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Forgive Us Our Debts: The Recent Political Prayers of Barry Black

The Washington Post did an interesting short essay chronicling the changing tone of the Senate chaplain’s prayers.

As the Senate has mired itself in bickering and deadlock this week, there has been at least one voice of the panic rising in the country around Washington.

 

It’s been the deep, solemn voice of the Senate’s chaplain, retired Admiral Barry C. Black.

 

A longtime Navy chaplain and Seventh-Day Adventist minister, Black opens Senate sessions with a brief prayer. Over the last few days–as the Senate has slid closer to a national default–those prayers seem to have revealed Black as one of the most worried people in the chamber.

 

Back on July 20, Black was speaking only in hopeful generalities. In the prayer that began that session, he asked the Almighty to “give to our lawmakers the wisdom to know the role they should play, in keeping freedom’s holy light bright.”

 

But, as the days passed by, it became apparent that the Senate was not showing any more wisdom that it had previously. By last Tuesday, Black’s request indicated that his senators might need more divine help.

 

“Keep them,” he prayed, “from the pit of disunity and discord. And empower them to build bridges of coooperation. Give them the courage and humility to do what is right, knowing that you are the only constituent they absolutely must please.”

 

But lawmakers only descended further into that pit of disunity. In fact, the Senate seemed to be digging that hole deeper.

Read the rest here, “Senate chaplain implores God to help in debt crisis“.

So, do you think that those prayers were answered satisfactorily?

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