SEDGWICK COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
SELECT OFFICIAL RELIGIOUS PREFERENCE

"Come Pray with Us for as You Can See
in Sedgwick County Indians Know How to Pray"

READERS RESPOND

Praying ChristiansREJECTED

See the article at: http://www.iwchildren.org/sedgwickprays.htm

9/15/98
I am a Baptist and have read your page on the praying Indian logo in Kansas. (http://www.iwchildren.org/sedgwickprays.htm) I honestly never thought about Indians having a religion but since you point it out this guy is praying. That isn't right because this is America which is supposed to be for freedom, not a dictatorship run by atheists or Jews who don't want the Savior of Mankind to have his rightful place in our lives and pick some off beat seal. No Indian picture is going to pray for me, it's just a symbol of a guy praying that the county uses all the time. If you really understood what equality is you would thank Christians for helping you to raise yourselves up and spread His word. The founding fathers intended this nation to be Christian but it seems to me that Liberals and the power of Indian gambling has influenced politicians to go against the Constitution. Any one who wants to be have eternal life can follow the Lord Jesus Christ and he will hear their prayers. Even the Indians.
-A Concerned Christian

9/16/98
native americans have always been known for praying, open any book on
native americans and you will find an indian praying just like the guy
on the seal, hey it is the land of the native american so why not place
their religion first. first americans, first true religion of the
people, keep true to govenment and native ameicians for god said we are
all related. one who has found the true people of god the native
american
-an exbabtist

9/16/98
I want you to know the eagle feather, the peace pipe and Medicine Wheel all lay on the altar of Catholics to show the Native American who prays with them. This is done to show their religion and symbols are equal and they can pray with equality. So what is wrong with having a Indian praying for you?
-Ernest White Feather, A Catholic, who lives in South Dakota

9/16/98
what the hell?
-Dustin Nulf

9/16/98
You are right that is a Native American praying, it looks like a Sioux. Oh well, its about time someone showed those Southern Baptist how to pray, maybe they will leave Disney alone and learn how to pray to God.
Keep up God's work brother.
Winston Roubideux, Minneapolis, MN

9/18/98
What a great web page!! Good one on Wichita.
James R.Mead one of the founding fathers, was a Christian. We also know he was an Indian hater. Look at what he said about Indians after he got them sent to the reservation in Oklahoma so he could build his real estate business "Seemed to be about as spiritless and worthless as a lot of wild animals brought from the wilderness of Africa and confined in cages for purpose of exhibition." Wichita history depicts him as a God fearing Christian man of prayer. Facts are he will never be featured on the seal of the County of Sedgwick. Instead we have a Native American, praying to God. James Mead, the Christian is no more. What better reward for this man. and a just reward for a Christian. They will always have a Native American praying for them over the land Mead and the rest tried to claim. You guys got a good web site too.
- ( name not given) Osage resident of Wichita, Kansas

9/18/98
Indians aren't better than us we got a cross on our logo in Buhler and in the gym too. So if you just don't go flashing it around so people can see it all the time nobody cares about it if it is Christian.
-JPC Buhler, Kansas

You may show this Indian looking like he is praying with some Indian feathers looking religious but Christians hold the bible and that is the way to pray- (no name given)

Sedgwick County is committing blasphemy against the Lord. You Indians tying to place your self above the Lord God of all will answer to his wrath. This is disgraceful and disrespectful I will not read your web site again.-(no name given)

I have seen your web site before but this article struck me differently. A picture really is worth a thousand words. I have never seen this county seal before. Interesting article about separation of Church and State.
I was talking to a family member last night about this. He felt that the county seal is just a picture of an Indian and that's how they were, they don't actually pray like that.
I had to disagree with him. By declaring Native Americans don't pray he is saying they don't have religious beliefs and are not part of the human race. It seems to me that all people understand the meaning of God, or a higher power in some capacity and pray in their own way. Most people bow their heads before God.

When I look at this logo I can see you are right, that's probably a fairly accurate representation of the manner in which Native Americans pray. If it's not, it sure looks like praying of some kind to me. Perhaps the county feels he is just catching a rain drop or wishing on a star. I can't help but wonder what the county thinks they are up to.

