...at most? He believes in the God Who can heal our land when we acknowledge Him and request His guidance. In the end, we will all have to make up our own minds as to whether or not God will answer Gov. Rick Perry's requests for wisdom and healing as he led roughly 30,000 people in prayer in Texas this month. We will all have to discern if his walk matches his talk--if his words are more than rhetoric based on principles or his principles form his words to honor our Creator. Each will need to consider whether his words are to win and woo voters, or reveal his own integrity, and dependence upon a Holy God.
His critics can whine and fuss all they want, but I am of the opinion that whatever else Rick Perry does in this nation as a leader, he did the best thing any government leader can do. He prayed. He called on Americans to seek God's guidance with our broken government and economic chaos. He sought Divine intervention to bring America back to a nation that thrives and achieves goals set before her to help ourselves and ultimately...other nations in the world.
Every time a person, be it a state legislator, or a President in the Oval Office emphasizes faith in their life, they are ridiculed and chastized. What do these critics fear? A God of mercy, grace and love? A God of protection and provision? In America, people are allowed to worship in freedom, without fear of persecution. That includes our leaders. Unfortunately, in the last few years, cultural voices seem poised to eliminate as much public mention of God, Jesus and Christian faith as possible.
Today I saw a report of a high school principal who organized a prayer meeting over the summer. He simply invited a group of educators and parents to come together to pray for God's protection and wisdom to lead the children in the year to come. It was not mandated. It had no students to persuade. It was an invitation. Is this a violation of church and state? Seems to me, the state violates his right to free assembly, free speech and freedom of religion if they prohibit such. But that's me. Just because a minority of people decide we cannot have prayer in schools, can't teach students that the laws that rule our land come directly from the moral laws of the Ten Commandments, doesn't make it the correct interpretation of the law of separation of church and state.
Considering all the schools which have had children brandishing guns, knives and other weapons to wipe out entire classrooms, it seems it behooves us to pray. We need to enlist every help available at our disposal. Including and foremost the Sovereign. No school is exempt, even schools of faith, as attested by the recent Memphis murder of a principal by a seventeen year-old student just three days after opening(/link) .
It's odd when one thinks about how schools are limited and prohibited from mentioning God today. It's okay for federal and state employees to take time off for religious holidays, and okay for the citizens to pay their salaries, but it is not okay for employees (and in most cases, students), to proclaim for Whom the holiday is celebrated.
Critics of religion in general, and Christianity in specifics, deny the very principles upon which our country was founded. They think the moral laws imposed upon its citizens came from the secularized minds of supposed atheists, agnostics, and diests. However, for years the institution which turned out many of our presidents and legistlators, taught Biblical principles as a means for governing and thinking of justice and law. I offer the example below an original rule from Harvard Law School in 1636:
Oh, to have rules like this honored in our colleges today--especially those which mold and manipulate the minds of future legislators and leaders of this country. Americans are tired of teleprompted speeches filled with false hope. Americans are fed up with polished politicians and legislators who have no principles, who are afraid to mention their faith, and who submit to the money-changers, and the ever-changing popularity of polls. Folks are fed up with leaders who do not listen, but dictate. They need someone willing to be humble enough to trust in God, and recognize, as the early founders of Harvard, "to lay Christ in the bottom, as the only foundation of all sound knowledge and learning." Many might not know it. But they need someone like that...whether it is candidate in the running now, or not. Whether God raises up someone like that to help us remains to be seen. At least I can pray. selahV
