Pilgrims is the name commonly applied to early settlers of the Plymouth Colony in present-day Massachusetts. Their leadership came from a religious congregation who had fled a volatile political environment in the East Midlands of England for the relative calm of Holland in the Netherlands. Concerned with losing their cultural identity, the group later arranged with English investors to establish a new colony in North America…Their story has become a central theme in United States cultural identity. [wiki]
This country was born because people desired the freedom to worship their God in their own way. To me, that is so American.
To have the freedom to be yourself, to be entitled to respect, to experience tolerance instead of persecution…these are the central themes with which I define my American identity.
What else is American? E pluribus unum. Out of many, one. One cultural identity, comprised of hundreds of influences, origins and traditions. If you take a step back and ponder it, America seems like a miraculous idea; you start to respect the safeguards put in place to protect people. One of the most significant? The separation between church and state. This is where things get complicated, but that’s not a bad thing. Everyone is complicated, why should we expect our nations not to be? Yes, there are religious words on money and everyone knows that there is a Judeo-Christian foundation to a lot of what is considered American…but there is also respect for other ideas. Or at least, there should be. At the very least, there should be the freedom for others to worship their God, in their own way, no matter what you or I think about it. There should be mutual respect. There should be.
A Hindu clergyman made history Thursday by offering the Senate’s morning prayer, but only after police officers removed three shouting protesters from the visitors’ gallery.
Rajan Zed, director of interfaith relations at a Hindu temple in Reno, Nev., gave the brief prayer that opens each day’s Senate session. As he stood at the chamber’s podium in a bright orange and burgundy robe, two women and a man began shouting ”this is an abomination” and other complaints from the gallery.
Police officers quickly arrested them and charged them disrupting Congress, a misdemeanor. The male protester told an AP reporter, ”we are Christians and patriots” before police handcuffed them and led them away. [NYT]
No, you are Christians and fools. Way to make Team Jesus look awful, as you misrepresent everything that the man stood for and preached.
For several days, the Mississippi-based American Family Association has urged its members to object to the prayer because Zed would be ”seeking the invocation of a non-monotheistic god.” [NYT]
Yes, because the prayer he offered was SO offensive to actual Christians, agnostics or those who have been touched by a noodly appendage:
Zed, the first Hindu to offer the Senate prayer, began: ”We meditate on the transcendental glory of the Deity Supreme, who is inside the heart of the Earth, inside the life of the sky and inside the soul of the heaven. May He stimulate and illuminate our minds.”
As the Senate prepared for another day of debate over the Iraq war, Zed closed with, ”Peace, peace, peace be unto all.” [NYT]
Let me tell you something about what that Uncle said– it was far kinder and more welcoming than a lot of what I heard in Catholic school, especially if the Pope was involved. For shame. Perhaps the most offensive aspect of his spiritual offering was its emphasis on peace?
Zed, who was born in India, was invited by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. Speaking in the chamber shortly after the prayer, Reid defended the choice and linked it to the war debate.
”If people have any misunderstanding about Indians and Hindus,” Reid said, ”all they have to do is think of Gandhi,” a man ”who gave his life for peace.”
”I think it speaks well of our country that someone representing the faith of about a billion people comes here and can speak in communication with our heavenly Father regarding peace,” said Reid, a Mormon and sharp critic of President Bush’s Iraq policies. [NYT]
As several of you pointed out via email, news tab and flaming arrow, THIS is the money quote:
Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said the protest ”shows the intolerance of many religious right activists. They say they want more religion in the public square, but it’s clear they mean only their religion.” [NYT]
What these Jesus-freaks are forgetting is that Christ was a man of peace. He didn’t surround himself with the pious and faux-righteous; he called those people out, as he deliberately and controversially chose to befriend the lowest of the low, tax collectors, prostitutes and the like. Was there ever a better example of tolerance in the Christian faith?
