Posted: 8/31/07
Texas Baptist Forum
Moment of silence
The story about the “moment of silence” law in public schools (Aug. 20) is simply not believable. Every honest person knows the real motivation for such a requirement: It is an obvious and unconstitutional backdoor attempt to inject religion into the public schools.
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 “Children rarely embrace spiritual principles and practices that their parents fail to demonstrate in their lifestyle.” George Barna Religion-trends reseacher (BP) “Now that reading has become more difficult, I probably read the Bible less but pray more. Of course, over the years, I’ve memorized many passages from the Bible, and I’m especially thankful now that I did this. I wish we gave more attention to Bible memorization in our churches today.” “Watching one of your own children die is horrible, and many people in Africa have experienced that. Equal to that is knowing you are going to die and not being able to care for your children. This is why women in the U.S. are getting so involved in AIDS. We can look at women in Africa and realize they are just like us.” |
The common-sense remedy for a situation like this is not proper and thorough training for teachers. The solution is as Jesus commanded in Matthew 6:5-6. Apparently, what Jesus commanded is not sufficient for Texas.
Public school teachers can teach students about all of the religions of the world, but they have no business explaining anything about “prayer” to their students. “Prayer” is understood by all as a matter of religion, and it is dishonest to assert otherwise.
Gene Garman
Pittsburg, Kan.
ATMs in church
I had to laugh when I read Chuck Mann’s letter to the editor (Aug. 20.) He asks, “What would Jesus do if he walked into your church and saw an ATM?”
My thought was, “What would Jesus do if he walked into any of our churches?”
Ken Ansell
Waxahachie
Who’s uninsured?
Karen Wood appears to be surprised by the number of uninsured Texans (Aug. 20). Nowhere does she mention the millions of illegal aliens who are uninsured by choice. They simply have no need for insurance, because they all know that the rest of us will take care of their medical needs.
I know from experience in the field as an Internal Revenue Service officer that the government estimate of 11 million illegal aliens is a total fabrication. The number is probably closer to 18 million. The government is simply unaware of so many of them.
Van Kleiner
Dallas
Embarrassing events
What has gotten into the Southern Baptist Convention leadership lately? It’s bad enough that Paige Patterson insults women both verbally and by establishing a dumbed-down seminary degree loaded with home economics courses. But now the recent second vice president of the convention, Wiley Drake, calls for “imprecatory prayer”—curses—against personnel of the Americans United for Separation of Church and State because they asked the IRS to see if his endorsements of Mike Huckabee for U.S. president are illegal (Aug. 20).
“Let there be no one to extend mercy to him,” Drake says, quoting Scripture. “Neither let there be anyone to favor his fatherless children.”
Doesn’t Drake remember the outcry when Ayatollah Khomeini invoked a fatwah against Salmon Rushdie? Can’t he recall Jesus saying, “Love your enemies, do good to them that hate you, bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you” (Luke 6:27b-28)?
Why didn’t Drake simply inform his congregation of his position with regard to his statements instead of enlisting them in a bizarre negative prayer campaign? Why do these embarrassments keep occurring?
Dolan McKnight
Richardson
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