Amen & Awoman! Progressive Christians At Work???

            Did you come upon a Democrat Congressman’s bizarre prayer at the 117^th Congress on 3^rd January 2021? Here’s a summary, “Congressman Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.), an ordained Methodist pastor, offered some unusual words in the opening prayer for the 117th Congress on Sunday.

            He ended the prayer with, “May the Lord lift up the light of his countenance upon us and give us peace. Peace in our families. Peace across this land and, dare I ask...oh, Lord...peace even in this chamber now and ever more. We ask it in the name of the monotheistic God, Brahma, and gods known by many names by many different faiths. Amen and a-woman.”” ¹ [Emphasis Mine].

            This prayer is bizarre for two reasons:

            1. The supposedly Christian prayer mentions various deities of the major religious worldviews.

            2. The prayer closes with a very atypical ‘Amen and Awoman.’

            First, why is there such a backlash against this prayer? This prayer is simply nonsensical from the Historic Christian perspective.

            A progressive Christian² (who may not be a Christian, to begin with) can pray this prayer, but a Christian subscribing to Historic Christianity cannot pray this prayer.

            Why is this prayer wrong?

            First, a Christian subscribing to Historic Christianity would pray his/her prayers in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ (John 14:13-14). A prayer that is prayed in the name of the gods of this world is not Christian prayer. Period.

            Second, amen is not a gendered word. Amen does not refer to males or females.

            Amen is from the Old Testament, so it has Hebrew origin. Dr. Brown explains by giving a context to this prayer:³

In case you haven’t heard, House Democrats want to remove all gendered language from their legislation, while the prayer to open the 117th Congress ended with, “Amen and A-woman.” I kid you not. Who would make up something so insane?

A PC Prayer

Let’s start with the PC prayer, which has to be seen to be believed. It is offered in “the name of the monotheistic God, Brahma, and ‘god’ known by many names by many different faiths.” And it concludes with, “Amen and A-woman,” as if the “men” of “Amen” was somehow a gendered term. How patriarchal and bigoted to use the “men” word in prayer!

Of course, “Amen” comes from the common Semitic root ’-m-n, with the word itself meaning, “So be it.” And it is used in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic liturgy, being found in Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and Arabic (along with English and many other languages)…

Learning New Phrases?

Following the logic of this prayer, we would have to learn new phrases like, “making awomends,” since “making amends” contains the dreaded m- word. Or, we would have to learn to be “awomenable,” lest we allow a male-dominated word like “amenable” to remain on the books. (Go ahead and make up your own list of words containing “men.” This is madness.)

        Amen is thusly not a gendered word. It means ‘so be it.’ Thinking of amen as a gendered word is absolutely insane and nonsensical.

        Do not use the word ‘Awoman’ while you close your prayer, a fortiori amen is sufficient.

        Can a Christian pray in the name of the gods of this world?

        No, most certainly not!

        Why?

        The God of the Bible is ontologically not the same as Allah or Brahma or any other God.

        If we think of God from the realm of metaphysics, God is a maximally great being or the greatest conceivable being. In fact, from an ontic sense, there cannot be two maximally great beings aka God.

        There can only be one maximally great being. That is the innate property of a maximally great being.

        So when we talk about God, it is either the God of the Bible or Allah or Brahman, etc. It cannot be both the God of the Bible and any other God. Neither can the God of the Bible be called Allah nor Brahma etc. for they are ontologically distinct. The one who believes in the God of the Bible would not and cannot believe in any other god, for there cannot be another maximally great being.

        Therefore, a Christian would only pray in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

        The prayer prayed at the 117^th Congress is absurd.

        Any Christian, who subscribes to Historic Christianity, should only pray in the name of the Lord Jesus and should only say Amen (so be it) at the end of the prayer.

         Amen!

Endnotes:

¹https://www.klove.com/news/faith/opening-prayer-for-congress-uses-amen-and-a-woman--19043

²A progressive Christian does not believe the Bible as God’s Word. He believes all gods are the same. The progressive Christian also believes in the contradicting Scriptures of other religions. A progressive Christian departs from serving the God of the Bible while striving to be politically correct. He/she interprets the Bible to his own subjective inclination to form a cultish Christianity that disobeys the God of the Bible in order to conform to the world and its evolving degenerative ethical system.

³https://stream.org/congress-has-officially-gone-gender-crazy/

Websites cited last accessed on 6^th January 2021.