Posted on 06/04/2004 6:44:42 AM PDT by Ligeia
Edited on 07/20/2004 11:51:53 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
RICHMOND, Va. - Free-speech advocates warned Thursday they will file a federal lawsuit if officials at a public park block a baptism planned for this weekend in the Rappahannock River.
Kent Willis, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia, said he has prepared a temporary restraining order against the park if officials try to interfere with an Episcopal pastor's plans to hold a baptism there on Sunday.
(Excerpt) Read more at timesdispatch.com ...
As though they were holding hostages around the fountain at Disneyland and forcing them to watch against their will.
" [P]ublic Baptism in a Public park smacks of showmanship"
I was baptized in the Moyie River in North Idaho. It was most certainly NOT "showmanship," no more than the eunuch in the Bible that was baptized in the Jericho River was showmanship.
People around here get baptized in the Rogue River almost every weekend, THAT is not showmanship, either!
I think you are just uncomfortable with public displays of Christian beliefs. like so much of America today, the norm is to say "Season's Greetings" instead of Merry Christmas, Happy Turkey Day instead of Happy Thanksgiving and employees are told to remove any Christian crosses, sayings, pictures or carvings, lest other employees become offended.
I personally think it's a horrible trend...and very sad.
Ed
If that is what you think, then you dont know me very well.
That's just the way it seemed.
People have been baptized in rivers for millenia, it's common all throughout the West.
I, myself, was baptized in a river in North Idaho, and I have never, until your post, heard it referred to as "showmanship."
Discomfort with public expressions of Christianity was the ONLY explanation I could come up with for such an egregious misreading of Believers being baptized in a river...
Ed
Up here in Connecticut, that is unheard of...in my or my parents generation anyways!...thatI know of...
we all have indoor baptismals, small pools/large tubs, 4 or 5 feet deep, 6 feet wide or so, going down to the river to us up here is something that would be considered an in your face act!
Did you see the shelacking I got from you southerners from this?? You guys act like you can swim all YEAR in those rivers! :)
Oh, good grief, you're in IDAHO??
That's colder than us!
No wonder the west is considered tougher! :)
Nope!
I used to live in North Idaho...Cocalalla, Cd'A, Hayden Lake, Post Falls and Sandpoint, but now I live in beautiful Grants Pass, Oregon!
Ed
"Did you see the shelacking I got from you southerners from this?? You guys act like you can swim all YEAR in those rivers! :)"
There's actually people who SURF in the ocean every winter, even though the water is in the 40's!!
Ed
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