Posted on 10/06/2004 9:52:18 PM PDT by fight_truth_decay
In Jesus' name, you can't pray.
The Culpeper County Ministerial Association isn't bowing down to that "suggestion" from the Culpeper Town Council. The group says it may challenge an Aug. 11 memo from Town Attorney Robert W. Bendall asking ministers not to refer to "Jesus, Christ or any variations of those names" while praying at the opening of council meetings.
The memo stems from a U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals decision July 22 ruling that a Great Falls, S.C., legislative prayer violated the First Amendment clause prohibiting the establishment of a state religion.
The ruling sparked a similar controversy earlier this year in Fredericksburg, where Councilman Hashmel Turner stopped leading prayers at meetings rather than omit the name of Christ.
Bendall and Culpeper Mayor Pranas Rimeikis were invited to appear before the Ministerial Association at its regular monthly meeting yesterday to clarify the town's position.
Bendall told the group it was "never my intention to tell you how to pray," but he suggested that those who open council meetings with prayer "pray to a neutral god" in the future.
"There is no problem with 'Almighty God,' but we do not want to disparage one faith or sect over another," said Bendall, who called himself "just a messenger."
"Praying to a generic god denies me the right to speak to my God," the Rev. Marshall Braylo, pastor of the Jeffersonton Baptist Church, replied.
"We're not choosing a golf course here," said the Rev. Mark Jarvis, former pastor of Open Door Baptist Church. "We're talking about our relationship with the true God through the Lord Jesus Christ."
"There are many out there who don't believe your god is the true god," the town attorney countered. He added that even leading the audience in the Lord's Prayer is legally "problematic."
The Rev. Ted Fuson, pastor of Culpeper Baptist Church, said that while he didn't agree with the premise, he understood the town's position and could offer a generic prayer.
"[A town council meeting] is not a worship service," he said.
But others in attendance questioned the government's right to set guidelines on prayer.
Hagazi Kebede, an official from the Persecution Project Foundation, said he had lived under communism in Ethiopia and suggested the recent court decision oversteps the Constitution.
"Once you start telling people what they should pray, you're taking their liberty out," he said. "A Christian should be offended [by this]. If they are not offended, they are not a Christian."
Attorney Mike Sharman called the town's position "prior restraint" and an expression of "hostility to Christianity." Although the 4th Circuit includes Virginia, he said none of the cases cited in the town's memo is applicable in the commonwealth.
"Nobody has ever ruled against what you are doing here right now," Sharman said. "[Religious freedoms] were won by inches. You're giving up miles."
Both Bendall and Rimeikis contend that the memo was merely a "suggestion." But it is written in the imperative: urging the ministers to "avoid references to Jesus, Christ" and "use neutral" references instead.
The Ministerial Association--and only volunteers from that Christian group--has customarily provided prayer at council meetings. Asked if a Satanist who volunteered would be allowed to pray at a council meeting, Rimeikis said he didn't know.
He also said he did not know what would happen if a Culpeper minister deliberately uses either "Jesus" or "Christ" to test the town's resolve.
One minister suggested that might be a possibility, asking, "Is this a point where we have to take a stand?" The association could make a decision on how it will respond as early as next month.
Randy Orndorff, who recently became pastor at Culpeper United Methodist Church, said the directive hit him in the face when he showed up to pray at a recent Town Council meeting.
"An attorney handed me [a memo concerning the Great Falls decision] and asked, 'Are you aware of this?' He told me I shouldn't use 'Jesus' in my prayer."
Being a new minister in town and getting hit with the memo just minutes prior to being called on to pray, Orndorff said he had to make a quick and unpleasant decision.
"I changed my prayer after they handed me the memo," he told the Ministerial Association. "I don't think I'd do that again."
"I am afraid that the United States may repeat mistake which was done by Russia in 1917, when they started the revolution and took away God from their lives," he said. "And we know what happened after that. I see an attempt to do the same thing in this country."
a prayer is NOT establishing a religion. give me a break
Prayers in public places were almost ALWAYS non-denominational 30+ years ago and usually did not mention our Lord's name.
This recent public display (like the Pharisees) of "godliness" is not approved of in the New Testament, is it? Or has that been re-written also lately?
An attempt at establishing a theocracy will be met by more violence than establishing a communist govt.
We are at WAR with a theocracy now in the mid east and elsewhere - do YOU want to be like Osama?
