Austin Rep. Donna Howard provides thanks for ‘freedom of and from faith’
A Texas lawmaker whose non secular affiliation contains atheists and agnostics prompt all religions pray to the identical “God of many names” throughout an interfaith prayer service on the state capitol.
Democratic Rep. Donna Howard of Austin delivered the opening invocation for the Feb. 11 assembly of the 89th Legislative Session with a prayer for “Texans of each faith and no faith” during which she gave thanks for dwelling in a nation, she stated, that protects the “freedom of and from faith.”
“I am grateful to stay in a rustic the place we’ve got a constitutional proper to no legislation respecting the institution of faith or prohibiting the total train thereof, freedom of and from faith,” stated Howard, a former nurse who has represented her district since 2006.
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“In that spirit and with respect for all Texans of each faith and no faith,” Howard continued, “we search steerage for the day earlier than use from the God of our understanding, from that ethical compass that calls us to acknowledge our interconnectedness and our collective work, and to carry to that work the higher angels of ourselves on behalf of all Texans whom we’ve got been given the privilege to serve.”
She referred to the “Spirit of Life, God of many names” in her prayer and requested, “Tell us that every from our personal custom comes at this time to carry our spirit in unity.”
Howard serves because the chair of the Texas Girls’s Well being Caucus and has advocated for teenagers to have entry to contraception beneath the state-run Kids’s Well being Insurance coverage Program (CHIP). She concluded her invocation by recognizing “our dedication to all who’re part of the One,” an obvious reference to a universalist deity reminiscent of that espoused beneath Unitarian Universalism.
A lifelong Austin resident raised within the metropolis’s College Baptist Church, affiliated with the American Baptist Church buildings USA and the Affiliation of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists, Howard acknowledged her denomination affiliation at a Jan. 16 occasion for Texas Influence, the biggest interfaith advocacy group within the state.
“As an grownup, I’ve been following Unitarian Universalism as my path and I am right here to present you a mirrored image,” she stated. “Each dialogue, each resolution about using our institutional sources or energy is a mirrored image of what we worth, our recognition of the interdependent net of lifetime of which we’re all an element.”
Along with Unitarian Universalism, seven religions have been represented on the Texas Influence occasion: Christianity, Judaism, Sikhism, Islam, Buddhism, Jainism and Zoroastrianism.
Thought-about by some Christian apologists to be a cult for its denial of the Trinitarian God, Unitarian Universalists declare to be suitable with orthodox Christianity however deny the fundamental tenets of Christian theology, in keeping with Kurt Goedelman, founding father of Private Freedom Outreach.
“It denies the sinfulness of man and his want for a Savior, thereby denying the Phrase of God,” Goedelman advised CP.
UU adherents “deny the Trinity, deny Jesus is the incarnation of God and deny there may be any everlasting punishment,” in keeping with Paul de Vries, president of New York Divinity College.
Within the 1500s, theologians Michael Servetus and Faustus Socinius merged Unitarian beliefs with universalism, which claims that every one faiths can result in salvation, he defined.
Unitarian Universalism got here to america across the 18th century, with notable UU leaders, together with John Murray and Joseph Priestley, and shortly rose in recognition, attracting folks reminiscent of Susan B. Anthony and Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Many UU adherents who’re atheists or agnostic additionally establish as humanists, in keeping with the Unitarian Universalists Affiliation web site, which states there may be “nobody proper reply on the subject of perception.”
