Pastor: Iowa Censors Prayer
According to a local minister, prayers before the Iowa House of Representatives will be censored.
Pastor Brad Cranston of Heritage Baptist Church in Burlington, Iowa, was asked to offer the prayer recently before state lawmakers, but a storm broke out in the House when he received a copy of a memo sent out to House members after his prayer.
“Reminder to all representatives that prayers are to be short and non-political and non-denominational,” he reads from the memorandum.
The Iowa pastor explains that to him “non-denominational” means that pastors are not to pray in the name of Jesus. The only thing he recalls in his prayer that could be considered political was a reference to marriage between a man and a woman.
“Then at the end of this e-mail it says, ‘Prayers shall be submitted in advance to Representative [Marcella] Frevert with the registration forms,” he continues to read.
Cranston concludes that the latter instruction implies possible censoring of a pastor’s prayer or refusal to allow him or her to pray at House meetings altogether. The pastor suggests that violates freedom of religion and freedom of speech.
He recalls two years ago when a Muslim imam offered the House prayer “and said some things that were very offensive — that Allah would grant victory over the unbelievers and also a reference to the defeat of the great Satan or something like that.”
He recalls that an uproar resulted from that incident, but no call for censorship followed. It is Pastor Cranston’s hope that Iowans will register their feelings about the new directive with their elected representatives.
(Source: OneNewsNow)
