Church and state

A reader emails that the top item on the official city website for councilwoman Janice Hahn is a link to her testimony at the Billy Graham Crusade held last November. She quotes scripture, says that she is on the council to do God's work and begins by telling the story of her grandmother who "gathered her 7 boys into her kitchen in South Central Los Angeles, taped her windows shut and turned on the gas oven."

It was there, in the midst of her despair, that God touched her.

She felt the unmistakable hand of God. She heard the unmistakable voice of God. And she knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt that God would provide for her and her boys and that each of them would grow up and make a difference in this world.

[fast forward]

I am literally living testimony of her faith. God knew me before I was born and had a plan for me. Thank God that Hattie believed.

Isaiah 49:1 Before I was born, the Lord called me.

PS 91:14 “Because she loves me, I will rescue her..."

With a grandmother on my father’s side who experienced a miracle in her kitchen and a grandmother on my mother’s side who went to Japan at 19 to spread the good news about Jesus; I was able to grow up in a wonderful Christian home. I believed and trusted in Jesus since I was a small girl....

A failed marriage, which always brings shame and embarrassment in a Christian family, set me on a road to being a single mother, bouncing from job to job, and without enough money to pay the bills many months. But, finally, after 2 political losses, I won my City Council seat. My favorite book of the bible--name after a woman--is Esther. Like Esther, I believe I am in this position “for such a time is this.” Esther—raised by her cousin after her parents died—became Queen of Persia after a beauty pageant contest before the King. And when it became
clear that in that position she alone could save her people—the Jews—she was admonished by her cousin.

“Who knows but that you have come to Royal position for such a time is this?” These words are what guide me everyday in my service to Jesus and to others.

The reader writes that he has asked Councilwoman Hahn's office to explain how this is appropriate on a city-owned website but complains he has not gotten an answer.