http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s819685.htm
Does this smell right to you? Why on earth are our soldiers being urged to pray for President Bush? Shouldn’t President Bush be urged to pray for our soldiers? This reminds me of Bush’s comment at his “press conference” that he took strength in knowing that 1,000s of people that he never met prayed for him every night. I didn’t realize that there was an organized effort to encourage such prayer. And how much pressure is being placed on our troops to mail in those little cards acknowleging that they have prayed for the President? The more I think about this, the more it bothers me.
Is there a prayer gap? If so, we can’t let the Iraqis out pray the good ol’ US of A. They may have a strategic prayer advantage, what with the whole Muslim prayer regimen. We’ll have to do better, God willing. Amen.
Perhaps because he is Commander-in-Chief, and President. And we are at war.
Why are these mutually exclusive?
In the Christian faith, we are commanded to pray for one another, so I expect that Bush is praying for the military, and they for him. And me for both.
Yes, there is, and it has been going on for several thousand years. 1 Timothy 2:1-3.
I have been praying for the President and other leaders daily for years. Yes, the previous one too.
As far as I can tell, none at all - it is purely voluntary.
I am honestly unsure as to what you find objectionable about this. Are you saying no one should be allowed to persuade others to pray for the President? Or is it the specific requests being made ("that the President and his advisers will seek God and his wisdom daily " or “that the President and his advisers will be strong and courageous to do what is right”) to which you object?
C’mon, this is ridiculous. So what if a Christian ministry is handing out little pamphlets urging soldiers to pray for the president? Where is the harm in asking people to pray? In a wartime situation, don;t you think that soldiers who are already inclined to be relgious couod use a boost in their faith? I have no use for prayer myself, but if it makes other people happy, more power to them. It isn’t as if we have a state-sponsored church mandating prayers for the Commnader-in Chief.
I hope you are doing well. Please bless Mommy and Daddy and Timmy and my dog Sparky. Also, please bless President Bush and help him think of the best way to recklessly destabilize a region and send people off to die and kill as Jesus taught us. Amen.
The reason why this bothers me is that I always thought that prayer was a private act between you and your God. The idea that other people should be telling me to pray and telling me WHAT to pray, is offensive to me. Also, the idea that soldiers should then send a card to Dubya notifying him that they were praying for him seems to violate the basic idea that prayer is a private, not a public act. I guess this wouldn’t bother you if a Muslim group was giving our soldiers cards urging them to pray to Allah.
Nope. Allah is the God of the Bible, Allah being the Arabic word for “god.” Do you imagine that Spanish-speaking Christians pray to a different god because he is called Dios or that Jews pray to a strange god because he is referred to as Adonai or Ha-Shem?
The distribution channel is key. So long as it was distributed in the same manner as any other private contributions to the well-being of our troops, I’ve got no problem with its being there, even if I don’t happen to like what it says, which is a pretty safe bet.
I like the slanted language. It doesn’t quite come right out and say, “the President and his advisers have a far better idea of what is right than his critics do,” but it’s one smack-in-the-face of a subtext. Sofa King, I’m glad I wasn’t drinking anything when I read your comment.
2Thick, I see you are trying to live up to your screen moniker.
If you bother to read the Qu’ran, you would see that Muslims believe that the revelation to Mohammed is the completion of the revelations given to Abraham and Moses. Muslims believe that Jesus was a great prophet, but that he was not God because God is indivisible and unknowable. Regardless of Allah’s origin among the Arabian pre-Islamic religion, the fact is that Muslims identify Allah as their name for the god who spoke to the prophets of the Bible. Remember that Yahweh got his start as a Hebrew thunder god before they caught monotheism.
Since this is GD, have a cite with your plate of crow and humble pie.
