Prayer in the Senate disrupted

[Lanya]

He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.

    Thomas Paine
**************

Christian Right Activists Disrupt Hindu Chaplain In The Senate
By Eric Kleefeld | bio
Today was a historic first for religion in America's civic life: For the very first time, a Hindu delivered the morning invocation in the Senate chamber ? only to find the ceremony disrupted by three Christian right activists.

We have video of the astonishing scene, and we'll be sharing it with you shortly.

The three protesters, who all belong to the Christian Right anti-abortion group Operation Save America, and who apparently traveled to Washington all the way from North Carolina, interrupted by loudly asking for God's forgiveness for allowing the false prayer of a Hindu in the Senate chamber.

"Lord Jesus, forgive us father for allowing a prayer of the wicked, which is an abomination in your sight," the first protester began.

"This is an abomination," he continued. "We shall have no other gods before You."


Senator Bob Casey (D-PA), serving as the presiding officer for the morning, immediately ordered them taken away ? though they continued to yell at the Hindu cleric as they were headed out the door, shouting out phrases such as, "No Lord but Jesus Christ!" and "There's only one true God!"

The cleric, Rajan Zed of Reno, Nevada, was visibly nervous and uncomfortable as he then delivered the morning prayer. But to his credit, he soon regained his footing and was able to make it through in a dignified fashion.

For their part, Operation Save America put out an interesting press release, claiming responsibility for the protests and castigating Senators for not joining in:

    Theology Moved to the Senate and was Arrested

    Theology has moved from the church house onto the floor of the United States Senate, and has been arrested.

    Ante Pavkovic, Kathy Pavkovic, and Kristen Sugar were all arrested in the chambers of the United States Senate as that chamber was violated by a false Hindu god. The Senate was opened with a Hindu prayer placing the false god of Hinduism on a level playing field with the One True God, Jesus Christ. This would never have been allowed by our Founding Fathers.

    "Not one Senator had the backbone to stand as our Founding Fathers stood. They stood on the Gospel of Jesus Christ! There were three in the audience with the courage to stand and proclaim, 'Thou shalt have no other gods before me.' They were immediately removed from the chambers, arrested, and are in jail now. God bless those who stand for Jesus as we know that He stands for them." Rev. Flip Benham, Director, Operation Save America/Operation Rescue

A call for comment to Benham has not been returned as of this writing.

http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2007/jul/12/christian_right_activists_disrupt_hindu_chaplain_in_the_senate

[BT]

Sounds like Casey handled it correctly.

[Xavier_Onassis]

"There's only one true God!"
=======================
What does rthis mean, actually?

Does it mean that there are false gods?

What is meant by a "false god"? Is it a defective god, or a nonexistent one?

In the Ten Commandments, it does not say 'I am the only God. The rest are figments of the imaginations of misguided and/or deluded people".

No.
It says "Thou shalt have NO OTHER GODS BEFORE ME" Does that not seem to imply to you that there are other gods, but we should  worship them less that YHWH or perhaps not at all. I suppose if you said ten prayers to YHWH and only one each to Woden or Thor or Mercury, you would be obeying this commandment.

It seems logical to assume this, anyway.
 

Why don't they say "There is only one God", if that is what they mean?

[Michael Tee]

Obviously the proper way to handle this would have been to draw two circles on the floor and have the Hindu stand in one of them and the three Christ-worshipers in the other, while the entire Senate prayed as one to the One True God to make His intentions known by mightily zapping the prophet or prophets of the false god with 50,000 righteous volts straight from His own all-white Heaven.  The risk, of course, is that it might turn out to be the cowardly, venal and hypocritical Senators who have displeased Him the most.

[BT]

I guess your scenario would make a better video.

[Brassmask]

Honesty is the best policy.

On my new job, my hours are 11AM to 8PM.  When I get home a usually a little tired since I get up with the wife and the boy at 6:30 am anyway to help get him cleaned and dressed and fed and them out the door on time.

I've found that when I get kind of lagged, I am, as I'm sure most are, a little more susceptible to emotionalism.

So, I got home last night and the wife went on to bed and I couldn't get to sleep yet so I prowled around my list of sites and came across the video of that.

