This is one liberal Democrat and devoted church goer that is very pleased with the way the 2008 Democratic National Convention was celebrated this year! Just the use of the phrase “God bless you and the United States of America,” was pleasing.
It is my hope that we all use and live those words as a permanent part of our lives. That is to say we should act in a way that is a blessing to ourselves, our God, and our neighbor.
I enjoyed listening to Rev. Joel Hunter’s benediction as well. It has been years since I was chair of my church interreligious and ecumenical concerns committee, but Rev. Hunter’s prayer was a good summary of an ecumenical service. For a moment he was a cross between the pastor at the Thomas Jefferson Unitarian Church and the dean of the Washington National Cathedral at the annual ecumenical service.
I can understand now, why his church has grown to have so many sites in Florida and around the world. It is a cross between the great commission and the greatest commandment. May God bless him and his work!

Very, very nice. He was able to end the prayer according to the dictates of his own convictions, as was everyone else who was there. Even though I am not religious, I found much I could agree with in the prayer, and felt no problem with joining in and hoping that we could live up to these goals.
I was concerning about the mix of religion and politics at this event, but I have to admit that I am surprised and pleased at how things went. Sure, I would have preferred a bit more secular event, and I am sure others would have preferred a bit more religious event. But given what they were trying to accomplish, I think they did a good job.
Now, we’ll see what the GOP does. Will they acknowledge that there are other, non-Christian faiths among their membership? Will they publicly and without judgment give these folks an opportunity to fully participate in the convention? Or will it be yet another “Jesus and Jesus Only” revival meeting?

If you attend Joel’s church it is a totally Jesus sermon. He is our pastor and speaks the truth well. However, when he was asked to pray at the DNC it was his responsibility to render unto our government what was required of him, not to act as the Dem’s fold keeper. Freedom of religion is part of who we are as Americans. I am a Jesus Freak and would love to change my country and the world with just words but that is not exactly how it works. God changes hearts and how people end prayers ‘not people”. Not even Joel. Giving people the right to do what they want to do is called “free will”. America did not ‘coin land of the free’. We were free to make choices upon creation.
God gives us freedom of choice in everything. Who we choose as our god is a personal choice? For some people it is the mighty dollar, for some fame, for some drugs and alcohol. Sometimes God allows us to choose our god so we can find out just what a loser every god is except for Him. Joel’s job was to lead a large group of people with different beliefs in a politic setting in prayer. And he did just that. However, I believe that the only prayers heard were those of the people that prayed in Jesus’ name.
Why?
Because Jesus came here and left this statement behind… that no one comes to the Father except through him.
However, the choice is an individuals and not something that should be shoved down someone’s throat.
Thought: You first teach a child to walk and then to walk correctly and then to walk the right way (as in a moral and upright life). However when he grows up and goes into the world the decision is his.
If you can teach someone to pray and to praise God you can then explain
how to get those prayers to the God of the universe, and that it is only through His Son Jesus Christ. Although this is not the “common” way people witness to people I would have to say that Joel began step-one at DNC. Let’s wait and see who God sends in for step two and three. Our nation is famous for false gods these days. It will take pastors like Joel Hunter to lead us out of the lies and into truth. Boring, narrow minded people never attract people who think different than them. Christians should be interesting, intelligent risk takers, that light up the room and fire up peoples thoughts.
Blessings from God in Jesus’ name Amen.

I whole-heartedly agree with the principles that Nola (a member of Joel Hunter’s congregation), laid out on 09/01/08 above.
Of course, many in that audience are professing Christians and as such already conclude their prayers with “In Jesus name, Amen”.
Who ever “God sends in for step two and three”, will lead the spiritually immature to understand that they are “disastrously confused between the poor of the Scripture and the proletariat of Marx”, as Pope Benedict puts it. Note:
“In this way they pervert the Christian meaning of the poor, and they transform the fight for the rights of the poor into a class fight within the ideological perspective of the class struggle. For them the Church of the poor signifies the Church of the class ..” – Pope Benedict XVI – Theologies of Liberation http://www.newadvent.org/library/docs_df84lt.htm
“..an authentic…theology: [is] one that puts:
[1] God and the life of the spirit first,
[2] DIRECT charitable care of others second,
[3] and only then draws consequences for a just social order.”
- Pope Benedict XVI http://ncrcafe.org/node/1091
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C.S. Lewis:
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under live robber barons than under omnipotent moral busibodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good, will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
So maybe the next one God sends will be wearing lipstick.