As I bitterly read the articles about this troubling, hurtful incident, I am reminded of those who persecuted Jesus, for what they perceived as his “blasphemy”. Two thousand years later, some of his so-called followers have become so drunk off of hate and fundamentalism, they cannot see straight, they cannot grasp that if this were two millenia ago, Jesus would be the man in the orange robe and they, they would be the hypocrites who attacked him and then cheered at his suffering.
i’m curious. has an indigenous native american ever been allowed to say a native american prayer (meaning invoking native american spirits and Gods) in the u.s. senate or congress? what about somewhere like hawaii?
Is the glass half full, or half empty? You and I both know, for different reasons, that no one is really color, culture blind etc. As I’ve given my biases already- you and I will probably not agree. We’ve had a similar dialogue before I think. Usually I’m seeking civility and an even chance, rather or not someone really sees me as a ‘first class American’ or not, is something I may joke about online- but at the end of the day, I’m probably not going to have to much interaction w/ someone who privately holds those views- so how much time/brain cells do I want to spend on it/him? Its unfortunately,disgracful even, the hecklers at the prayer behaved the way they did, yes America should be held to a higher standard. Yes its great that so many erudite people bring so many views to this blog, in all of that I see progress. Full on 100% acceptance of all people,ideas,lifestyles without discrimination I think is an ideal- that some people may strive for. Given our views on what is acceptable will vary… its a slow process.
dilettante, I think I’m being very dumb (let’s blame the Friday evening), but I didn’t get this statement (except for the part about HMF being grumpy ;-). Can you explain? That way, we can also make sure to extract the last living breath out of the joke.
I think it’s worth keeping in mind that the historical Jesus himself was probably brown, and might well have been black, as we understand the term today in the North American racial context. And that may well go for Moses and a few more of the OT prophets.
I find the discussion here is polarizing along false dichotomies and categories, and plenty of unnecessary animus is being generated.
For example, as Anna herself has described it @7, the Greek (or more generally Eastern) Orthodox version of Christianity – both in theology and practice – comes extremely close to the mainstream accepted version of Hinduism. Both the inside and the outside of Eastern Churches looks more ‘familiar’, for lack of a better word than Catholic or Protestant churches. Also, I remember listening to Orthodox liturgical chants once – and felt not only how uplifting and spiritual they sounded – but also how much they sounded just like Sanskrit chants. I’ve always wanted to hear them again since then – though I’ve forgotten whether they were in Serbian, Russian or even Lithuanian. When you think about it, this should not seem entirely coincidental or surprizing – the spiritual traditions that influenced the evolution of Eastern Christianity and Vedic Hinduism must have arisen in geographically proximate areas, with substantial linguistic and cultural overlap.
The fundamentalist version of Protestant Christianity that is most prevalent in America today – must sometimes seem quite strange in its theology and practice to those raised in the Orthodox faith, no less than it does to someone raised Hindu. I would even say, that those raised Hindu and raised Eastern Orthodox will find much that is similar in their traditions, if only they stopped to explore the similarities. And this is something to make common cause around, not generate unnecessary antagonism over.
Thank you, Anna, for opening our eyes to all of this.
If i were a sm post i would be plenty jealous now.
For example, as Anna herself has described it @7, the Greek (or more generally Eastern) Orthodox version of Christianity – both in theology and practice – comes extremely close to the mainstream accepted version of Hinduism.
I suspect that most Orthodox theologians not muzzled by political correctness would find your claim that Orthodox Christianity and Hinduism share a common provenance to be laughable at best and Satanic at worst.
The Russian Orthodox church is openly calling for the extirpation of Hindus and Hindu institutions in Russia. One Bishop Nikon called Hindu deities Satanic abominations.
Also, those of the Orthodox faith can be just as fanatical as anyone else. Christopher Hitchens notes that Greek and other Orthodox “believers fought alongside their Serbian brethren in the anti-Muslim genocide in Bosnia. They wore the sign of the Cross and cleansed in the name of the One True God.
the gushing about pilgrims and the good ol us of a at the beginning of the post, in addition to being goofy, is completely inaccurate. Early settlers in Plymouth had no sense of “religious tolerance.” If you did not susbcribe to their harsh Calvinism, you were killed or sent off to Rhode Island. Furthermore, those people never thought of themselves as American and had nothing to do with writing a secular constitution. They did stop being “English,” and thought of themselves as simply not having a country, taking the term from Hebrews 11:13, admitting that they were strangers and pilgrims on earth.