I'm overly familiar with performance and being in front of people and I know too well how some things can throw you off when they come from the audience.  I was in a play called The Foreigner a few years ago and it is a knee-slapper kind of farce kind of thing and the audience regularly laughs a lot.  That's easy, every actor learns how to ride that wave of laughter and pause for it and then go on as it dies down.  There was one scene in particular that I had with the main character and we had to look at each other very intently and seriously while we did ridiculous actions and had ridiculous reactions.  Naturally, we would have those moments where we could see each other thinking, "Don't break.  Don't break...don't break!"  In rehearsals, we often had to stop because we would break and just laugh out loud.

We worked on it and didn't have any problems during the actual shows.  Till one night.  There was this old man sitting at the end of front row in a wheelchair.  And from the first funny thing when the audience laughed, this guy was screaming laughing.  And his laugh was very high pitched, like a woman's laugh/scream.  When they all laughed his was on a totally different level and it would make the audience laugh in this second wave sort of thing at him.  So, the waves thing was ride-able so to speak but his laugh would make us laugh backstage and me and the lead actor didn't really think about this eggs scene till it came time for us to do it.  So, we're sitting there doing this scene and its the funniest scene in the show and so this old man in the wheelchair sounds like he's going to have a heart attack from laughing so hard and so me and Jim are sitting there just about to cry because we're looking at each other constantly, thinking, "don't break!".

Well, we didn't break where we just destroyed the moment.  I started smiling and turned it into this thing where maybe my character was getting to understand what his character was doing and he got it and like jazz musicians we scatted and be-bopped a minute and ad-libbed just to give us the momentary satisfaction of laughing and then we went back into the scene in such a way that made the audience laugh even harder than before but we had gotten through our thing and even the old man couldn't rattle us then.

That was a good night and a good situation and it was just a community theatre show in front of 400 people.

When I saw that  poor Hindu guy in the video, I thought of how something like someone in the audience can rattle you when you're performing and I compared that little situation in the community theatre with this poor guy in the hallowed halls of the legislative body of the most powerful country on the planet doing something that has never been done there before, an act that is as symbolic a moment in this country's history as one could ever hope to be a part of, let alone perform all by one's lonesome, in front a nation.

He's already nervous, that's clear.  It's a momentous occasion in his life, in his life as an American, in his country's history.  He should be proud and excited and happy and he's hoping to do his best for his family, his nation, his faith and what happens?  Three morons starting yelling in the gallery.

I couldn't believe it.  I sat at my computer and just had tears in my eyes and a lump in my throat for that guy.  His moment ruined.  His prayer interrupted by monkey-headed morons and Casey has to step in and ask the Sergeant at Arms to do his do.  I don't know if I would have been able to maintain the composure exhibited by Zed.  I commend him  on his holding onto his dignity and continuing when he could.

I felt for him.  I really did.

[Lanya]

Brass, you're really writing well.
You got me all choked up too.
Hugs.

[gipper]

Rather than cry for the brave Hindu cleric, Bim-bom-bay, we should applaud the fire in his eyes, maybe, like Jackie Robinson.

[Brassmask]

Rather than cry for the brave Hindu cleric, Bim-bom-bay, we should applaud the fire in his eyes, maybe, like Jackie Robinson.

What the heck are you talking about?

I think this is sort of related to what I was talking about in my post regarding Cindy Sheehan, maybe not.  Maybe this is more about the difference between conservatives and liberals in a way.

For me, the incident is about quiet dignity.  The loss of the historic moment's dignity it is due and Zed's decision to maintain his own personal dignity by not erupting or crumbling in response to the interruption.

Perhaps you're assigning that "fire in his eyes" in a more macho way of the same perception.  Giving it, in my opinion, a negative connotation for, something like, Zed maybe thinking, "Well, I'll show you!"

Perhaps it is a liberal trait to want to maintain as much of the moment as it was planned and hoped for rather than convert the moment plus interruption of it into some kind of retaliation.

Or it is entirely likely I am misconstruing your statement and not being familiar with you Jackie Robinson reference, inferring unintended meanings.

Let me know.

