The Associated Press reports that a Christian prayer on the Minnesota Senate floor on Monday made non-Christian members of that body uncomfortable. Pastor Dennis Campbell’s prayer was highly Christian, as opposed to the nonsectarian prayers that were commonplace under DFL control.
“We pray, lord, that you help us show reverence to the Lord Jesus Christ,” Campbell prayed. “Jesus said, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life’. In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ our savior, we pray.” That prayer sparked non-Christian members of the Senate to cry foul, the Associated Press reports.
Rep. Arlon Lindner, instead of acquiescing, attacked those members. “You know, we’re told there’s one God and one mediator between God and man. That man is Jesus Christ. And most of us here are Christians. And we shouldn’t be left not able to pray in the name of our God… And if you don’t like it, you may have to like it. Or just don’t come. I don’t come sometimes for some prayers here… We have that privilege, and you need to exercise it. But don’t impose your irreligious left views on me.”
Following that statement, an ethics complaint was filed against Lindner, one of many in his career in the Minnesota Legislature.
Pastor Campbell came under fire for religious intolerance last summer when his church took out ads in the St. Cloud Times. “What happens when Moslems take over a nation?” asks Campbell in the ad. “They will destroy the constitution and force the Moslem religion on the society, take freedom of religion away, and they will persecute all other religions.”
The ad also said, “Moslems seek to influence a nation by immigration, reproduction, education, the government, illegal drugs and by supporting the gay agenda.”
He later said he is not a racist and that he was simply trying to convert Muslims to Christianity.