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On the days that the NH House was debating and passing its budget, HB 1, a couple of last weeks ago, there were many cries of "immoral" from those that directly benefit from NH expenditures.  There were also similar complaints from members of the clergy.  The following is a report from a meeting that was scheduled by a number of the clergy to have a forum / panel discussion at the Salem Boys and Girls Club last week to discuss this issue.

While the ‘Grok was unable to get to the meeting, which was self described as:

Our goal is to have this forum be a productive discussion about priorities for the state budgeting process and a way for lawmakers and clergy/religious communities to provide services to meet the needs of the citizens of NH…We need to come together if we are to be the state we all want to live in and a state that does not neglect the needs of the vulnerable.

Dan Tamburello was kind enough to take notes and submit this report – we thank him very much.

Note: in all this discussion, the question remained of what is the role of the Church in all this?  The entire discussion seems to twirl around the idea that Govt is the final arbiter of what is moral and not – and the enforcer of such.   And while the phrase "social justice" was discussed, I didn’t see a strict definition of what it actually means in concrete terms (the new "Halliburton"??)

Also, and rather telling, was the lack of a theological discussion in all this: the role of "free will".  In essence, it seems that all these clergy are putting their faith into Govt, and not into God and His People. 

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Meeting notes and observations from the "Lawmakers and Clergy" meeting on 4/8/11 at the Salem Boys and Girls Club.

Panel*:

• Rev David Yasenka, Chair, Lutheran Church in Salem
• Sen. Morse
• Sen. Rausch
• Other clergy representing; the United Church of Christ, the Lutheran Church, the Episcopal Church, the Greek Orthodox Church, the Methodist Church, the Roman Catholic Church, the NH Council of Churches, Catholic Charities and Lutheran Social Services.
• A town councilor from Hampstead

*no person on the panel appeared to have a copy of either the State or Federal Constitutions or a Holy Bible in their possession.

Audience included several State Representatives: JR Hoell, Regina Birdsell, John O’Connor, Mike Ball, Dan Tamburello (myself), Kenneth Gould, Gary Azarian, and perhaps one other I did not recognize. State Reps were seated in front in reserved seating.

Others in the Audience were:

• (1) individual with a pretty good sized video camera whom I did not know
• a white haired blond woman in her 40s or 50s; she was an administrator of some sort of public assistance organization in Salem, who distributed a flyer that had a text transcript of a phone conversation someone left on a lady’s voicemail that attempted to get a free cell phone from some NH State program that provides free cells to Seniors and could not get one through the program.
• a number of civilians/citizens…maybe 20?
• at least one reporter

The meeting began at approx 6pm. I missed the first few minutes (I arrived at ~610pm with Mike Ball). Rep. John O’Connor confirmed to me that they DID NOT begin the meeting with the Pledge of allegiance or a Prayer. Neither did they end it with prayer of any sort.

FORMAT:

Rev Yasenka was the “chair” and led the entire event. Officially, no one was allowed to ask any questions except those on the panel, unless they were previously submitted to Mr. Yasenka via email or written on a card and handed to them at that time. This was supposedly done “in the interest of time”. I violated this policy on at least three occasions which I will note below…to Rev Yasenka’s credit I was not refused…

Rev. Yasenka had distributed to every member of the panel what looked like a container of 100 pennies and a piece of paper.  A budget slide depicting…

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