberty Institute would be justified. Public speech on private land would be justified and unable to be censored by the government. If the KKK held a rally at a place they owned and paid money for out of their own coffers and made public statements of a racist and anti-Semitic nature to an open audience, the government couldn’t really touch them, anymore than if they got official permits by the state to march in a parade.

The private and public, as well as government and private spheres of speech, can be misunderstood, especially when considering things important to us, such as religion and politics. And in issues we get offended about, like neo Nazi parades, we can forget the protections that nonetheless exist for such groups. We tend to agree that people proclaiming offensive things are nonetheless protected by the 1st amendment, such as the relatively recent decision that Westboro Baptist Church is, regardless of our deep-seated frustrations, protected (within potential future restrictions of prudence). But the same cannot be said for people proclaiming their particular religion as more important than others’ beliefs in particular contexts, even if they’re trying to be tolerant while steadfast in their faith. Even if the pastor tries to qualify he respects other people’s beliefs, like Laci Mattice at Bastrop High School’s graduation, he is disrespecting people of different beliefs in saying he gets priority to place his own religion in a prayer within a public context. The argument by the opposition is that since he is expressing his private religious beliefs, also noting his invocation is being sponsored by a private group, his speech is private and thus protected by Supreme Court decisions that the government cannot censor private speech on public property. Problem is the nature of this incident is not like if a sangha meditated in a park or a Christian fellowship was praying to Jesus in the same park. Considering both of these as religious beliefs expressed in public, the government would have no justification to censor that speech, since they’re doing no one any harm. But since this pastor was invited by a public group to do the invocation, one can argue they have a responsibility and standing to censor this singular part of the prayer mentioning Jesus. By all means, he can pull out of this event. The problem is the argument that this private speech in a public incident is protected even though it’s not done purely as a private citizen, but in response to a request to officiate this part of the event as clergy. The preacher doesn’t have the right to push his own personal beliefs into something that by nature should be inclusive to all veterans of differing beliefs nor does he have the right to sue because he believes his rights have been violated, since they haven’t in reality. And his qualification that he respects others doesn’t actually reflect respect. I don’t respect someone when I punch them in the face, but say beforehand, “I respect your face’s right to bleed,” Nor would it be any fairer if a Muslim tried to pray to Allah in this situation. People would be up in arms about that, but they give a free pass to the majority religion in the country on a troublingly consistent basis. The ACLU and FFRF seem to have their hands full with an overflow of such problems. My hat’s off to them, though if this passes, it won’t be the end of the world, but it will set a bad precedent. Just my last thoughts on this. Until next time, Namaste and aloha.

Prayer For Politicians, Meditation For The Mind

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2010/10/25/christine-odonnell-says-prayer-impacts-her-polls/
http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2010/10/26/can-meditation-change-your-brain-contemplative-neuroscientists-believe-it-can/
http://pagingdrgupta.blogs.cnn.com/2010/10/25/meditation-focus-on-now/

I can’t believe Christine O’Donnell keeps making herself a target for my articles. It hasn’t been weekly, but she can’t seem to stop herself from succumbing to what must be some genetic idiocy that was recessive beforehand. Honestly, is she just addicted to this attention? I guess that would be an excuse to get into politics and have people shower you with praise. She was formerly a witch, so now she can relate to the pagan, but doesn’t know the First Amendment so she can make herself seem teachable (she’s not, it appears). Now she thinks people praying for her campaign actually affect the popularity she’s been gaining. You couldn’t be more narcissistic if you tried; to think that people praying to God would actually have effects on your political run for Senator is incredibly naïve, not to mention selfish. To think God cares about whether you win or the Democrats? This is the same ridiculous tripe that’s been persisting since the 50s when people thought that teaching that the U.S. was a Christian nation would beat the “Godless Communists”. Evidently Christine O’Donnell has bought into this alteration of history and culture that communicates what is to a neutral observer a laughable proposition.

The idea that our country was founded on supposedly unique Biblical principles fails on two levels. The first one I’ve brought up at least once before: why would God care about any nation if its kingdom is not of this earth or if it is, it’s got to be way better than any worldly government could promise. But apparently people, educated or otherwise, can be swayed by patriotism and emotional bondage to feelings of guilt to believe either: God either wants our country to prosper or that the rules of Judeo Christian religion should be given favor in law. This may not be the case with all conservatives, but it leads right to my second point. Even if the majority of the founding fathers were Christian, it follows in no way that they wanted to enforce Christianity as some favored religion or place its laws in a political context. The First Amendment alone gives any sensible person a hint that the writers of the Constitution did not favor Christianity in terms of a government and did not design the country as a “Christian nation”. If anything could be noted as a Christian property of the U.S., it’s demographics. There are more self professed Christians (Protestants, Catholics and Mormons altogether) in the U.S. than any other religion, so that’s the closest you could brag about America being a Christian nation. To say we favor Christianity any more in why we develop our laws is not only mistaken in terms of how jurisprudence should work, impartial to faith, but protecting its practice nonetheless, but selectively observes the monuments and such that exist in government centered buildings, like the Supreme Court and Arlington National Cemetery. Religion and ethics are not dependent on each other; in fact, you could say we develop the latter before we even care about the former.

