Members of Canada’s Parliament are sponsoring a National Prayer Breakfast this week. There’s a dinner tonight and a breakfast tomorrow.
The purpose of the National Prayer Breakfast is to invite leaders to meet in the spirit of Jesus Christ in order to pray together.
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The purpose of the Parliamentary Prayer Breakfast is to call men and women to God, and then to entrust them with the application of what it means to live out God’s grace as leaders. The Prayer Breakfast is not a lobby group, which seeks to influence policy even when legislation before Parliament involves very controversial issues. It is not the aim of the Parliamentary Prayer Breakfast Group to influence the thinking of others towards any particular political viewpoint, but instead there is a trust in the workings of God, that as we love and pray for one another, the Holy Spirit will work in our lives to help us grow as women and men who love mercy, seek justice and humbly walk with God.
Wow… Even American politicians know you’re supposed to stress the word “God” and not talk about “Jesus” when you do these sorts of things…
The Humanist Association of Ottawa is going to attend the festivities to get a first-hand account of exactly what’s going on:
On Tuesday, May 11, politicians, journalists and supreme court justices are invited by the office of MP David Anderson to join with Christian leaders from across Canada at the National Prayer Breakfast. The goal is to acknowledge the deep role of god at the heart of government decision making.
We think not. And we think an event at which — through formal seminars and informal discussion — the role of religion in a secular society is to be front and centre, that some organization representing the interests of secular society, must be present.
That body is the Canadian Secular Alliance (http://www.secularalliance.ca/), and we are those representatives.
You can follow the goings-on at the group’s Twitter feed for the event.
They also have a live coverage webpage set up to highlight what they see and hear.
Here’s hoping they can get useful information. And that they can later use it to make a strong case for a secular government.
(Thanks to Tony for the event!)