Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has come under attack by some religious and political leaders for not including clergy members as speakers at Sunday’s official ceremony at ground zero on the 10th anniversary of the attacks.
Richard D. Land, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, which is the public policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, said in an interview that the planned ceremony only proved that New York was the “epicenter of secularism,” out of step with the rest of America.
“We’re not France,” he said. “Mr. Bloomberg is pretending we’re a secular society, and we are not.”
The promise of religious freedom in the 1st Amendment is turned on its ear! Bloomberg is a tyrant!
I often feel saddened when supposedly Christian services are held at Washington National Cathedral. At one time I felt differently. That was before the “Bishop” of Washington joined forces with the apostate false teacher that is called the presiding bishop of TEC. When these people have services that include leaders from many non-Christian faiths, they think they have done “good” . What they are doing is inviting false teachers and prophets to preach in what was God’s house. It is sad that political correctness and apostacy have taken the place of the revelation of God found in Scripture. We must respect others positions, but we do NOT have to invite them to preach in God’s house. The Southern Baptist Convention should maybe thank God that they were not invited into this den of vipers.
I think Mayor Bloomberg was apprehensive about what might happen if he did give his approval. Fortunately, the NYPD has issued a permit for such a prayer service.
In the 90’s I attended several ordinations at WNC, and also Frank Griswold’s institution ceremony as PB. Now I don’t care to ever set foot in that place again, for various reasons; not the least of which is that it seldom acts like a Christian “house”–ecumenism is one thing; allowing non-Christian services(or pagan ones) to take place there is another. I once attended a church that had a Muslim fellowship that rented space for noon prayers on Fridays–everybody got along, and the space they used was the parish hall, not the sanctuary. We respected their faith, and they respected ours; but both were quick to recognize that such faiths are very different. I would also not expect to attend or perform a Christian service in a mosque.
“Some prominent religious leaders, including Timothy M. Dolan, the Roman Catholic archbishop of New York, and Rabbi Joseph Potasnik, executive vice president of the New York Board of Rabbis, have said they were not troubled by the format for the commemoration at ground zero”.
Considering the prominent RC and Jewish populations of NYC(not to mention RC and Jewish 9/11 victims), I tend to doubt this is true, and possibly the Archbishop and the rabbi just don’t care to make statements or waves at this time. Rather, I’d bet they plan to recognize the 9/11 memorial throughout their churches and synagogues this Fri/Sat/Sun. But I still think that, deep down, they don’t much like the way Bloomberg has handled this, but I could be wrong. I too think he could have done better.
You know, if poor old Bloomberg had allowed clergy than we would have had to have the spectacle of Muslim Imams demanding that they get to do one of their prayers.
Why bother with that?
[blockquote] “Mr. Bloomberg is pretending we’re a secular society, and we are not.â€[/blockquote]
However, we are becoming a post Christian, secular society very quickly. Just try to schedule an event involving high school students. There was a time when Sunday morning was not taken up by sports, but things are different now.
“You know, if poor old Bloomberg had allowed clergy than we would have had to have the spectacle of Muslim Imams demanding that they get to do one of their prayers”.
That’s a fair statement; but, maybe so, maybe not. To be frank, I could live with an imam reading a prayer if he was a known moderate. There were also Muslims who died on 9/11, which the terrorists obviously didn’t care about. I hope Muslims can understand that, before jumping on any wild-eyed Islamist bandwagons in the future.
I’m sorry, but when are you going to wake up. 9/11 was the anniversary of the start of the Battle of Vienna in 1683. I’m sure the terrorists knew this. The motive for the attack was to remind the west, that they very nearly conquered Europe.
Undoubtedly, they did read their history, to be sure. Part of their rage against the West, though, comes from the fact that since the end of the Ottoman Empire following World War 1, their history of achievement in science and the arts has been largely ignored, their great universities in Egypt and elsewhere in the Islamic world have been largely left by the wayside and only fairly recently been playing catch up, as in the University of Cairo. Islamic culture has been sidelined, and they resent that. They resent it because they’ve been made to feel second-class, being left out of the educational and professional mainstream. As a result, Islamic youth have become frustrated and they have taken to extremism…….with the results that we see today.
“Islamic culture has been sidelined…”
Would that be the culture that throws acid in the face of girls that don’t wear a burka, or the culture that forces women to walk 5 paces behind men, or the culture that stones women to death because they were raped? Yes, perhaps it is the culture that venerates an old man that “married” a 9 year old girl.
Maybe it is the culture of the Ottoman Turks that committed genocide against Christians in the Balkans, or the culture of the Arab muslims that want to completely destroy Israel and murder all her citizens.
It’s so hard to remember all the wonderful 12th century customs of the religion of peace. However, I can see how they might feel “sidelined” and left out of all the good first class frat parties.
Those seven well-educated English physicians and one English medical technician that bungled the Glasgow Airport bombing in 2007 must have really become frustrated to have taken to extremism. Perhaps it was because they were part of the British socialized medicine and felt they weren’t earning enough. Yes, I think everyone can see how that might lead them to become murderous would-be bombers.
Yes, and who can forget Faisal Shahzad, the 30-year-old naturalised American from Pakistan, the “son of a retired air force officer” that “grew up in a comfortable and respected middle-class family” and who “was privately educated and went to university with other sons of the elite in the northern city of Peshawar.” One can certainly see how his work as a financial analyst in Connecticut could lead him to feel sidelined and frustrated enough to manufacture a bomb and try to detonate it in Times Square.
Those poor poor muslims being “made to feel second-class, being left out of the educational and professional mainstream”. How terrible for them. (Note to self: really must take up violin)
Historically, they have no one to blame for the decline of Islamic influence on the sciences and their classic university system (which existed long before universities became fashionable in Europe) than their own rulers of the Caliphate, who stressed conquering the world more than education. And what do the disaffected young men who have had little recourse but to attend the madrassas have now to help lift them out of the poverty in which so many of them have been raised? Unless the Arab world governments make it their business to educate them and train them for the professions, the situation won’t improve, and we will continue to be confronted with Islamic extremism. Western understanding of the causes of the problems will go a long way towards ameliorating the situation.
It should be understood that I am in no way making excuses for what they do, but why they do it, and I believe that part of their reasoning comes from frustration with today’s world.