Evangelicals Left Off National Cathedral 9/11 Program

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A weekend of religious-themed observances at Washington National Cathedral marking the tenth anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks will include a Buddhist nun and an Imam, but not an evangelical Christian, leading the head of the Southern Baptist Convention to ask President Obama to reconsider attending the event.

“A Call to Compassion” will include an interfaith prayer vigil on Sept. 11. It will feature the dean of the Cathedral, the Bishop of Washington, a rabbi, Buddhist nun and incarnate lama, a Hindu priest, the president of the Islamic Society of North America and a Muslim musician.

However, Southern Baptists, representing the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, were not invited to participate – and neither were leaders from any evangelical Christian organization.

“It’s not surprising,” said Frank Page, president of the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee. “There is a tragic intolerance toward Protestants and particularly toward evangelicals and I wish the president would refuse to speak unless it was more representative.”

Richard Weinberg, the Cathedral’s director of communications, confirmed that Southern Baptists were not extended an invitation to participate.

“The goal was to have interfaith representation,” he told Fox News Radio. “The Cathedral itself is an Episcopal church and it stands to reason that our own clergy serve as Christian representatives.”

He said the Washington National Cathedral serves as the “spiritual home for the nation” and as such, he said that “diversity was first and foremost” a factor in the planning.

“We certainly aim to appeal to as many in the country as possible and feel that our events are not any one slice that could ever represent the entire country -- but that we are doing our best commemorate the events as it fits with our mission,” Weinberg said.

On Sunday night the Cathedral will host President Obama as he delivers remarks in a program called, “A Concert of Hope.” At least five faith leaders will deliver prayers but those individuals have not been identified.

Weinberg said the president’s event will be a “secular service,” but said given the setting it will include an interfaith benediction.

Page said President Obama should cancel his appearance at the Cathedral.

“I think it would send a very strong and very positive signal to the left wing extremists in our country that the president ought not show up,” Page said, calling their exclusion “purposeful.”
The White House referred questions about the services to the Cathedral.

“First and foremost, the breadth of the programming aims to honor those who were most affected by the tragedy of 9/11,” Weinberg said. “We also recognize as a Cathedral that this country has been engaged in two wars abroad and many, many service members, nearly six thousand, and of course that would count much more if we counted civilian lives lost.”

“They are also a group that we want to keep in mind and lift up,” he said.

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, told Fox News Radio the lineup was better suited for the United Nations than the United States.

“Three quarters of the American people identify as Christian and nearly a third of them are evangelical Christian,” Perkins said. “And yet, there is not a single evangelical on the program.”

“There’s no doubt that this is clearly politically correct,” Perkins told Fox News Radio. “It is historically inaccurate that in times of need or mourning that Americans pray to the Hindu or Buddhist Gods or the God of Islam. America is overtly a Christian nation that prays to the Judeo-Christian God – and specifically to Jesus Christ.”

Page called political correctness the “elephant in the room.”

“It is very clear that it is that it is not politically correct to include evangelical Christians,” he said.

“Obviously, tolerance is at work here. In a nation whose current God is tolerance, it is absolutely hypocritical that the major group to be excluded and be intolerant of – is evangelical Christians.”

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/09/06/ev ... z1XESG2tWY

Christianity is Christianity, no matter what branch you are! You're all praying to the same god anyway (even though I am of the opinion that "God" is a figment of the imagination). I don't see why people can't understand that and get so caught up in the myrad of different branches of Christianity.

The whole bit about "There is a tragic intolerance toward Protestants and particularly toward evangelicals..." is bull. Of the Christians in the US it is something like 75-85% are Protestants.

Evangelical = Salafist Wahabi

I hate haters.

True, though the main sticking point is them getting represented by someone who will present a watered down [religious, not political] liberal theology that will be very politically correct. That IS almost a different religion, and in some respects is even more different than Catholicism and the evangelicals. Billy Graham spoke at the service 10 years ago and they want another preacher like that.

And with good reason. Extreme Protestant evangelicals are potentially barking-mad just like their extreme Muslim counterparts. They have elevated being a ding-bat into being a sacrament.

People who believe truly and sincerely that the earth is 6000 years old are right up there with Flat Earther folk and people who believe an Angel of the Lord really and truly spoke to a goat herding pedophile in Arabia.

ruveyn

Religious extremists are religious extremists, no matter who they claim to serve. None should be allowed at Ground Zero, as their very presence would mock the memories of those who died there ... at the hands of religious extremists ...

As an aside, I've seen fewer acts of "Christian Compassion" in the last 10 years of being active in a Christian church than I saw in my six years of military service.

Amen!

ruveyn

The Episcopal Church is a member of the Anglican Communion which is one of the very first Protestant denominations. If the Roman Catholic and Orthodox communities aren't complaining then I see no reason to give Mr. Page the time of day.

Somehow I doubt these "extreme" evangelicals are as extreme as you are painting them as being.

Furthermore, last I checked it was not a bunch of Southern Baptists that flew the planes into the World Trade Center, and there are probably quite a few people whom are of that religious denomination that lost loved ones on 9/11/2001.

This is why I have a problem with atheist fanatics.

Have you met any? Atheists have little to be fanatic about. They do not believe in your god because there is no evidence in the real world to support it. That is healthy skepticism, not fanaticism.

ruveyn

Except for their seeming pathological hatred toward religious people and/or their arrogant belief that they are somehow superior intellectually to religious people.

Well, I certainly have a belief that ruveyn is superior intellectually to you.

But given that this is grounded in empiricism, I don't think it constitutes an arrogant belief.

Actually it would be an arrogant belief, while there are some things ruveyn may know more about, there are things that I'm more of an expert on than ruveyn.

Just like you need to get it through your head that you may know more about some things than myself, but I know more about things in other areas than you do.


One thing people fail to see is the intolerance/faults in the people they agree with.

It never fails to amaze me... that no matter what you believe....

We all seem to agree...

Anyone who doesn't believe the same thing as you is a stupid jerk....

Many of these people (Falwell, Robertson) celebrated 9/11 as God's revenge on America. Also, they celebrated these events as hastening the Rapture though Falwell avoided the Rapture.

I don't disagree with you--but I have yet to see evidence of it.

Your modus operandi appears consistently to be to spout pronouncements lifted whole cloth from your pundits of choice, and then when the discussion begins to get substantive, you resort to diversion and point-scoring. You spend considerable time repeating assertions that lie outside of your expertise. You've certainly wasted plenty of bandwidth spouting off about prenatal cortical response--a subject in which you have neither training nor expertise.

What I would like to see from you sometime is a dialogue with someone in which you engage substantively on a subject. I have rarely, if ever, seen you compromise your point of view, or modify it by taking in information from others with whom you are engaged in discussion.

Quick, cheap points might win you a high school debate, but they are of no value in real world.