As you will read below, the governor of Oklahoma declared today Oilfield Prayer Day. This minister explains why she will not pray for the oil and gas industry. She should also pray for an end to fracking, which is associated with an increase in earthquakes in the state.
https://nondoc.com/2016/10/11/christian-minister-oilfield-prayer-day-just-cant/
Dear Gov. Mary Fallin,
You have declared Oct. 13 to be Oilfield Prayer Day. You have invited us to, “thank God for the blessings created by the oil and natural gas industry and to seek His [sic] wisdom and ask for protection.”
As an ordained Christian minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, I just can’t.
Gov. Fallin, Oklahoma’s oilfields are fine. It’s our public policies that need divine intervention.
Oklahoma lawmakers have spent decades enticing oil and gas companies to stay in Oklahoma with low taxes and tax credits. The numbers are staggering: $400 million in tax breaks to oil and gas producers per year, $18.1 million in rebates for other forms of production and $188.6 million in deferred rebates. Despite this corporate welfare, oil and gas companies are firing our friends and family left and right, while giving million dollar bonuses to top executives.
All of those tax breaks and tax credits have had a traumatic effect on tax revenue, resulting in devastating cuts to public education and services. We have so little confidence that you and our legislators will fix this problem that Oklahomans are considering a penny sales tax to secure badly needed funding for our classrooms, even though it will be another burden on our working families and the elderly, who are on fixed incomes. This is a failure of leadership.
We know from other oil and gas-dependent states that responsible legislation means that during the lean years, per-student school funding can actually increase instead of plummet.
Reasonable taxes on an industry that uses public natural resources — the ones you describe as created by God — is not, well, unreasonable. It’s making sure that those “natural resources created by God” are used to provide our kids with a free and quality education and give our public school teachers a well-deserved raise — all possible without burdening the most vulnerable among us.
So while you pray for our oil fields, I’ll be praying for you.
I’ll be praying that God grants you the wisdom and courage to work for the public good, not just the wealthy and powerful. After all, it’s the Christian thing to do.
Prayerfully,
Rev. Lori Allen Walke
(P.S. — As theologian Rosemary Radford Ruether noted, “When God is male, male is God.” Be mindful of pronouns. This could be why it took us so long to elect a woman to the highest office in Oklahoma, not to mention the presidency.)
Diane Ravitch's blog 
What about separation of church and state??? Ridiculous.
There is no separation of church and state. The word “separation” does not appear in the Constitution, nor the 1st amendment.
The US Government, often has national prayer days. see
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Day_of_Prayer
The defense department has chaplains, ordained ministers who are paid by the taxpayers.
State governments also have prayer days.
Chas,
I guess we have reached the point where no one reads your comments any more. You say the same thing so many times.
Your historical understanding is positively embarrassing, Charles. Do educate yourself. You could start here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_church_and_state_in_the_United_States
Every word in my post is true and accurate. The word “separation” does not appear anywhere in the federal constitution, nor in the first amendment.
Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter in 1802, which is his personal reflection and opinion, and definitely NOT federal law, nor is it in the Constitution/amendment.
I stand on my statement.
Ah, so the State should pay the bills for all the churches, mosques, and synagogues.
Why not a theocratic State?
The Founders were wise. They knew how Europe had been ravaged by religious wars.
Q Ah, so the State should pay the bills for all the churches, mosques, and synagogues.
Why not a theocratic State?
END Q
I am saying no such thing. You keep quoting the 1st amendment, you should read it!
There is no “establishment” of religion in the USA. The Government does not support any religion.
I am just stating the simple fact, that there is “separation” specifically set forth in the federal constitution.
Wonderful. Wonderful. And amen to this. In our time, the Commons has been appropriated by thieves. This is extraordinarily evil because it is extraordinarily dangerous. Neoliberals love to trot out Garrett Hardin’s “The Tragedy of the Commons” in support of private ownership of the Commons. Here’s why that essay by Hardin was wrong: The Commons did not get depleted because the community would severely sanction those whose greed led them to try to take more than their share or more than the land would bear. We are stewards of these resources, not owners of them. They belong to no one and to all. Time that we remembered that. If we don’t, we will be made to remember, and that learning will be very, very hard.
Oklahoma is one of the strangest places I have ever lived. Although Mary Fallin is not a member of the country club the oil and gas millionaires maintain, she is a regular visitor and speaker. Her asking for prayer is very hypocritical. While our children are packed into classrooms and continue to be pressured to do on line school. And with Scott Pruitt in DC I can’t help but think things will only get worse.
Tarry Pipe (rendition of “Starry Night” by Don McLean)
(Originally posted under a different pseudonym — Horatio Algeranon– in my previous lifetime)
Tarry, tarry pipe
Taints our water black and grey,
Leaks out on a summer day,
With tars that show their darkness in the soil.
Shadows on the hills,
Soils the trees and the daffodils,
Foils the bees with the oil spills,
In blackness on the slowly dying land.
Now I understand what you tried to say to me,
How you rallied for humanity,
How you tried to make us see.
We would not listen, we did not know how.
Perhaps we’ll listen now.
Tarry, tarry pipe.
Flaming towers that brightly blaze,
Swirling clouds and smoggy haze,
Collect in former skies of China blue.
Climate changing too, farmers’ fields of wilted grain,
Weathered faces lined in pain,
Are roiled beneath the pipeline’s tarry sands.
Now I understand what you tried to say to me,
How you rallied for humanity,
How you tried to make us see.
We would not listen, we did not know how.
Perhaps we’ll listen now.
For we did not trust you,
But still your claims were true.
And when no hope was left to wipe
Up that tarry, tarry pipe,
It took our life, as poisons often do.
But you could have told us doubtless
That pipe was never meant for more
Than profits for a few
Tarry, tarry pipe
Praises sung in Congress halls,
Shameless pols in Capital malls,
With lies that waste the world you can’t forget.
From the shysters that you’ve met,
The oil men in Armani clothes,
The silver tongues of bloody Roves
Have oiled and poisoned all the virgin snow.
Now I think I know what you tried to say to me,
How you rallied for humanity,
How you tried to make us see.
We would not listen, we’re not listening still
Perhaps we never will
Dear Lord
May there be a very small comet strike at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave while the cabinet and the Republican leadership are meeting with the Orange monster.
I do not wish to be greedy so I will ask about the Republican Governors conference next week.
As for the oil wells let the run dry .