The opening prayer to the 117th Congress caused a stir on Sunday when Democrat Rep Emanuel Cleaver, a Missouri Democrat, concluded by saying “amen” and “a-woman.”
In an apparent nod to gender equality, the United Methodist pastor ended his prayer “in the name of the monotheistic god Brahma and the god known by many different names, amen and awoman.”
Critics, led by Republican lawmakers, have pointed out that ‘amen’ means “so be it” and does not refer to the male gender, while ‘a-woman’ doesn’t mean anything.
RT reports:It did not take long for conservative commentators on social media to notice the creative wording. Some began to question Cleaver’s theological credentials – the lawmaker received his master’s from St. Paul’s School of Theology of Kansas City – while others accused him of mocking the religion.
While “amen” originated in Hebrew, passed through Greek, then was borrowed by Latin and can be translated into English as “truly,”“certainly” or “so be it,” netizens were left to guess what the pastor could have possibly meant by “awoman.”
“If Amen translates to ‘so be it’ or ‘truth,’ what does awoman mean?” one tweeted. “This can’t be real, right? Nobody is actually THAT STUPID?!”another wrote.
