My Faith: Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), from Catholic to Muslim

CNN ^ | 9/1/11 | Chris Welch

[marshmallow]

Minneapolis, Minnesota (CNN) –Prior to 2006, few people even knew that then-Minnesota state legislator Keith Ellison was a Muslim. Because of his English name, he said, no one thought to ask.

But five years ago, when he ran for a seat in the United States House of Representatives - a race he would go on to win - word of his religious affiliation began to spread.

“When I started running for Congress it actually took me by surprise that so many people were fascinated with me being the first Muslim in Congress,” said Ellison, a Democrat now serving his third term in the House.

“But someone said to me, ‘Look Keith, think of a person of Japanese origin running for Congress six years after Pearl Harbor–this might be a news story.’”

Though Ellison's status as the first Muslim elected to Congress is widely known, fewer are aware that he was born into a Catholic family in Detroit and was brought up attending Catholic schools.

But he said he was never comfortable with that faith.

“I just felt it was ritual and dogma,” Ellison said. “Of course, that’s not the reality of Catholicism, but it’s the reality I lived. So I just kind of lost interest and stopped going to Mass unless I was required to.”

It wasn’t until he was a student at Wayne State University in Detroit when Ellison began, “looking for other things.”

[bkaycee]

The saints I ask to pray for me can respond via voice or email. :)

[MHGinTN]

Well, (counting myself n that club) we certainly do enough braying!

[metmom]

I like it....

Honestly, I don’t see the point in going to anyone but God with my requests. Asking another person to agree with me in prayer for something is not asking them FOR the thing.

Not to mention that He’s promised to hear and answer our prayer Himself. And it’s not like people are going to get something out of a saint or Mary that God Himself wouldn’t do for us. They’re not going to go contrary to His will, even if they could answer prayer.

I’ve encountered the mentality that they can or will do something for us that God won’t, as is evidenced in the concept that God cannot or will not refuse any request of Mary’s that she makes to Him. Therefore, they go to Mary, who they perceive as being more loving and motherly and less likely to say *No* and get the *Yes* from her and then God has to do it cause He can’t refuse her.

It reminds me of kids who play one parent against the other.

[MHGinTN]

From the teaching of Ian Thomas:

Many are called but few are chosen ... faithful is He that calleth you, for He will also do it; of the many called, why are so few chosen? ... Because so few will let Him do it.

God has a way of humbling us when we step away from His shadow and think to make our own 'son light'.

[MHGinTN]

There is an uncomplicated answer, if you're ready to consider it:

The body sleeps and will be resurrected; the soul and spirit are alive forever more, with many destined for separation from God's presence by refusal of His deliverance. The soul and spirit are already timeless in the sense that those aspects of our being do not die with bodily dissolution. The reality of the body 'sleeps', but will be re-created in the Last resurrection.

[MHGinTN]

I can cite precise events when agreeing in prayer resulted in miraculous occurences. Jesus said that where two or more are gathered in His name, there is He int he midst of them. If the miraculous is needed and in God’s Grace allowed, there is He in the midst of those gathered in His name to pray as one.

[Mad Dawg]

Asking another person to agree with me in prayer for something is not asking them FOR the thing.

Any Catholic, I would venture, who prays to a saint in heaven (as he believes) and makes a petition without "by your intercession" being understood, is in error.

[CynicalBear]

I may have misunderstood the posting I was replying to. I thought you were saying that the soul also sleeps. I’m having a conversation with Elsie who seems to imply that the soul sleeps and is not with God when we die.

[Quix]

YOU’RE A TREASURE, BROTHER.

MUCH AGREE. LOL.

INDEED:

JOHN 15:5

New International Version (©1984)
“I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.

New Living Translation (©2007)
“Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing.

---

It has long been a sobering thing to me . . . that Jesus The Christ did not heal everyone very often. And in Nazareth at one point—none.

He was persistently harsh to RELIGIOUS, proud, self-sufficient, self-righteous, prissy, stubborn . . . individuals.

Sometimes, even Love Incarnate cannot, will not violate ‘free-will’ enough to fix such indivuals.

However, those individuals willing to give up their pride, anger, hurt, self-sufficiency, self-righteousness, . . . and COOPERATE with HIS process of conforming us to HIS IMAGE, HIS LIKENESS.

2 Cor 3:18
New International Version (©1984)
And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

New Living Translation (©2007)
So all of us who have had that veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord. And the Lord—who is the Spirit—makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image.

Romans 8:29
New International Version (©1984)
For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.

New Living Translation (©2007)
For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.

[MarkBsnr]

I briefly scan once in a while, but don't have time right now to engage the heretic, the apostate and the pagan.

These are no 'opponents'!

If you put it that way, I have to agree with you wholeheartedly.

Now if one faces an Elsian in a battle of wits - THAT's another matter!

Only a matter of degree. :)

Right now, except for certain posters like we Christians, this thread resembles nothing more and sometimes less than the attitudes displayed in the usual Daily Kos threads.

Hey!! Who you callin' WE here?

Only the Christians among us. A very good yardstick is the Nicene Creed.

Luke 7:39

Well, you do sport a girl's name. :)

[johngrace]

We are all part of the process. Remember Jesus left the world physically He gave us the reponsibility to spread the Gospel. Their is nothing wrong with us being part of the saving. This is what Peter is acknowledging in this qoute. He is not taking away anything from Christ. Everything is an action from God

The sheer fact is we are in process of the saving Grace of Christ. When we recieve Christ's message. As we tell others too. He is also showing we have to respond. We are all connected to saving grace of Christ when we are in Him with Him in The Unity of The Holy Spirit.

[johngrace]

True!

[presently no screen name]

Not to mention that He’s promised to hear and answer our prayer Himself.

Mark 11:24 "Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours".

John 10:14 "I am the good shepherd; I know My sheep and My sheep know Me--"

[Elsie]

You want one the new Tbird cups? Picnic attendees all got that and a hat.

No; then I'd be a poser.

Only folks who actually GO to Mecca should wear the regalia.

---

(As I type, I have on my CHEERS t-shirt)

[Elsie]

Same thing

[Elsie]

I don’t know...

SO much of my time is in volved with Flying Inmen now...

[Elsie]

So where is it you think souls go upon one’s death?

I don't know.

What I 'think' doesn't matter.

ALL of these conversations we are having don't matter, for we WILL find out; some sooner than others.

What we 'believe' or 'think' or even 'know' about the subjects will not change our salvatory status. (I hope... ;^)

[Elsie]

And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments,...

Even BEFORE the 'final' judgement?

[Elsie]

Is this not a PARABLE?

A ‘story’ designed to illustrate a religious truth?

[Elsie]

I’m having a conversation with Elsie who seems to imply that the soul sleeps and is not with God when we die.

1 Samuel 28:15

And Samuel said to Saul: 'Why hast thou disquieted me, to bring me up?'

AWAKENED?