Furthermore, Zed’s prayer was stupid as all hell (inside the soul of heaven?), and Jesus said he came with the sword and there was nothing peaceful about him.
I’ve skipped over the majority of comments, but I was more curious to see what the extreme conservative base thinks: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1864949/posts http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1864775/posts
Here’s “nice” version of some of the posts:
Now, I know that this seems like just an extreme sub-group of people in the US. The unfortunate problem is that there a good number of people, while not mean, racist, or extremist are simply ignorant of other cultures; and that ignorance has been fostered for the past decade or so in our mainstream media. I bet you couldn’t even get most of the leading Presidential contender’s to tell you what the differences or similarities are;
.
How does he know that his grandfather did not want to be reborn a cow? There’s nothing more satisfying than providing a nice, satisfying meal for your loved ones
Brownout, I think that freerepublic.com is useful for only either one or both of two things: 1) bringing on fits of irrepressible laughter 2) inciting pure misanthropic thought
“How does he know that his grandfather did not want to be reborn a cow? There’s nothing more satisfying than providing a nice, satisfying meal for your loved ones”
the fact that he thinks his grandfather has been reborn as a cow and not another human being says what he thinks of his grandfather (given the humans are best hierarchy he undoubtedly believes in).
wow- before the thread gets shut down—any moment now, I can ‘feel’ it- Rahul #403 I’m no good at being funny, I was trying to say I have “the hots” for you, HMF(currently rescinded), and several others on this blog- for your intellectual finer points of course.
No way, you’ll find me much more like this or sometimes even this.
Wait a minute, the term ‘Jesusland’ has nothing to do with the historical figure Jesus, his true origins and true beliefs. It has to do with the hijacking of his message by evangelicals, Jerry Falwells and those like our distinguished guests in the senate.
I think it’s worth keeping in mind that the historical Jesus himself was probably brown
I’m guessing he looked Semitic–just a wild guess.
HMF, I hadn’t misunderstood the sense in which ‘Jesusland’ was being used. It still makes sense to keep the larger picture in mind.
And Rob, for once I hadn’t used ‘brown’ to mean ‘South Asian’ exclusively, though since you bring it up, there are theories that he indeed might have been South Asian. That your ‘guess’ was he was ‘Semitic’ does not exclude him being brown – there are lots of brown-skinned people in the area from which ‘Semites’ are drawn.
Revelations ch. 1 vs 14-15:
“His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire; And his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters.”
In the very next sentence in the wiki which cites these lines from Revelation, it also does say:
And elsewhere the same article also says:
I won’t be able to add anything more to this tonight. Might respond later if the thread is still alive then.
he most likely had swarthy skin, resembling modern-day persons of Middle Eastern descent
Yeah, i.e., Semitic–this is a non-issue–who is arguing otherwise–not Swedish, not African, not South Asian.
Pondatti,
After reading the above comment by C’est Moi, I can say, you were right.
Really? Hindus think people become cows after dying? I mean I know the cow is considered the inspiration for the world or some such thing (in the original Latin sense of the word inspire), but the Free Republic guy has been misinformed by a rather literal reading of the Gita, or the Vedas or whatever. I will refrain from further jokes about eating burgers, or knock-knock cow jokes. I would think that there are worse things to be reborn as, if rebirth is at question here at all. I always tell myself that if I’m good, I will not be reborn as a television or a link to a 404 error message.
Here’s a link from Craigslist on religion and the founding fathers of this country.
In the words of Chris Rock “A black man is good enough to steal your Tv but not good enough to save your soul.” Folks are scared to death of a black Jesus.