Most importantly, though, I’m just disappointed that someone would really have any kind of regard for prayer in relation to things that are for all intents and purposes separate from what are genuine religious concerns: famine, disease, natural disasters, adoption, anything but whether a Democrat or a Republican wins an election! The fact that you depend on pleas to some deity, singular or plural, is pitiful when you direct even a fraction of your energy in begging that someone wins an insignificant election for an insignificant country.

On a much more interesting, though still a bit questionable, note is the growing field of contemplative neuroscience. To be brief, it is an area of psychology that specifically studies brain function in the process of varying forms of meditation. I myself haven’t done any persistent meditation beyond some Tai Chi and Wado Ryu breathing exercises, which I admit do have an effect if only by basic physiological observations of how we can calm ourselves without recourse to drugs. The studies are still new from what I’ve read, not to mention the samples are both small and potentially biased so that the brain could very well be tricking the subjects. The tests have shown that different areas of the brain are activated or function at higher levels based on the particular kinds of meditation they do, which range from mindfulness to concentration to empathy. What is of especial relevance is the somewhat agreed upon notion that the brain can be trained in a similar, though distinct, sense that we train our bodies. With the brain, it’s not as if you’re exercising muscles so much as you’re channeling neuron firings in ways that begin to affect the brain’s processing. The best example coming to mind is that of a computer and enhancing it through software that cleans or defragments various areas. Similarly, if you alter various habits that the brain has built over time, you can alter how the brain takes in information, processes it and affects our behavior in general with our environment, people and non people both.

If Christine O’Donnell wants to improve anything with her campaign, maybe she could advocate people combining meditation with their faith journey with God, Jesus and Casper the Friendly Ghost. Not that she would eschew prayer, but suggest that people also look inwardly as well as outwardly. Maybe she could even try it herself and figure out how to save herself from such a grand disappointment that may be around the corner. One can only imagine the future of these polls already starting a week or so ago. Until next time, Namaste and aloha.

Facebook Prayers + Celebrity Deaths + Obama=More Awkward Emails

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/04/21/obama.facebook.prayer/index.html?hpt=T2

While I can’t ramble on this for as long as I usually would for other more important issues, I thought I’d put my two cents in on this. Supposing this is humor, it borders on disturbing already. Swayze, Fawcett and Jackson have been dead for half a year or so and all were in 2009, so this doesn’t even make sequential sense. If Swayze, Fawcett and Jackson had died this year, it would have been coherent. But beyond that, the issue is that people are going along with this as a joke and not realizing that you basically just asked God to conveniently make sure Obama would die or as Rush Limbaugh suggested, fail. I don’t have to agree with people on political issues, but this goes into something that’s a personal issue. People pray to God for a variety of things, many of which are probably less than virtuous to begin with, but when you begin your prayer by whining to God about how it killed your favorite actors and musicians and then say, “Oh my favorite president’s Obama” as if presidents have the same area of popularity, it goes beyond disappointment. Instead it’s a matter of me pretending it never happened; which unfortunately is not likely to happen with Facebook popularity being what it is. I would have to wait at least two weeks for someone to think up a new way to say, “Hey we hate Obama, but we don’t wanna be seen as racist. Hey let’s make some nonsensical insult again,”

What makes this less than humorous in any sense is that the scope of living presidents that are people’s favorites are usually dead already. And if we’re talking favorite presidents over the last 40 years or so, people have plenty of conservatives they could choose from. But the whole ironic point to this is that they apparently can get over God killing Patrick Swayze, Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson, but then they beg and plead ever so subtly for God to strike Obama down, as if such an entity gave a rat’s tail about what we do with our free will, especially in politics. No one said you had to agree with President Obama, but if you go along with conservatives that think this is a joke, your sense of humor is a bit disturbing (you know, the whole indirectly wishing death on a person because you don’t agree with them), but more importantly isn’t wired right, since there’s the obvious conflict that defeats even irony. You start with people that were popular over time and then note a man that is only well known because he’s the President of the United States. In 6 years tops, he’ll be unable to be President anymore and politically minded conservatives will have to find a new target to poke fun at or call random names like Czar and Socialist. So get over it and do something more productive, like protest with your brain. Until next time, Namaste and Aloha.