"The ruling sparked a similar controversy earlier this year in Fredericksburg, where Councilman Hashmel Turner stopped leading prayers at meetings rather than omit the name of Christ."
Good for him.
If you read in the Book of Acts, Chapter 4, the same thing happened to the Apostles Peter and John. They were threatened and told not to speak nor teach in the name of Jesus.
But Peter and John refused to stop....they said that they would obey God rather than man.
Let's do the same, Christians!
Pray to a neutral god? Might as well ask the chair that is being sat on to help out. "Dear chair, please hold up my end and cause be to sitteth up straight?"
Maybe they should give a mock prayer in the name of local government. That might send a message to how ridiculus this is.
In the Holy Name of Jesus, I say AMEN!
We're getting awfully close to the point where it will be considered a crime just to hold a church service.
Can you say "Nero"? Sure, I knew you could.
The Rev. Ted Fuson, pastor of Culpeper Baptist Church, said that while he didn't agree with the premise, he understood the town's position and could offer a generic prayer.
"[A town council meeting] is not a worship service," he said.
Rev. Fuson seems to get it...
In the name of the County, the State and the Great FedGov, Amen...
The First Amendment only prohibits the establishment of a state religion by way of a law being passed.
New children's game:
"This was the Church, and this was the steeple,
Before the ACLU came in
And had handcuffs put on all the people."
You can't be serious! LOL!!!
Rev. Fuson needs to read his Bible.
...In a word........
YES!
For mercy sakes, don't start down that slippery slope in your own town.....Make a difference!
Stand & be proud of your Creator!!!!
Isn't DIVERSITY wonderful!
Having read some of the writings that the Founders used to create the Constitution, I've discovered exactly HOW the government has used the 'legal' system to turn our republican form of government into a socialistic one.
The Founders, recognizing that:
(1) only a man's own moral code would restrain him from wrongdoing,
and
(2) Government would assume powers not given at every opportunity,
created a country with two very different types of law.
The 'Nature and Nature's God' of the Declaration of Independence refers to natural, or civil law.
Positive law, (or the 'legal system'), are just man made rules, and only effect artificial constructs. This includes governmental, or legal entities.
The ONLY time a man made law effects the people is if it is brought to a vote and approved by the public, and even then it cannot go against the 10 Commandments or the Constitution. The horizontal laws 10 Commandments were used in America to define crime. Murder, fraud, theft, perjury, etc. are all against the law, both for the people, AND the government.
By systematically removing these moral restraints using the bogus 'separation of church and state', government has made itself all-powerful.
Property rights, religious rights, the right to protect oneself.... ALL are now subject to the whims of government simply because the government has assumed the authority to define crime!
Where, in any state or federal constitution, is the authority (or jurisdiction) to define crime? NOWHERE! The only power government has over the people is to decide punishments for common law crimes committed by people on other people.
There are several reasons why government is incapable of having such authority;
(1) It is an UNCONSTITUTINAL assumption of power, or ultra vires (beyond the scope and in excess of legal power or authority) contrary to our guaranteed republican form of government, and therefore null and void upon its inception.
(2) It is unlawful (illegal) according to the Tenth Commandment.‘Thou shalt not covet’ includes gains made by fraudulent means, i.e. tricking you into their jurisdiction.
(3) It is illegal according to USC Title 18, sec 242: deprivation of rights under color of law.
(4) It is immoral- giving an artificial construct the ability to define the everyday behavior of a living human being is nothing short of forced idolatry.
That's how politicians and judges get special treatment from our legal system. They KNOW the law.
Illegals get special treatment because of ignorance. Without a birth certificate, visa, or other form of "legal" documentation, they HAVE no 'legal entity' for the government to control, so the are simply released by the police.
Now some Freepers at this point may offer to loan me some tinfoil, and to you I say "Research it for yourself!"
Find an online legal dictionary and look up crime, legal, illegal, person, natural person, and legal entity.
They DON'T mean what you think they do!
It's better, IMHO, to have an opening prayer - an acknowledgement of the Lord God's sovereignity, than to not. However in doing so we must remember that is it most emphatically not government's business to determine which religion is correct, which Lord God is sovereign.
A council meeting is not a worship service. At worship, be as nitpicky as as Jesuit. At council meeting, one must be ecumenical lest there be no religion there at all...
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