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Amen and a-woman

pgwenthold said:
And when you say a prayer before congress, there is no such thing as "praying right" or "praying wrong."
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I wish I were in Congress, I would say the prayer to Lord Satan.

But I think this misses the point.

Who says he is "sincerely Christian"? Who gets to make that decision?
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Each person for themselves, of course.

But it doesn't really matter. If the overall goal of the Biden admin as a whole is to reach across the aisle and create some sense of unity, it seems Mr. Cleaver (who, incidentally, holds a Masters in Theology) didn't get the memo. He gave the Conservative Christian wing an excellent talking point against the "radicalism of the progressive movement."

EDIT: He's also a Methodist pastor, so he has every appearance of being a sincere Christian. Which makes this "a-woman" thing especially weird as he should know that there is no gender implication in the word "Amen"
 
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Cavemonster said:
Either a bit of ignorance or an awkward attempt at wordplay.

Whichever, it was unlikely to be the dumbest thing said by elected officials that day in public, and very far down the list things that effect us in any way.
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Oh for sure, but it's already being jumped on by Conservative voices. Why give them ammo?
 
pgwenthold said:
And when you say a prayer before congress, there is no such thing as "praying right" or "praying wrong."

Who says he is "sincerely Christian"? Who gets to make that decision?
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This hyper-literal comment in no way negates xlx388's point.
 
Let's all agree to switch the term "amen" to the gender-neutral "A-Team" instead. That will make God happy, and if not, well, we can built an elaborate home-made tank to take him out.
 
xjx388 said:
"Amen" is not a "made up word."* It's in the earliest bibles and derives from Hebrew meaning "so be it." It's a huge part of the Judeo-Christian tradition. And I would say that for anyone who is a sincere Christian (or wants to play at sincerity to score points), "silly word play," does not belong in prayer.

As I said, my real point has little to do with the religious aspects, whether or not prayer even belongs in politics, etc. The point is that it's an own goal for the progressive movement and doesn't serve the cause of gender equality.



*Every word is "made up" to represent something at some point in it's etymology so let's not go down that semantic rabbit hole, please.
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You must not have been to any religious ceremony in the last, oh, 100 years. Pastors love word play. It's quite literally all they can do. Some try to be humorous about it.

Again, without the context of the entire prayer, we don't know what was intended. You are literally taking one word out of the entire prayer, stripping it of any context, and acting like people should be upset. Or, Fox news/conservative voices are taking one word out of context in order to distract the easily distracted. There is no way that this is a legitimate complaint that they care about, or that not uttering those 3 syllables would have kept them from finding something to use to keep their flock ignorant of Trump's latest illegal act.
 
As ridiculous and worthy of mockery it is to get upset at an issue like this, it's only being invoked as a distraction.
 
What a wag that Cleaver is! Subtly mocking PC culture with this pointed barb at women's lib - wait, he's a Democrat? This is an outrage!
 
pgwenthold said:
If you are going to insist on having an opening prayer, then more than anything, you can't dictate how that prayer is said.
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I can't dictate to them, but you would think Jesus could at least make a suggestion. He had some thoughts about how to pray.

ETA: And that thing about even sincere liberal Christians having a problem with this? No they wouldn't.
 
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xjx388 said:
Oh for sure, but it's already being jumped on by Conservative voices. Why give them ammo?
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What ammo? "Conservative voices" are constantly saying stupid **** about stupid ****. He's trolling and virtue-signaling* at the same time. You taking it seriously is you falling for his bit and playing along.

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*Virtue-signalling is just trolling for likes instead of hates anyway.
 
How about we just take religion out of our politics altogether and make it a personal, private thing? Nobody's business but our own. Oh, wait...this is Amurica. Silly me.
 
xjx388 said:
Maybe, in the grand scheme of things, this isn't that big a deal but I do think it's worthy of discussion. Rep.Emmanuel Cleaver D-MO closed the Congress' opening prayer with "Amen and a-woman."

Now, I am all for inclusivity and recognizing gender inequalities and all that; but, "Amen" has nothing to do with gender or inclusivity. I think it's a bit ridiculous and over-the-top to use a completely made up "term" like "a-woman" as if that is somehow, in any way, leveling the playing field for women or even just recognizing the equality of women. I think it's a moment that conservatives can use to make progressiveism in general (I linked to Fox News because they are all over that angle) look radical and stupid. It's not helping anything at all and only adding fuel to further division.

Of course, I think the whole idea of an "opening prayer" is a bit ridiculous but that's a whole 'nother discussion...
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Geeze. It's stupid enough without making it even more stupid by failing to match number. It should be amen and a-wonen, not a-woman.
 
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