Furthermore, Zed’s prayer was stupid as all hell (inside the soul of heaven?), >>
So gayatri mantra is stupid…
No one is immune from persecution if you are in the minority, not even Christians.
http://chron.com/disp/story.mpl/life/religion/4966836.html
Gee Dubliner, While the Graham Stewart Staines murder was indeed heinous, the main suspect has been awarded the death sentence (later commuted to life). But I am sure all Christian oppressors recieve harsh sentences. Lets see, 1) Catholic complicity in the Rwandan massacre http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_Genocide 2) Catholics and the Nazi regime http://www.amazon.com/Catholic-Church-Nazi-Germany/dp/0306809311 3) Catholic Church and the Mafia http://www.amazon.com/Vatican-Exposed-Money-Murder-Mafia/dp/1591020654 4) Catholic Church and Mussolini http://www.amazon.com/Vatican-Exposed-Money-Murder-Mafia/dp/1591020654 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism#Fascism_and_the_Roman_Catholic_Church 5) Hyd Kid beaten for wearing Kumkum in a Christian school http://in.news.yahoo.com/061221/211/6ah6z.html 6) Child sex abuse in the Catholic Church. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Catholic_sex_abuse_cases
But of course,they have been punished,I was under a rock for so many years,silly me.
More on these three Christian “activists” http://community.livejournal.com/dark_christian/
I could go on and on,but you get the point,hopefully. So following your logic any Catholic anywhere is fair game, since some Catholics and bigoted towards Hindus and others right? If you believe that Hindus should not protest due to Graham Stewart Staines,then Christians should not protest when they are burned and killed due to the numerous sins of the Catholic church right? How stupid does that sound now? Guess logic is never a strong point of fundementalists. When all these people are punished, you may then talk about Graham Stewart Staines.
Many Pan Africanists assert that Jesus was black by tracing his lineage back to Egypt. Possible.
More likely that Moses was a black man, being that “history” proves him to have been born in Egypt.
The Ethiopian Orthodox Church is the oldest Orthodox Church and they follow the old customs and traditions. Some cite this as evidence for Jesus’s blackness.
Furthermore, they also assert that South India (the tip) has connections with Ethiopia.
Best evidence that Jesus was a black man? He was wrongly executed.
And he was born out of wedlock. Ouch!
Joking people, joking.
Lighten up, will ya?
Nowhere in Gita does it say all humans will be reborn as cows and that that is a sign of good fortune.
It simply states that one’s consciousness at the time of death will determine one’s destination in the next.
Cows are respected in Hindu culture because they are a pyscho-sociological symbol of an agricultural society that depended on cows (and bulls) for their livelihoond and maintainance.
The cow is seen as “mother” because she provides milk for humans (from which we make yogurt, sandesh, etc) her whole life. Thus just as we do not kill human mothers once their breasts cease to provide milk for their infants, we also do not kill old cows once they cease to provide milk for us. Out of respect for their service, we take care of them. That is the theory. We do not worship them as Creator God. We do go-puja, puja or offering incense around the cow, as a sign of respect and appreciation, like we do to guests when they come to the house for first time.
In english however, “worship” has only one conotation. Hence the misunderstanding.
They also serve an important function in Indian democracy by chewing political posters off walls in time for the next election cycle. The question about their specific political leanings, and whether they exhibit any anti-incumbency factor is still open, though.
PG (or GP, your current handle), are, by any chance, in the business of writing lyrics for Tamil film songs? This gem, from the canon of SooperStar, compares humans unfavorably to cows, asking:
If I give it grass, it will give me milk Are you of that same ilk?
(Hmm, maybe I should be in the subtitling business).
Hmmm. Came late to the discussion and it has taken an odd turn. What is Christ’s lineage anyway? The begats only tell the male line, and supposedly he didn’t even inherit that. But you don’t really need to confine your musings to speculation–there were no portraits of Jesus himself, (though a supposed Roman description is in the Vatican archives describing Jesus’ hair as lightened by the sun on top and posessing a darker, more “oriental” hue further down, that he has good teeth, is often seen to smile but never to laugh and a few other points that escape me–can’t remember color, though something about “parchment colored” seems right; but the authenticity of this document is uncertain) but there is nothing to indicate he was in any way drastically different from other Jews of the area. While the ancient Jews had laws against image making, conquering Greeks and Romans had no qualms at all, and they influenced art in the Levant. There are ruins of a synagogue in Israel (don’t ask me to give chapter & verse), with a mosaic of the zodiac featuring humans to symbolize the signs. The images could be of people living there today. One would imagine they Saul down the street to pose, etc. http://www.netours.com/jrs/2003/Hammat-Tib.htm
The prophets of the major religions come from areas that were global crossroads even in ancient times. Most of the sub-Saharan African genes found in the middle east area are mitochondrial and seem to mostly have entered into the region in the last 2500 years. htp://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12629598&dopt=Citation, and have been found more in the Arab than non-Arab groups. I am not sure how the Jews differed from what later came to be called “Arabs” in those days, since they supposedly all descend from the same tribes, for whatever that is worth.
