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Mayor prayer
In Peoria, Illinois, the mayor has invited religious leaders to meet with him this week to discuss a citywide crime-fighting effort he’s calling “Ready Set Pray.”
Prayer gatherings were the norm during a spate of slayings in Peoria earlier this year. Churches also have been involved in a recent gun buyback program.
Ardis said he was inspired by an effort started earlier this month in Orlando, Fla., called “Operation Armor All.” That 40-day program was initiated by police department chaplains in response to an increase in violent crime.
The Peoria mayor said he will ask the faith leaders to create a 40-day calendar and try to get different groups to commit to prayer on each of the 40 days.
He said he’s not worried about a church-state separation backlash. “This isn’t the city council’s initiative,” Ardis said. “This is something that I’m advocating for in cooperation with the faith-based community. There’s no city dollars in this. There’s no city sponsorship of it, so I don’t see it as an issue.”
Here’s the rest of the story. What say you?
back to top14 Comments to “Mayor prayer”
It has been a tradition long upheld in this country of our political leaders acknowledging our need for God to help us. I see this as no different and believe it is a start. We will probably be amazed at what will come of us bowing our heads. The first result is usually change within ourselves. Then we begin to see things and act on them. If we begin to see things through God’s eyes and act on that, we will be amazed.
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Illegal! Government leaders represent all of us. They shouldn’t be allowed to be Christian…but Muslim would be okay. And, if it was a Muslim, it would be okay if he were to require everyone in the city to pray to Allah at the proper times and force all women to wear burqas…because that would be diversity.
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This is the second story in a few weeks about Christian civic leaders in an American city calling for prayer to reduce violent crime. How pathetic. Could it be any more obvious that Christianity is dead, and is only fit for comforting women, children, and the weak minded?
You don’t reduce violent crime through prayer, any more than you reduce illegitimacy by speaking in tongues.
The contradictions Christians believe are amazing. God loves us, he knows all, and he’s all powerful, but he allows an epidemic of violent crime to sweep America, and not only lets it happen, but chooses to do nothing about it. They say that he could, but won’t, because he’s given us power as free moral agents to make our own choices, even bad ones like crime. To do otherwise would make a mockery of human agency and we’d be little better than a race of puppets or robots. But if enough of us grovel and beg and plead, and say pretty please with sugar on top, then he just might deign to hear our prayers and violate everything Christians just told us about our free moral agency, and lower the crime rate.
On top of that, Christians also claim to believe that God works all things together for good. So why are they opposing violent crime in the first place? When those two punks walked into the Nashville Bellacino’s Pizza last week and blew the heads off of two employees, that’s just one more thing, according to Christians, that God’s going to work to their good.
We will probably be amazed at what will come of us bowing our heads.
Then you are very easily amazed, because absolutely nothing will come of it. A couple years ago some mush headed Philadelphia evangelical fasted for 40 days and nights to fight violent crime. What came of that? Jack squat, that’s what. Actually, in this case, prayer seems to have made things worse. Murders in Philly are going through the roof this year. Just a few days ago, four cops were shot in the space of a week, on top of the usual civilian murders. Yeah, using prayer to reduce violent crime really worked out well. Maybe the city should save money by no longer providing bullet proof vests for the cops, but just give them all crosses to wear around their necks. That should protect them.
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Y’know, if folks advocating meditation were to do this, most of us probably wouldn’t mind or care. Let’s see if it works, we’d say, being good pragmatists as Americans often are. Of course, even the TM folks would say not to forget protective gear. Only a fool would equate asking for spiritual protection with neglecting physical safety.
Sadly, this seems to be what Night Train believes. The military police I spent this past drill weekend ministering to had fun training in riot gear with me as their chaplain. But they weren’t dumb enough to go out without armor or weapons. Only their chaplain was allowed to do that (as a non-combatant, obviously).
So Night Train, you can blame me for the cross around the neck. But even my troops knew to keep the gear on.
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In other words, prayer doesn’t really work, and you know it as well as I do.
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And besides, as I said, if a cop does get killed in the line of duty, that’s just one more thing that “God” is working together for our good, like the two murdered pizza workers in Nashville.
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Only a fool would equate asking for spiritual protection with neglecting physical safety.
Where’d anyone say anything in this article or my comments about “spiritual” protection?
The evangewimps are asking people to beg God to keep citizens safe from death and bodily harm.
Nice try, though.
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I’ve had an epiphany (surely the result of my being weak minded): there has to be a word to describe threads like this and I think I’ve hit upon it: masterdebation. Wherein one only debates him/herself to their own satisfaction.
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Doubtless any neutral observer would agree with your admission that neither you nor Kenneth have brought anything of substance to the table.
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If only public lewdness laws could be enforced on the internets {:~)
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Hat trick!
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In the big scheme of things, this just isn’t worth getting worked up about either way. One can easily predict what various groups and organizations (pro and anti) are going to say about his actions.
One could wish for a more practical response (churches providing for neighborhood watches, etc.), but praying is part and parcel of what churches do.
As long as it’s voluntary, inclusive, and not using taxpayer money, I have no problem with it.
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Nor do I. And heck, I don’t even think it needs to be “inclusive”. It’s a free country. If Christians and churches want to organize silly and ineffectual projects, they’re free to do so. But it’s not going to have any impact at all on violent crime.
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The best method to reduce crime is not to have babies in batches. Baby booms tend to produce crime waves. When there are less males between 14 and 24, there’s less crime. Perhaps we don’t need less babies, but less male babies — but isn’t perpetual preemptive war a solution to this problem.
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