That big national interdemoninational national prayer breakfast — the one covered nationally with comments by President George Bush — apparently ruffled some feathers due some organizers being unable to resist hailing their own religion.
From The Jewish Week:
At the invitation of his congressman, Rabbi Shmuel Goldin of Congregation Ahavath Torah in Englewood, N.J., traveled to Washington last week for the annual National Prayer Breakfast, billed as a nondenominational national event.
But according to Rabbi Goldin, the event was anything but nondenominational.
In fact, what he called the overtly Christian content of the breakfast left Rabbi Goldin shocked. “It was basically a Jesus love-fest,” he said.
Is he overreacting? Is he unable to tolerate the fact that another religion was mentioned? No, not entirely…It turns out some folks didn’t show much respect for other religions. Read THIS:
Rabbi Goldin cited an information packet given to participants that said, “Jesus Christ transcends all religions! Judaism, Islam. Buddhism, Hinduism. He is greater than all these, including Christianity. Religions are the inventions of men. Jesus transcends religion because he is the incarnation of all that is true, good, loving, gentle, tender, thoughtful, caring, courteous and selfless.”
“I looked at this material and my hair stood on end,” Rabbi Goldin said. “I debated whether to go to the breakfast, but I decided to see what was going on, and I was dismayed.”
He said President George W. Bush was the only speaker aside from Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.)… who did not “mention Christianity in any way.”
Some thoughts here (and let me know in the comments if I am wrong):
- Whoever wrote that needs to undergo what used to be called “sensitivity training.” Granted, if you read it closely the thesis of the handout is that Jesus transcends all religions, EVEN Christianity. But that doesn’t negate dismay felt by a rabbi when he reads in an official info pack that someone of another religion is proclaiming theirs is better.
- If it’s an interdemoninational prayer breakfast, then proper respect should be given to ALL religions present.
- If its perfectly OK to even indirectly “diss” other religions, then scrap the pretense it is interdenominational and call it the National Christian Prayer breakfast — which some would indeed want anyway.
- Speakers references to Jesus are no big deal. That’s to be expected in a prayer breakfast. The rabbi is wrong to complain about that.
- When you think about it, all that the organizers who put out the infopack had to do was to edit out the heavy-handed paragraph cited by the rabbi. It would not have taken anything away from the national prayer breakfast and would have been a commonsensical way to show respect for the feelings of other religions which feel they have the true answer.
- Whoever put out that infopack release lost sight of the fact that the prayer breakfast is a celebration of God and a reaffirmation of many faiths — not a celebration saying one belief is superior to another. Save that for individual services at individual churches or synagogues which are not national services.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, writes a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.