B

[Lanya]

Domer:<<Rather than cry for the brave Hindu cleric, Bim-bom-bay, we should applaud the fire in his eyes, maybe, like Jackie Robinson.>>

You simply have no idea what I was talking about.  Cry for the brave Hindu cleric? Please, I'm choked up because Brass painted a very moving picture of someone standing in the Congress of the United States, and what an honor it was to be able to give this prayer, and how his prayer was disrupted.  It's not an offense against the "brave Hindu cleric, Bim-bom-bay." 
It's an offense against what our country was founded for.  Brass captured it perfectly.

[gipper]

Brass, though an athlete (and I feel self-conscious saying that; why not an athlete, as much as, say, an actor?), Jackie Robinson is one of the foremost figures (and pioneers) of the Great Civil Rights Struggle, a man any cleric in the Hindu's recent position should be honored to be compared to. A macho version of quiet dignity? Robinson manifested both abundantly.

[BT]

In moments like these there is the symbolism and then there is the reality.

Brass painted a picture of a man standing in the center ring.

Domer painted a picture of the event and all it meant to many others, not necessarily what it meant to the man standing.

Casey was right for what he did. Rajan Zed was right for how he handled it.

and the hecklers were oh so wrong.

[Brassmask]

In moments like these there is the symbolism and then there is the reality.

Brass painted a picture of a man standing in the center ring.

Domer painted a picture of the event and all it meant to many others, not necessarily what it meant to the man standing.

Casey was right for what he did. Rajan Zed was right for how he handled it.

and the hecklers were oh so wrong.

I concur with your assessment.

[The_Professor]

"There's only one true God!"
=======================
What does rthis mean, actually?

Does it mean that there are false gods?

What is meant by a "false god"? Is it a defective god, or a nonexistent one?

In the Ten Commandments, it does not say 'I am the only God. The rest are figments of the imaginations of misguided and/or deluded people".

No.
It says "Thou shalt have NO OTHER GODS BEFORE ME" Does that not seem to imply to you that there are other gods, but we should  worship them less that YHWH or perhaps not at all. I suppose if you said ten prayers to YHWH and only one each to Woden or Thor or Mercury, you would be obeying this commandment.

It seems logical to assume this, anyway.
 

Why don't they say "There is only one God", if that is what they mean?

I believe they meant God with a capital "G", meaning the one and true God. "I am that I am". There are indeed many gods (little "g"). These are deities worshiped by many and are considered by some in Christendom to be merely demons in disguise. Remember, there is a hierarchy of demons in Hell, according to Scripture.

[Plane]

"There's only one true God!"
=======================
What does rthis mean, actually?

Does it mean that there are false gods?

What is meant by a "false god"? Is it a defective god, or a nonexistent one?

In the Ten Commandments, it does not say 'I am the only God. The rest are figments of the imaginations of misguided and/or deluded people".

No.
It says "Thou shalt have NO OTHER GODS BEFORE ME" Does that not seem to imply to you that there are other gods, but we should  worship them less that YHWH or perhaps not at all. I suppose if you said ten prayers to YHWH and only one each to Woden or Thor or Mercury, you would be obeying this commandment.

It seems logical to assume this, anyway.
 

Why don't they say "There is only one God", if that is what they mean?

I beleive they meant God with a capital "G", meaning the one and true God. "I am that I am". There are indeed many gods (little "g"). These are deities worshiped by many and are considered by soem in Christendom to be merely demons in disguise. Remember, there is a hierarchy of demons in Hell, according to Scripture.

I agree Professor, but still I would not want to encourage the disruptive behavior of the hecklers. I consider it Un American and un Christian to coerce Christian worsip , just as I consider it unAmerican and UnChristian to force an end to worship .  Christanity has great power to reasonaly persede and this is what we should rely on to woo converts ,  a Christianity that depended on governmental encouragement or enforcement would be contrary to the instructions of Christ.

How then to choose who will open the Senate with prayer? I would like to see this done in a way that represents the choices of the people , if we are 15% Catholic then 15% of the time the invocation should be delivered by a Catholic, this might cause us to be bored by an Athiest invocation 5% of the time and it will be exciting when the Snake handleing sects get their .001% turn. But it is the point of the USA that the government is for the people and not the other way around.  So to do it right the persuasion should be made amoung the people and the prayers in the Senate should reflect the choice of the people.

http://www.biblegateway.com/