I was born in India and grew up there, in all spending about 18 years of my life in India. I grew up in a Christian family that could trace its roots to followers of Christ from about 60AD – before Christianity reached the UK! I’m proud of my Indian heritage but much more proud of my familial link to Jesus Christ.
In the past few years I’ve heard more and more about how members of my own family and friends have been physically and emotionally abused (some beaten to a pulp) for their faith in Jesus Christ in ‘peaceful’ India. My Dad faced death threats because of his faith in Christ even though he built orphanages. The news media in the west have been largely oblivious to these incidents except for the case of Graham Staines who was burnt to death along with his two children while they slept in a village in Orissa – because of his faith in Jesus Chris – in ‘tolerant’ India.
The gurus on this blog and its posts seem to have largely grown up in America with a rose tinted, bollywood flavored, view of the motherland. Wake up! India is a great and glorious country, but it is increasingly intolerant and bigoted.
You love the freedom to think and express yourselves in a nation that was founded on Christian values. Yet you get yourselves up in arms against 3, three, count them, Christians who protest against a Hindu prayer. They didn’t sneak up on Zed in a cowardly way and burn him and his kids to a ghastly death, even though Zed never cared for lepers in this country like Graham Staines did. You are a bunch of lousy, lazy hypocrites who use your privilege to ignore those who are deprived of these.
God is not a conjecture of convenience that fits your mold. By definition He gets to define Himself, we don’t! And the God of the Bible told us clearly that the path to Him leads through Jesus Christ alone. That’s not intolerant, it’s loving.
Jesus follower, thanks for the love, man! We love you too.
Rahul,
Thanks for the ‘love’ your types have given my family and friends in India. They still bear the scars
What are my types? Just curious so I can self identify myself for future.
The ‘types’ that call Christians fools while living in a country that was built on their values and turning a blind eye to how people of other faiths are treated by your own
Oh, I didn’t mean to quote your sentence on India. I agree with it in its entirety. Sarcasm aside, I agree with your point, although your tarring the readership of this blog, or the unrelated proselytization, advances the cause of your very legitimate point. That’s all I was calling you out on.
Thanks for trying to call me on it, I appreciate it. However, proselytization is an escape hatch word when one doesn’t want to engage in a genuine search for truth. If you passionately believe in your version of the truth why would you take such route?
Jesus Follower, you might do well to read some of my and others’ comments above (despite the large volume, and lots of rambling) on this thread, before going on a drumbeat of the glory of America’s Christian heritage, or why the atrocities in India preclude people from being upset about this behavior. There’s plenty of historical blame to go around everywhere, but that’s neither here not there, in my opinion.
Independent of all that, I am very sorry to hear about your family, and I hope no harm comes to them. I am personally ashamed of the increasing frenzy of the Hindutva movement in India, and how its thoughts and ideals infect even the educated people of the middle class who, I would have hoped, know better.
I don’t know what not inflicting violence on other people, or allowing them to express their views, has anything to do with a “genuine search for truth”. That is an ethical value on which sane people of more than one religion can agree. In any case, I will stop now before I start sounding like a national integration ad.
None of my comments were intended to portray ‘America’s glorious heritage’ or ‘Christianity’s’ for that matter. Christians are just the same as anyone else, they mess up and sin miserably, and I would say I rank pretty high on the lousy sinner scale myself. The reason that I was a little ticked off by the lead article and especially its title is that people with an India background have no business bashing the expression of American Christian faith without taking a good long look at how Christians in India are muzzled and killed. On that, most ethical people would agree.
