Voices In The Wilderness - StageLeft, Way Wrong

StageLeft, Way Wrong

Thu, May 7, 2009 at 08:09:45 PM EDT

Answering: "Obama Follows Christs Instructions On Prayer" Stage Left

written by the leftist over at stageleft. In sum his entry is basking Obama in praise for deciding not to celebrate the American day of prayer as a nation. The leftist confuses an obvious slight at Christianity in America as proof that Obama is following Jesus

[Matthew] (5) When you pray, you shall not be as the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Most assuredly, I tell you, they have received their reward.

(6) But you, when you pray, enter into your inner chamber, and having shut your door, pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.

Now as always leftist want to advance their agenda rather than provide context. Jesus is simply pointing out that the hypocritical priest of the day were trying to SEEM rightous without actually being righteous and was certainly not giving his followers a commandment not to pray aloud or in public.

This should of course be evidenced by the numerous prayers spoken by Jesus that can be found and quoted in the bible:

Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee: 2. As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. 3. And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.

John 17:1-3

It clearly has nothing to do with the old lady dying of cancer crying out for the blessings of God or a Chirsitian community praying for the sick, hungry, naked wounded or simply sad.

There are no shortage of quotes of Jesus Christ praying to God the Father for all to hear (evidenced by the fact that they were later written!)

Facts are inconvinient for some but they are nevertheless there.

Jesus prayed at the mount of Olives prior to being arrested by Roman soldiers; one of the most famous quotes, recited since the day it was spoken

Father, if thou be willint remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done

Luke 22:42

A beautiful prayer indeed. The quote used by stageleft to promote the one he follows is not suggesting that prayer in public is what's wrong but rather prayer to impress people is the problem; prayer aloud without true conviction of heart. Now, if the truth is that Barack has no conviction to pray then he rightly refuses to pray aloud just for show but truly as a leader of a country of believers in Christ it would be a nice gesture to call the country together in prayer. Bush understood this but unfortunetly Barack feels it is more important for Turkey to hear repeatedly that the United States, "is not a Christian country".

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Lyin' for Jesus Again? (0.00 / 0)

Wiseprince, I'm afraid you're lying. Obama DID celebrate the day of prayer. But he did not give the usual platform to "Focus on the Family", the Republican lobby group that's doing all the complaining.

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by balbulican on Fri, May 8, 2009 at 06:44:47 AM EDT

Focus on the Family (0.00 / 0)

Focus on the family is a traditionalist organization. They promote traditional marriage and pro life ideas. To suggest that they are Republican puppets is a ridiculous notion. They were quite clearly opposed to Republicans who are against their stated goals and they are more than willing to support Democrats who are willing to further their ideology. In either case this is irrelevant. StageLeft is pushing the idea that someone praying in public is in and of itself immoral and against the teachings of Jesus and nothing could be further from the truth. I will say again the condemnation is to those who do it solely to be seen of men and to put themselves above all by so doing. If you think the purpose of a national day of prayer is to get a politician good PR then I'm afraid you are far to cynical on the subject to be a fair and balanced judge of it.
It is quite possible that Bush actually believed in the power of prayer and that is why he called on the nation, in such a public manner, to pray. Of course I wouldn't expect the MSM in its current form to give a Conservative Christian the benefit of the doubt.

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by wiseprince on Fri, May 8, 2009 at 08:23:35 AM EDT

Let me try that again (0.00 / 0)

Wow. You completely missed my point. I'll restate it.

You lied. You stated that Obama did not celebrate the American national day of prayer. He did: and that's specifically stated in Stageleft's post.

You do remember Exodus 20:17, I hope?

As for the political affiliation of Focus on the Family - please name ONE Democratic Presidential Candidate endorsed by the organization.

No?

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by balbulican on Fri, May 8, 2009 at 09:44:28 AM EDT

Jesus prayed privately (0.00 / 0)

Jesus prayed privately before being arrested. Maybe you should re-read that section.

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by RevDave on Fri, May 8, 2009 at 10:28:47 AM EDT

Interesting that you know...

It's quite interesting that you know of all the prayers that Jesus prayed privately wouldn't you say?

Jesus prayed for his direct followers and those who believed based on them in John 17 (virtually the whole chapter is a prayer prayed aloud).

As always it has nothing to do with the perception of the world but the heart and God knows the heart. It was true when he said so of David, it is true for you and me. It is true for Jesus and it is true for Bush (as much as you don't want to hear that). A national day of prayer is not as immoral as you would like to believe

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by wiseprince on Fri, May 8, 2009 at 01:57:46 PM EDT

Private and national prayers (0.00 / 0)

In the Luke 22 version, for example, his prayers are explicitly private (afterwards he goes back to his disciples and finds them asleep). In Mark 14, it specifies that he actually took just three disciples along with him to pray. In the John version it's not clear how many people are with him, but at the very least it's pretty clear that this is an intimate setting with a few choice disciples, not grand public festivities.

I am actually not against national days of prayer for this reason, just against public prayer-performances.

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by RevDave on Fri, May 8, 2009 at 02:49:08 PM EDT