Jewish lawmakers threaten walk-out over reference to Jesus

A Maryland minister was barred from giving the opening prayer in the state Senate after he refused to drop a reference to Jesus.

The Rev. David N. Hughes of the Trinity and Evangelical Church of Adamstown, Md., intended to round out his invocation yesterday with the line, "In Jesus' name, Amen." But the sergeant at arms – on the orders of Senate President Thomas Mike Miller Jr. – shut the reverend out of the body's chambers.

Miller issued the orders after two Jewish lawmakers threatened to stage a boycott of the legislative session if the phrase was not removed.

"I'm shocked by the response. I've never had this happen in 26 years," Hughes told the Frederick News-Post. "It just makes me feel that they've taken away my right as an American to pray, and this is the seat of government, and that's scary."

The pastor – a Vietnam veteran – was invited to give the prayer by Republican Sen. Alex Mooney. Hughes was Mooney's fourth guest. The other three were Jewish rabbis.

Opening up legislative sessions with prayer is a longstanding tradition in Maryland, as it is in states across the country. Mooney told WorldNetDaily no one had been barred from giving an invocation before. He sees irony in yesterday's "censorship."

"We were the first state to address religious tolerance in our state charter," he told WorldNetDaily. "This just shows a lack of tolerance for peoples' religious views."

Mooney recalled numerous instances of invocations referencing Jesus throughout the four years that he has been in office.

But at the beginning of the session this year, a string of invocations by Baptist preachers invoking the name Jesus Christ sparked debate on the issue. Miller appealed to lawmakers for tolerance and urged they stick to guidelines that call for invocations to be of an ecumenical nature and respectful of all faiths.

Webster's New World Dictionary defines ecumenical as "promoting cooperation or better understanding among differing religious faiths."

Since the debate, the Senate clerk screens prayers ahead of time and flagged the written text submitted by Hughes.

When Sens. Ida Ruben and Gloria Hollinger – both of whom are Jewish – heard of the reference, they asked Mooney to strike it.

"I said, 'Hey, I'll let him pray however he wants to pray. I'm not going to censor him and tell him how he needs to pray,'" Mooney told WND.

Ruben told the Frederick News-Post she then urged Hughes to substitute "messiah" for Jesus, telling him the reference could offend non-Christians and goes against the guidelines.

"This is part of my faith," Hughes responded, according to Mooney. "The Gospel says when you pray, pray in Jesus' name."

Paradoxically, a walk-out over a Muslim cleric's prayer opening a Washington state legislative session last month backfired on one Christian lawmaker.

As WorldNetDaily reported, Rep. Lois McMahan, a Republican from Gig Harbor, Wash., refused to participate in the prayer and declared, "My god is not Muhammed."

"The Islamic religion is so ... part and parcel with the attack on America. I just didn't want to be there, be a part of that," she said in an interview with the Seattle Post Intelligencer. "Even though the mainstream Islamic religion doesn't profess to hate America, nonetheless it spawns the groups that hate America."

But a day later, McMahan apologized on the floor of the state House of Representatives amid mounting furor over her stance.

Debate over invocations is raging elsewhere in the country. As WorldNetDaily reported, several Southern California cities are grappling with threats from both sides of the issue.

Under pressure from the American Civil Liberties Union to quit using the name Jesus Christ in invocations, the city of Lake Elsinore, in Riverside County, decided to eliminate mention of "religious figures." The decree subsequently had the apparent effect of eliminating the prayer altogether, as no local pastors would accept invitations to deliver the prayer, and city councilors adopted moments of silence instead.

The ACLU contends that praying at the request of a government entity is a violation of the First Amendment's prohibition against the establishment of religion.

But the nonprofit United States Justice Foundation, which threatened to sue the city if it failed to reverse its decision, maintains telling a pastor what to pray is a violation of his First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and religion.