Jesus follower,
Murderers of any religious background need to be dealt with severely.
However, this entry is about the Senate, and the inappropriate behaviour that happened there one day during a perfectly legal and constitutionally supported event.
Whether or not “prayer” of any kind should be going on in the Senate is a matter of discussion.
As tax-paying, contributing citizens of America, anybody, whether white, black, BROWN, or blue has a right to voice their opinion on the matter, no matter what country their parents or grand-parents immigrated from, or even if their great-great grandparents were brought over here by force as slaves.
Yes, even the descendents of slaves have a right to voice their opinion in this country. We are tax paying citizens here now too. Get used to the idea.
Jesus follower, insofar as the motivations of the event being discussed are unrelated to what’s happening in India, I disagree.
I do think the article struck the author personally as she’s an American Christian. Don’t know that I have much more to say on this, good luck, man!
In John 14:6 Jesus said: Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
The author said:
Christian?
I’m an Indian-American Hindu.
You are telling me that I have no right to voice an opinion on this matter even though a huge percentage of my income goes to my government in the form of taxes?
There are now literally millions of Indian-American citizens in this country, many of them Hindu.
Are you telling me that the government whom we pay taxes to has no obligation to respect our religious choice just as much as yours?
If it wasnt for Christianity’s emphasis on conversion and the often sneaky methods they have gone to to convert people both through persuasion and forcible methods, as well as through violence, both in historical times and today, I don’t think the situation in India would have reached such extremes. Violence is never justified but I for one take issue when thousands of villagers are converted to Christianity without understanding what that even means. They are just told to “accept Jesus or go to Hell” with graphic descriptions of hell and hellfire.
Personally I find Christianity ridiculous. And the derisive terms they use to describe Hindu’s and their “cow worshipping” just shows their feeble intellects, total lack of respect for other ways of thinking, and the fear based bullying their “religion” seems to espouse. Living in harmony with nature and giving thanks (aka “worshipping”) those elements of existence that have been good to you is not the same thing as idolatry and having false gods and worshipping cows. I come from an indian family and I experienced the pujas and rituals as basically celebrations of different aspects of life, and any kindergartener can understand that the different “idols” worshippped are just symbolic representations of different aspects of divinity or “divine qualities” that we aspire to connect with. It is so much more subtle and nuanced than rabid Christians could ever comprehend.
As for the person who’s family was descended from Jesus….that was probably a nice story (much like the Bible) some ancestor made up along the way in order to feel justified as a Christian even though he might have been freshly converted. Jesus wasa great guy, but india is no stranger to saints like him and why fixate and obsess over one dude and think you are superior because you advertise yourself as from his Klan. jesus is probably rolling in his grave at what his religion has turned into.
This thread has been a great advertisement for all religions. I think I can just publish a one-line book with a link to this post, unlike those prolix tree-haters, Hitchens and Dawkins.
Hindu Citizen
I am telling you to make sure that your brazen demand for respect is not hypocritical. And just maybe you should give a thought to why those millions of Hindus rushed out of India to come here in the first place 😉
How the hell is it hypocritical to expect my constitutional rights to be respected by my own government? Whatever is going on India, and whoever is doing it, has nothing to do with what is going on in the country that I am a tax paying citizen of.
Take it up with her priest, not the rest of us. Your comments are off-topic, intolerant and anti-secular; thus, they are clear violations of our comment policy. Consider this your first warning.
You don’t get to judge if she meets your “standards for Christianity”, that would be another violation.
This post is not about India or Graham Staines. This post is about a Hindu prayer opening the senate. THAT is the subject we are discussing and it has to do with America, which is the origin and prime focus of this blog. All of the bloggers were born and raised here. They pay taxes here. Graham Staines and persecuted members of your family, tragic as their stories are, are not germane to the discussion.
Any more off topic comments will be deleted.
ganesha loves modakas:
I agree that agreeing to your fundamental beliefs takes some comprehension which is exactly why the Dalits (those ignorant villagers that you speak of) processed the fact that they were being treated as sub-human for centuries by really nuanced people like yourself.