The Daughters of the American Revolution are on the Internet in full force tonight, January 3, 2013, posting comments and using social media to deny news reports that appeared today. According to Fox News, an anonymous group of members have contacted them to complain that the newly revised Ritual and Missal book was altered, omitting the name of Jesus Christ.
These documents are the main materials and guidelines to be used by chaplains of the group. The article on Fox News, written by Todd Starnes, also discussed that there was an effort to remove references to Jesus Christ from prayers that are prayed at the organization’s functions.
The Blaze also carried the story, and your Tri-Cities Top News Examiner published a brief update and a few editorial comments entitled, “The Daughters of the American Revolution ban Jesus Christ.”
Tonight, there are comments and tweets flying around demanding that these “lies” be retracted. This always merits attention to the links that they provided to clarify the situation. This is the link provided by a member on Twitter as “debunking” the lies that had been printed.
The Daughters of the American Revolution cover three points that they feel are false. They refute that they have removed God from their organization, yet there is nothing to suggest that Jesus Christ was NOT eliminated from their organization’s vocabulary:
"Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, as currently written, the 113 page Ritual and Missal contains over 300 references to “Almighty God,” “Great God our King” (America hymn), “Our Heavenly Father,” “Heavenly Father,” “God of Hosts,” “God,” “Lord,” “Eternal God,” “Your Holy Spirit,” “Lord your God,” “Gracious Lord,” “Almighty and Everlasting God,” “Gracious Father,” and similar variations."
Secondly, they deal with the accusations that they have instructed prayers be prayed without the name of Jesus Christ. It appears that they will operate with a “To whom it may concern” prayer or possibly a “fill in the blank” prayer.
"Each Chaplain and other officers are strongly encouraged to create their own prayers into which they may insert the name of Jesus Christ as deemed appropriate for the occasion and the audience."
"The Executive Officers believe that the new Ritual and Missal can be used by members of any faith, substituting words as they wish, changing the prayers to suit the needs of the meeting in which they are being used. At our Executive meetings, knowing that we are all Christian, we pray in the Name of Jesus. When those are present whose faith is unknown, we pray in God’s name. However, we all recognize that when Christians pray in God’s name we are, indeed, praying in Christ’s name because the Christian faith believes in the Trinity of God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We also understand that our Jewish members know God as Jehovah or Yahweh, Muslim members use the name Allah for God and there are those whose spirituality may have a still different higher power or none at all."
Lastly, they claim that they have not removed Jesus Christ from the words of their poems, prayers, songs, etc… You can still find Jesus on their website, if you are looking for Him…
"It was in the spirit of our Founding Fathers desire for freedom of religion that the most recent changes to the Ritual and Missal were made. For those wishing to access prayers, songs, poems, etc. from past Rituals and Missals, they have all previously been posted to the website…"
Comments