The notion of "separation of church and state" is derived from the dissenting opinion of the 1946 Supreme Court case Everson vs. Board of Education, which upheld a program allowing parents to be repaid from state funds for the costs of transportation to private religious schools. The court required only that the state maintain neutrality in its relations with various groups of religious believers.

"The decision in Everson does not rise to the level of being a battle cry for those who would wish to remove every vestige of religion from the public forum," USJF litigation counsel Richard Ackerman asserts.

"There's a push in this country to remove religion from society," Mooney echoed, "from the Supreme Court's decision on the Pledge to the ACLU going after all the Ten Commandments posted across the country. ... Nothing in the church-state relationship allows censorship and the removal of religious values from society."

i believe that i understand your point and you, of course, are right...sorta...but the country was founded by a bunch of Christians and we have done pretty well living according to, for the most part, the culture and traditions of Christianity...i have never and probably will never understand people who are anti-jewish...the attack on the liberty notwithstanding where as you know the jews intentionally *slaughtered* 34 members of the crew and wounded, crippled, and mangled dozens more...mostly a bunch of Christians...but yet i and most Christians support and are protective of the courageous and resourceful people of israel because we believe the jews hold a unique position within our beliefs...we must support israel because the jews and their coming and staying home is necessary to meet prophecy...so relax and be comfortable with the fact that a bunch of Christians in a country founded on Christianity and yes, God, will never fail the jews...even though we will suffer and have suffered for it...and may suffer a nuclear war as a result of our determination that the jews must stay and prosper right where they are...can you say that of any other country in the world?...all religions, even Christianity, should be allowed to, when opening a session of congress, lead prayer according to their beliefs...the objections by the jews to closing a Christian prayer with "in jesus name ...." etc. is wrong and i got a nagging feeling that you know that...wrong and yes SHAMEFUL

Yes the overcomers sing the Song of Moses which is recorded in Deuteronomy 32:

Wonder how many Christians are taught what the overcomers "Christians" will be singing?

1. "Give ear, O ye heavens, and I will speak; And hear, O earth, the words of my mouth.

2. My doctrine shall drop as the rain,
My speech shall distil as the dew,
As the small rain upon the tender herb,
And as the showers upon the grass:

3. Because I will publish the name of the LORD:
Ascribe ye greatness unto our God.

4. He is the Rock, His work is perfect:
For all His ways are judgment:
A GOD of truth and without iniquity,
Just and right is HE.

5. They have corrupted themselves, their spot is not the spot of his children:
They are a perverse and crooked generation.

6. Do ye thus requite the LORD,
O folish People and unwise?
Is not HE thy Father that hath bought thee?
Hath HE not made thee, and established thee?

7. Remember the days of old,
Consider the years of many generations:
Ask thy father, and he will shew the;
Thy elders, and they will tell thee.

8. When the MOST HIGH divided to the nations their inheritance,
When He separated the sons of Adam,
He set the bounds of the People
According to the number of the children of Israel.

9. For the LORD'S portion is His People;
Jacob is the lot of His inheritance.

10. He found him in a desert land,
And in the waste howing wilderness;
He led him about, He instructed him,
He kept him as the apple of His eye.

11. As an eagle stirreth up her nest,
Fluttereth over her young,
Spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them,
Beareth them on her wings:

12 So the LORD alone did lead him,
And there was no strange GOD with him.

13. He made him ride on the high places of the earth,
That he might eat the increase of fields;
And He made him to suck honey out of the rock,
And oil our of the flinty rock;

14. Butter of kine, and mild of sheep,
With fat of lambs,
And rams of the breed of Bashan, and goats,
With the fat of kidneys of wheat;
And thou didst drink the pure blood of the grape.

15. But Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked:
Thou are waxen fat, thou art grown thick, thou art covered with fatness;
Then he forsook GOD Which made him,
And lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation.

16. They provoked Him to jealousy with strange gods,
With abominations provoked they Him to anger.

17. They sacrificed unto devils, not to GOD:
To gods whom the knew not,
To new gods that came newly up,
Whom your fathers feared not.

