Irregular Times Diaries: Unfit Discussion

Yesterday, the official government-paid Chaplain of the United States Senate made special time in the legislative day for a government-established ritual of Christian prayer. The prayer was given by Timothy Keller of the Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, who begged his Christian God to “empower us, as a nation, to love all that You do command.”

You know, where I come from empowerment refers to a state in which people are able to create the means to act according to their own consciences. Empowerment as I understand it does not refer to the ability to learn to love the things that one is commanded to do. Where I come from, we call learning to love the things we are commanded to do as surrender or acquiescence or submission.

I don’t particularly appreciate some preacher being given a designated government-funded pulpit in order to preach that I should become the happy slave of his deity. In an empowered nation, there’s a separation of church and state to prevent that sort of thing.