According to the Willits News, Adventist Health Howard Memorial hosted a Prayer Breakfast on February 4th.

The breakfast was held at Willits, California City Hall, and the food was provided by Roots Cafe, which feeds Adventist patients and visitors alike. Roots Cafe provided a vegetarian breakfast with frittata, pancakes, potatoes, and two different vegan sausage options.

The keynote speaker was Sarah Thebarge, who has practiced medicine throughout Africa.

AHHM purposefully included many different forms of expression and beliefs reflected in who spoke, sang, or played. Over the course of the event, eight prayers were offered.

Some of the more notable comments were:

“Help us to see the light and beauty that manifests in each person we know. Teach us how to embrace our sisters and brothers, as equals, celebrating the diversity that enriches our community” (Roland Hulstein).
Ace Barash M.D. said a Hebrew prayer to bless the food. Christian pastor, Jim Semich, prayed for “City, State & Nation,” while Elder Fred Short prayed for “Home and Family.”
“For us as people, our lives depend on our children learning how to care for Mother Earth,” said Short about the Seven Generations. “Seven Generations” is an Iroquois concept, urging people living now to plan seven generations into the future to ensure continued life.
Sam Senerchia, a Soto Zen Buddhist prayed for “Unity,” and reviewed the “Four Great Vows” of Zen Buddhism.
Mormon Bishop Dale Abono of the Church of Jesus Christ Latter-day Saints prayed for First Responders.
The closing prayer was offered by Sam Kaligithi, Director of Spiritual Care at Adventist Health, in the name of God, Jesus, and Allah.

At F7, we enthusiastically support breakfast. I have personally benefited from breakfast countless times. We also support wholesome vegetarian foods. Thumbs up!

While we support people praying for one another, and encouraging their communities, we ask “Is opening the door to heathen religions, opening it too far?” I would personally not give a platform for someone to present the Four Vows of Buddhism, because as a Seventh-day Adventist Christian, I believe that Buddhism is a deceptive false religion, antithetical to biblical Christianity. We should not give a platform to such error, unless we have decided that truth is now universal.

Praying to Allah is great—if Allah and God are the same being. But they are not the same. It is the Quran that says that Muslims and Christians worship the same God, not the Bible. According to the Quran, Islam and Christianity overlap on some on what God has done, but they differ significantly on the character and reality of who God is.

Christians worship a Triune God: a Father who loves unconditionally, an incarnate Son who is willing to die for us so that we may be forgiven, and an indwelling Holy Spirit who lives within us. This is not what the Muslim God (Allah) is; it is not who the Muslim God is; and it is not what the Muslim God does.

Truly, the Biblical God is antithetical to Allah, fundamentally incompatible and only superficially similar. But, we hope that the breakfast was tasty and nutritious, even if the ecumenism was a bit noxious.

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“Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel, and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts: ‘I am the First and I am the Last; Besides Me there is no God. And who can proclaim as I do?” ( Isaiah 44:6—8).