What kind of law suit would Sedgwick County get if they said this is not a picture of a Native American praying? Is there a greater racial insult which could be made against someone than to say he does not have a God and his race don't know how to pray?. Jew have confronted this line of reasoning before. It seems pretty clear that Native American religion is being endorsed here especially when I look at the fish logo over which the ACLU takes issue. Again, a very interesting web page.
-D.S. Greenberg, Pennsylvania

9/18/98
Ya know it makes me feel so good when I see the truth come out. A few months ago I went to this Christian church to pick up my kids from summer camp. One of the counselors asked me to come visit the church one Sunday. I asked him this question that I ask so many different religious people. Why is it there are so many different religion and just about all of them can agree that there is a God. No matter how many different
names he has been given they all basically pray to the same God. If you all pray to the same God, why can't you all get along. Why is it that a certain religion thinks that they are better than another? This thing has puzzled me from the time I joined a church long time ago, to the time I gave it up long time ago. Everytime I feel like I would like to go back, I see the division among Gods people. The Bible doesn't talk
about division among the people of God. So why? Christianity is not the first religion on the earth. There are a whole lot more that came long before. I asked this man these questions and he gave me the typical answer that you would expect from a Christian. I don't mean to rattle on but I can go on and on when it comes to religion.

I am glad to see that your people are finally starting to get noticed for the truth.
Thanks for the info. I got it locked in my brain.
Jay in Texas

9/18/98
It amazes me how short sighted and narrow minded people can be. The first letter from the concerned Christian really says it all. I just wonder how Jesus would take this narrow minded bigots words. Would He accept them or reject them? I believe the latter would be the case. It's really not about whose religion is better or inferior, it's all about Spirituality and the
Brother/Sisterhood of the human animal. It's about the white light of the Creator not the white skin of the human animal. Remember...religion kills. Just ask the people that were caught in the crusades, the Spanish inquisition and world war two
Spiritual Animal and nothing more

9/17/98
Thank you Sedgwick County for using a picture of a Native American praying for the good of all. Our people say we are all related. We are all children of the Greath Spirit.
AIM member in CA

9/18/98
If that Indian is not praying. I would like the county to tell me just what he is doing?
-Sedgwick county resident

9/18/98
I have seen your web site and it made me think. A Christian, or any who believe in Jesus Christ, would not sue over their symbols used in his
religion. So what religion are the menbers of the ACLU? Are they Native
American or some other religion? It would be instering to know.
Just thinking. -Sheri

9/19/98
Native Americans were here first, and Indians were the first to pray over America. All the others were Jesus-Come-Lately. That's the truth. Leave the Seal of Sedgwick County, KS and get rid of the smelly fish. -Red Wolf

9/19/98
My daughter attends a school with an Indian mascot. She asked the Native American counselor about the mascot and it's relationship to their religious beliefs. The counselor told her that legally only a Native American can posses an eagle feather to be used for religious purposes and that's the way the law is written. The counselor told my daughter if she was interested in Native American religion to contact the Mid America All Indian Center because they hold a religious sweat lodge on the first Friday of the month and it's open to all people to learn more about Native American religious beliefs. My daughter supports Native Americans and does plan to attend one of these sweat lodges to learn more. So any of you who want to understand the Indian religious symbols should look into this and go down there.

I guess what I mean is that we believe it is a good thing for everybody to have the praying man on the Sedgwick County seal.

(editors note: The counselor who said the eagle feather can only be used by a Native American is correct see http://www.iwchildren.org/permit.htm for the Federal Code and application for permit)

9/22/98
Thanks for visiting Areopagus Online and leaving your thoughts in
our Guest Book. This is the reply I have posted there:

Including a picture of a praying Native American on the Sedgwick
County Seal hardly constitutes the establishment of a state
religion. And at any rate, the "anti-other" tone you adopt goes
against all I've learned about Native American religiousity,
which values openness and acceptance highly. The truth is, for
mainstream American society, the image of a Native American
praying has already been subsumed by mainstream commercial
culture and rendered practically non-religious. This seal runs
the risk of further marginalizing Native Americans and their
faith practicies, not of honoring them.

I hope we can continue to converse about this important subject.

Regards, Eric Bosell

(editors response: When talking of mainstream America you have not been in it. In every corner of America you will find sweat lodges. On college campuses and in the heart of all cities. The reason? Mainstream America is leaving the churches. They are searching for the pure spiritually based religions that their ancestors enjoyed. Tune in any talk show and you will find a discussion on the spirituality and beliefs of Native Americans and those talk show hosts are telling the Reverends and pastors to quite digging in the pockets of their flock and get back to praying for the people who are God's children just like Native Americans do. That is mainstream American religion now.)

9/22/98
My hat is of to the Native American. they have made church
and state, look like fools. There is no one with half a brain that would say that is not a Native American praying. Pay a visit to your Rev. folks and ask him or her what they were doing while the Native America showed the county how to pray? -a Kansas Native

9/23/98
I am assuming you want my christian name as well as my e-mail address so I have included it. After reading all the cancerous hatred you espouse at your cripple little "poor me" indian sight I'll bet your full of not only biased ideas but probably the makings of a nice cancer within your self! The meat of what I said was, all this time you and the other remnants of your beaten, alcoholic race pound your chests and lament about your situation under the white man, why don't you remove yourselves from our midst? Chief whimpering dog? All this shit you and crybabies like you whimper about happened generations ago! Either declare war on our nation and get it over with or learn to accept the fact that you whimper into the wind. No one hears you but the ghosts of your own dead! Europeans were kind enough to give you horses, books, colleges, computers, welfare the world wide web etc. You vent your self righteous hatred of us while living in our society and benefiting from our hand outs. If you and your kind were sincere you would caste off all vestiges of the evil white man and his vile society!

