(CNN)– On August 6, Texas Gov. Rick Perry wants you to drop the Texas BBQ, grab a moist towelette and fold your hands to pray. On Monday, Perry declared the date a “day of prayer and fasting for our nation’s challenges.”
“America is in crisis, ” the Republican governor says on a website promoting the event. “We have been besieged by financial debt terrorism, and a multitude of natural disasters.”
Perry invited the 49 other governors in the U.S. to issue similar proclamations, “encouraging their constituents to pray that day for unity and righteousness for our states, nation and mankind.” He wants other governors to join him at Houston’s Reliant Stadium, home to the NFL’s Houston Texans, for an August 6 event called The Response, organized by a conservative Christian group.
—Eric Marrapodi, CNN Belief Blog Co-Editor
More power to these people for organizing a spiritual event. It’s within their rights and if it achieves positive results so much the better. If the governor of Texas thinks it might help, he ought to attend, maybe even encourage family and friends, anyone he can. But he must do so in his capacity as a private citizen. This should be obvious. What is wrong with the governor? Does he not have any constituents who might be Buddhist, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu or any other religion? Does he not have any atheist or agnostic constituents? The United States of America does not have an established religion and it is not for the governor to advise people to go to any specific religious event. I passionately believe is a cornerstone of our system of government and thus of our greatness as a nation. But let’s leave that aside for now.
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Jesus Christ himself had doubts about the will of his father and agonized over it in the Garden of Gethsemane, and yet this two-bit politician or the Pat Robertson’s of the world have certain knowledge. I envy them. I so seldom know with any certainty the “right thing to do” for myself in most circumstances, yet you can almost always draw an unambiguous line between right and wrong for the whole nation.
I’d be more careful, all of you who are cut from the cloth of self-righteousness and moral superiority. Consider carefully the rhetoric you use and judgements you pronounce. I do not speak with the certainty of faith, but I have read the Bible rather closely, and to know the mind of God Almighty and tasked to share his message is an awesome burden. It can bring one great suffering and put ones life in jeopardy. Do you ever have doubts? Do you every wonder if you are simply delusional or heading voices other than those of God? I certainly can’t answer and I pass no judgement, for even if I were a religious man I would I act in accordance with the words of Jesus in Matthews 7: “Judge not, lest ye be not judged…”