18. Of the Rock That begat thee thou are unmindful,
And hast forgotten GOD That formed thee.

19. And when the LORD saw it, He abhorred them,
Because of the provoking of His sons, and of His daughters.

20. And He said, I will hide My face from them,
I will see what their end shall be:
For they are a very forward generation,
Children in whom is no faith.

21. They have moved Me to jealousy with that which is not GOD;
They have provoked Me to anger with their vanities:
And I will move them to jealousy with those which are not a People;
I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation.

22. For a fire is kindled in Mine anger,
And shall burn into the lowest hell,
And shall consume the earth with her increase,
And set on fire the foundations of the mountains.

23. I will heap mischiefs upon them;
I will spend Mine arrows upon them.

24. They shall be burnt with hunger,
And devoured with burning heat,
And with bitter destruction:
I will also send the teeth of beasts upon them.
With the poison of serpents of the dust.

25. The sword without,
And terror within,
Shall destroy both the young man and the virgin,
The suckling also with the man of gray hairs.

26. I said, I would scatter them into corners,
I would make the remembrance of them to cease from
among men:

27. Were it not that I feared the wrath of the enemy,
Lest their adversaries should behave themselves strangely,
And lest they should say, 'Our hand is high,
And the LORD hath not done all this.'

28 For they are a nation void of counsel,
Neither is there any understanding in them.

29. O that they were wise, that they understood this,
That they would consider their latter end!

30. How should one chase a thousand,
And two put ten thousand to flight,
Except their Rock had sold them,
And the LORD had shut them up?

31. For their rock is not as our ROCK,
Even our enemies themselves being judges.

32. For their vine is of the vine of Sodom,
And of the fields of Gomorrah:
Their grapes are grapes of gall,
Their clusters are bitter:

33. Their vine is the poison of dragons,
And the cruel venom of asps.

34. Is not this laid up in store with Me,
And sealed up among My treasures?

35. To ME belongeth vengeance, and recompence;
Their foot shall slide in due time:
For the day of their clamity is at hand,
And the things that shall come upon them make haste.

36. For the LORD shall judge His People,
and repent Himself for His servants,
When He seeth that their power is gone,
And there is non sut up, or left.

37. And He shall say, 'Where are their gods,
Their rock in whom they trusted,

38. Which did eat the fat of their sacrifices,
And drank the wine of their drink offerings?
Let them rise up and h elp you,
And be your protection.

39. See now that I, even I, am HE,
And there is no god with ME:
I kill, and I make alive;
I wound, and I heal:
Neither is there any that can deliver ou of My hand.

40. For I lift up My hand to heaven,
And say, I live for ever,

41. If I whet My glittering sword,
And Mine hand take hold on judgement;
I will render vengeance to Mine enemies,
And will reward them that hate Me.

42. I will make Mine arrows drunk with blood,
And My sword shall devour flesh;
And that with the blood of the slain and of the captives,
From the beginning of revenges upon the enemy.

43. Rejoice, O ye nations, with His people;
For He will avenge the blood of His servants,
And will render vengeance to His adversaries,
And will be merciful unto His land, and to His people.

Firstly, an apology: I screwed up; it should have been #431, not 415.

Secondly, I agree with everything you said.

Thirdly, you, as many frame the situation in antagonistic terms and then rightfully get offended.

At the very beginning of this thread I said that I would never walk out under the circumstances. At the same time, one can question why the minister had to insist on this partiocular prayer.

The answer to this question lies in thinking of how we have prayers on Capitol Hill and our armed forces, and yet this issue does not arize. This proves that there are plenty of prayers that do not constitute any "dilution" of Christianity.

People on this thread choose to ignore this simle fact: according to them, any prayer that does not include "int he nane of Jesus" is a dilution of Christianity. I am not a specialist in religion, but this does not look right: all the chaplains in the army and the Capitol Hill cannot be traitors to Christianity.

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