Pick up your dead religion put on your loin cloth get some rancid bear fat, slick down your hair, pitch a teepee, ( no electricity please), and start living the life you so fervently whine about losing? Then some one might take you seriously. Also, as you leave don't forget to remove the bridle from the ponies and send them home to the Europeans. I guess what you want to really do is whimper real loud so some one will pay attention but you don't want to loose all those many things from the white man's society that make your life and your whimpering easier huh?

Answer me this, please. You are obviously an intelligent person, do you have any college? where did the money come from and whose "chief" had his picture on it? Do you live on a reservation to ease your suffering from having to live in such close proximity to the ones that fill your soul with such hatred? Who's picture is on the money that pays for your existence? Who's money is it that you and ones like you receive every year? whose tens of millions of dollars do you take in at your glittering casinos and what gods do you owe for them? Also, If you have a red government ruling in the states you mentioned above it's no wonder they chose your religious symbol to represent them! Having indians elect to have an indian symbol represent them is real objective!

Could you give me a bibliography of your sources regarding Indian religion being the fastest growing in the country today? Unlike you, I don't hate some one because of the color. I am just sick to death of indians and blacks telling anyone who'll listen how bad they have it at the hands of the white man. And looking into their eyes and see cold hatred staring back. Feeling the way you do about whites, how can you think you are any better? Either socially or religiously?

It is an ungrateful cur that after eating from the bowl set out by his master, runs to meet the moon and howls his fury and hatred for the very one who has filled his bowl to brimming. Then when the moon tells him enough, he steals back into the lodge of this same one to escape the chill and frost, only to repeat his cowardly treachery again and again while all the while he eats from his master's generosity and kindness.

-A piece of impromptu prose from the hand of Peter A Schnapp

9/23/98
You people have some good pages on veterans and a friend showed them to me a while back. I don't like some of the mail you have gotten so I am going to set this record straight.
I am a Vietnam Veteran. Every one knows how we were treaded when we
came home. Unfortunately my story is like a lot of others. I lost a leg for the people but I came home. I knew too many who didn't. They spit on us and called us baby killers. That really got me because they didn't
have any idea what was going on. Like a lot of Vets in my
era we were outcasts and some still are. Why?

We gave the highest honor anyone could give for the people. We died.
We lost parts of ourselves, both mentally and physically. What did we get back but to be treated like begging dogs? When a Vet talks about his story no one has the guts to listen and the children today think Veterans are some play toy from a burger joint. Where were people when these guys were dying from
the way it tore them up inside?
Then there is always the self righteous ass that prays for our sins
every Sunday. What a joke.

Then I met an Indian and he taught me that the Warrior and Veteran
are sacred and honored men. They are held in the
highest honor. When some one dishonors them they dishonor
the Great Spirit. The Veterans are Warriors and are always the children of God.

Does the Great Spirit step to the front in defense of his
other children? At first I did not believe, but each time I attended a
Native American religious ceremony, I saw an Indian stand up and hold the
eagle feather or the sacred pipe high, just like the man on the seal and pray for
the people. They always would ask the Great Spirit to help
them to keep the name Warrior, the Veteran, in a sacred way. I learned it is
because the Warrior earned that honor.

That is a Native American praying on the Sedgwick County seal and
I find honor in that. I am thankful the county did not just use a white
man or a black man because everyone knows they don't like each other.
It is a simple truth that one of them praying over Sedgwick would be a lie.
Keep the Indian praying on the seal for he is praying for everybody, red, white, black, yellow, just like the Medicine Wheel says.
-Not Indian, just wish I was. -Mike (Wisconsin)

9/24/98
Christ said that God does not live behind the walls of the rich, but
lives in all that is around us. The Indian prays to God in the open,
just as Christ did, so it is fitting to have an Indian praying on the
seal of Sedgwick County. for that is the way Jesus prayed, what greather
way to honor him?
- William in Oklahoma

9/23/98
Whoa! If that was a black standing like that on the seal of
Sedwick County, KS, people would think they were just some baskball nuts. On the other hand if it was a white man, people would think it was Bill
Clinton asking for a helping hand out of the shit he got himself in to.
But, that is an Indian. They are the only fools who would pray for everybody.
Hell, even Christ didn't do that.
(no name given)

9/24/98
Your site has made me think. The Lord Christ did not pray in a church or
building. He preached the word in the great out of doors like Indians. I think the County seal of ks. is honoring the Lord Christ.
-(no name)

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