October 25, 2015 7:17 AM

If you think this sort of thing makes you a "good Christian", yer doon it rong

Christians in Texas on Tuesday called for all Killeen ISD school board meetings be opened with prayer in response to complaints from a secularist group. In August, the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) contacted the Killeen ISD Board of Trustees after a parent notified the group that a Christian prayer was used to open a recent board meeting…. “It’s important that the school district recognizes that it has minority students in the community,” FFRF attorney Sam Grover told KXXV. “Those who practice non-religion or practice a minority faith, and for that reason it should cease conducting invocations at its meetings.”…. This week, about 100 members of the Concerned Christian Citizens of Central Texas showed up to pray before Tuesday’s meeting…. “If you’re a Christian, gather in now,” Concerned Christian Citizens President Joe Goodson called to the crowd. “This looks like heaven… We are in a country that has lost its soul… We want to thank God for a school board who is willing to pray.”

I may not believe in God, but I remember enough of my Sunday School lessons to remember Matthew 6:5. In that verse, Jesus implores Christians not to be loud and showy when they pray- “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full.

Indeed, I’d submit that the “good Christians” of Killeen have received their reward in full. They’ve achieved the renown they sought, though becoming famous for religious zealotry, ignorance of the Constitution, and the willingness to force their religion on others in a secular forum probably isn’t what they had in mind.

Sorry to break it to y’all, but you don’t get to ignore the separation of Church and State merely because you find it to be inconvenient and contrary to your self-serving conviction that being a “Christian” means doing what you want where and when you want to do it. Your theology is no more or less valid than that of others, including those who (like myself) consider themselves to be good without God. A school board meeting is a public forum, not a revival meeting. Doing the public’s business has nothing to do with one’s religious beliefs. There’s a time and a place for the free exercise of one’s religious, and that’s NOT at a meeting of a governmental entity. If you want to pray, go to a church or offer your invocations in the parking lot. A school board meeting is for doing the public’s business- a public composed of those of many faith traditions. Being part of the majority religion doesn’t provide you with the right to violate the separation of Church and State.

Hypocrite much?

Goodson presented the board with a petition demanding that a prayer open all future meetings.

“We collected 2,574 signatures in a week’s time,” Goodson told the board. “We urge [the board] to resist [Freedom from Religion Foundation’s] effort in the attempt to silence or regulate your prayers.”

“Nobody’s trying to coerce anybody to pray and we’re not trying to establish a religion by praying we’re simply exercising what the Constitution says is our freedom of religion,” Goodson told KXXV. “It says that congress shall make no law that respecting and establishes a religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

Goodson could collect 10,000 signatures and it still wouldn’t change the reality that Concerned Christian Citizens of Central Texas are as much about the teachings of Jesus Christ as Ann Coulter is about acceptance, tolerance, and kindness. The self-righteousness and hypocrisy evident in Goodson’s stand displays an astonishing, epic ignorance of the values America is predicated on. This is a country originally founded by those fleeing religious persecution in their native England- yet Concerned Christian Citizens of Central Texas have no problem with attempting to force their flavor of religion on all, some of whom may not believe in their God.

There are those in Texas who believe, as stated by former Pastor/Governor Rick Perry, that freedom OF religion doesn’t mean freedom FROM religion. It’s a short step from that belief to groups like Concerned Christian Citizens of Central Texas creating a theocracy they will use to enforce their flavor of angry, muscular, intolerant “Christianity.” If that isn’t the very definition of tyranny, I don’t know what would be.

Despite Goodson’s self-serving claims, this is absolutely of coercion. His distressingly ill-informed interpretation of the 1st Amendment’s Establishment Clause is the stuff of the very tyranny and religious oppression he claims to oppose.

Remember, it’s not tyranny if YOU’RE the one doing it to others. It’s only tyranny when someone else does it to you.

Of course, if Concerned Christian Citizens of Central Texas are really all about allowing the free exercise of religion, they must be willing to allow other religions to offer prayers prior to school board meetings. Right; just imagine the outcry and voluble righteous outrage when a Muslim imam stands up to offer a prayer. This isn’t about religious freedom; it’s about the freedom of loud, showy, self-righteous Christians being allowed to practice their religion. Again, I think these hypocrites would benefit by dusting off their Bibles and reviewing Matthew 6:5.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation may not be very popular in Killeen, but they’re not the problem. Far from it. It’s Concerned Christian Citizens of Central Texas who are subverting the Constitution by attempting to enforce the free exercise of THEIR religion in a public forum. FFRF is merely standing up for the separation of Church and State, which Goodson has chosen to ignore and is what prevents America from becoming a theocracy. The day Goodson’s religion begins to mesh with and become the State is the day Americans begin to learn what true tyranny is.

WE DESERVE BETTER.

blog comments powered by Disqus

Technorati

Technorati search

» Blogs that link here

About this Entry

This page contains a single entry by Jack Cluth published on October 25, 2015 7:17 AM.

Christian values: Not what you think they're supposed to be was the previous entry in this blog.

Why Republicans hate women is the next entry in this blog.

Find recent content on the main index or look in the archives to find all content.

Contact Me

Powered by Movable Type 6.0.8