How does this fit in with your view of life ?

Question

Pastor Joe Wright
Prayer in the Legislature in the United States of America

Heavenly Father, we come before you today to ask your forgiveness and to seek your direction and guidance.,
We know your word says, “Woe to those who call evil good” but that is exactly what we have done.
We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and reversed our values.
We confess we have ridiculed the absolute faith of your word and called it pluralism.
We have worshipped other gods and called it multiculturalism.
We have endorsed perversion and called it alternated lifestyles.
We have exploited the poor and called it lottery.
We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare.
We have killed our unborn and called it choice.
We have shot abortionists and called it justifiable.
We have neglected to discipline our children and called it building self esteem.
We have abused power and called it politics.
We have coveted our neighbours possessions and called it ambition.
We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of expression.
We have ridiculed the time honoured values of our forefathers and called it enlightenment.
Search us O God, and know our hearts today, cleanse us from every sin and set us free. Guide and bless these men & women who have been sent to direct us to the centre of your will. I ask it in the name of our son, the living Saviour, Jesus Christ, Amen.

Answer 1

I see nothing wrong with it. America needs prayer right now more than ever.

Answer 2

Wow, what a collection of things that fit in poorly with my view of life!
1) Heavenly father- I don't believe in one.
2) sure, we always figure those we disagree with have confused what's good and what's evil. They think the same of us.
3) I don't believe in spiritual equilibrium and many of our values such as racism and sexism deserved to be reversed.
4) "ridiculing the absolute faith and calling it pluralism" means that we no longer say there's one true faith and the others are all sinful error. We recognize that people believe different things and we should tolerate that. That's a good thing.
5) multiculturalism is not about gods. Different faiths is part of it, but it's also about different philosophies and different customs. Recognizing that our traditional ways aren't the only ways is good, not evil.
6) "perversion" just means not the normal way. Being Gay isn't just a lifestyle. It is, for many, natural. To force gay people to be straight would really be a perversion.
7) Yep, I agree that the lottery is a regressive way of raising money.
8) A hungry kid shouldn't be punished for having an unemployed parent.
9) Abortion is a choice. Don't want one, we won't force you to have one.
10) Right, but calling them murderers and then saying it's wrong to kill them sends very mixed messages.
11) Beating your kids is biblically cool, but not good.
12) Power has always been abused and called politics, what's new about that?
13) Coveting our neighbor's possessions is the cornerstone of capitalism. If we didn't want stuff and set out to earn the money to buy it where would our entire economic system be?
14) Don't like pornography? don't buy it. we can't limit people's expressions only to what would be appropriate for 8 year olds.
15) The Enlightenment WAS the time honored virtues of our founding fathers. As for whether old values were better because they were old or new values are better because they are based on changing knowledge (enlightenment) is a waste of time. look at the specifics such as the above.
16) Praying to Jesus never seemed to be appropriate in a secular government.

Probably more detail than you really wanted, but there you go.

Answer 3

Tell me, Pastor, when mankind was at a spiritual equilibrium, when the 'Word of God' was not up to interpretation'
when there were no perverse people'
when the poor weren't exploited,
when welfare paid enough to be lazy,
when we haven't sent men off to kill other men for ideas,
when there were no politics,
when we haven't coveted our neighbors possessions
when there was no profanity or pornography,
when we have been satisfied with our forefathers values?
I don't believe we were considered humans at that point.

Answer 4

I think Pastor Joe has been playing with Kirk Camerons banana.

Answer 5

If the present day bothers you this much, how can you hope to stand two hundred more years?

Answer 6

Amen to that

Answer 7

I think it is okay if that is the man's personal prayer ... but it does not belong in the legistlature. Separatation of church and state.

Answer 8

It is a sobering reminder.
It is very much like a litany.

Answer 9

Reinforces my belief that, we, the 51st state (UK) need to fight for our Independence. After all, we fought a war to stop people like him.

Answer 10

You left out adultery.