.
Well, the key words are "thanks" and "offer".
So, it is a prayer of giving thanks to God for all that he offers to all people.
But the things is , it never once mentions this.... "through Christ Jesus, OUR Lord and Savior.
And so...... that prayer is a generic one.... one that is said to ALL religions, and people.
Sounds a bit like a Unitarian one to me.
Some people do use those types of prayers when they are speaking to a "variety" of people within the group.
Is it Biblical? Let me ask you this. We, as Christians use the old testament also, as did Jesus.... So, If a person takes claim to being a Jew, is it biblical?
After all, It is a prayer of thank to God for "offereing" those things to all people.
OKAY, NOW while I was typing this reply you added more to consider and totally changed the gist of the prayer....
To add the author celebrated Ramadan in a peacemaking attempt to show Muslims we are there brothers. Yet he claims to be Christian. He is taking away the death and ressurection of Christ in his teachings and is opening the way for others to believe there is another way to the father.
I agree. This is denying Christ by saying "participating" in celebrating what another religion considers as being one of their holy days. And to say that they are brothers in doing so is blasphamy against the Holy Spirit of Christ Jesus. And yes, he IS using "interfaith" type inclusion. To seperate church and state means the "government" is to not interfere with anyone elses religion, it doesn't mean to deny them of their religious rights. (that is, as long as these religions do not have intent to cause harm to anyone. )
So, IF this man is truly of
an "'INTERFAITH" type religion then he is not in violation of the United States Constitution. What other countries Constitutions say about religion, I don't know.
But if it is someone who is
a United States Politician doing this.... and I think you are referring to Obama... then,
consider the following...
AS a politician that is, laying aside religious bias (yes people has ever right ot be biased in their beliefs) ... then, he is doing nothing wrong. .
AS "proclaimed "interfaith" type Christian, he is not doing anything wrong according to his religions "doctrines".
HOWEVER,
as a Christian who does not practice or believe in the "interfaith" teachings...
THEN YES,
he is not in proper form for giving such a speech.
But again... I must ask this same question as I did above....IF it were a Jew giving such a "speech" it a varied audience, then ask is it biblical?
I think it being generic (without including that bit about celebrating the Ramadan with the Muslims) then the "prayer" is okay.
But as soon as you included that fact that the prayer was follwed by an inclusion of celebrating WITH the Muslims what they call one of their holy days....AND the person gving the prayer claims to be Christian who is NOT of the "interfaith" "demonination" (yes it's a denomination, even though these people claim it is not) ... And I don't believe these people are true to the bible anyway... so my final answer after determining all those factors in this case.... is
NO it is not biblical IF this person is celebrating another religions holy day with them.
The bible warns us of paganism.....of honoring other 'gods' and of practicing 'false' religion(s) .
May I have your ATTENTION please?
Udated to make corrections- Please Notice that:
[snipped]
... I snipped out the part where I wrote about Obama and Black Liberation Theology (wrongly thinking the prayer was spoken by him) because upon a second look at the OP I now see that prayer was spoken by a Brian McLaren who according to wkipedia is "Brian D. McLaren is a prominent, controversial voice in the emergent church movement" But mind you, that doesn't deter off of what I wrote about the various factors that were considered in my posting.
[ end explaining why I snipped part of my posting][/size]
Here is a statement I found made by Pat Robertson. (I know some people don't like him, but what he presents here IS TRUTH, and I think it says much about part of what this thread is about... that is...including other religions as if they are "equal" and are 'brothers'. As if their religious teachings are not any different? I hardly think they are equal let alone brothers of the same God as are Christians who follow after the teachings of JHVH GD and through Christ Jesus.
[Quote from cbn.com]
Under no circumstances is Jehovah, the God of the Bible, and Allah, of the Koran, the same. First of all, the God of the Bible is a God of love and redemption, who sent His Son into the world to die for our sins. Allah tells people to die for him in order to get salvation, but there is no understanding of salvation. Allah was the moon god from Mecca. That is why Islam has the crescent moon. The flag of Turkey has a crescent moon with a star in it. Well, the crescent moon is because Allah was the moon god, and that is the deal. But we don't serve a moon god. We serve the God of creation, the Creator of everything.
They are not the same. To translate Allah as God is wrong. When you see something in there and it says Allah, you translate it Allah. Don't call it God because it is different. God is Elohim. He is the Creator, the Jehovah God, Yahweh. Yahweh of the Old Testament was the Father who brought forth Jesus into the world.
[end quote]
Oh YOY!!!! , AND EVEN NOW I NOTICE...
that below this posting that I came to edit because of noticing who actually gave that speech, I NOW NOTICE that
jason brought it to our attention that the word "sexually" is included in that speech! I did NOT notice that before....
Ed, Did you add more to the speech that was left out of it before? Because really, I DID NOT notice that word to be there originally..... I must not have had enough coffee this morning before I started to read. Sheesh! :o
And really! with that one word, "
sexually", being in the speech, now that totally makes it wrong. But really even without that in the speech what I wrote above still stands.... and that being that even though I considered those various factors.....
it still makes the speech out of line with the Judeo Christian standards of BIBLICAL perspective.
Is there anything else that I may have missed?
.
This is urgent folks! We all need to get off our butts and help stamp out this movement before it grows like some horrendous weed that was neglected in your very own back yard!
I will do my part in helping to expose him and his cohorts even further!!!! The more people read about them and what they preach the more people will stay away from them.
