Where to draw the line

“In God We Trust” appears on the U.S. bills in my pocket. “One nation

under God” is pledged every day. U.S. courts and presidents take the

“Bible oath.” The so-called separation of church and state is a mere

idea -- excellent when it is against a state-endorsed religion,

pitiable when it is against religion itself. Prayers are a symbol of

profound awe, respect and love. Such acts only serve to enrich a

closer bond with our fellow man.

IMAM MOUSTAFA AL-QAZWINI

Islamic Educational Center

of Orange County

Costa Mesa

For Christians, a central goal is to be praying always; ideally,

prayer is less something we do than it is how we live. Everybody

prays whether one thinks of it as praying or not: The odd silence you

fall into when something very beautiful is happening or something

very good or very bad, like the “ah-h-h-h!” that sometimes floats out

of you as out of a Fourth of July crowd when fireworks burst over the

water, the stammer of pain at someone else’s pain, the stammer of joy

at someone else’s joy, or whatever words or sounds one uses for

sighing over your own life and loves.

These are all prayers in their way. These are all spoken not just

to yourself but to something or someone even more familiar than

yourself and even more unusual than the world. Opportunities for

prayer serve to remind that we all pray as an integral, inescapable

dynamic of human living, that we all honor symbols, beliefs, values

and practices focused on bottom-line questions of meaning (so, we all

have a “religion”), and that we all have an ultimate focus, whether

it is a god of pleasure or success or happiness or the God of Jews

and Christians and Muslims.

Optional times for quiet contemplation and silent meditation would

provide opportunities for individuals to do ... something along the

long continuum of the great variety of things people do and the ways

peoples and religions pray. How we use such times would identify who

or what our God or god is, in what religion we believe, and how we

pray ... always!

THE VERY REV. CANON

PETER D. HAYNES

St. Michael & All Angels

Episcopal Church

Corona del Mar

I have enjoyed the privilege of opening sessions of the U.S. House

of Representatives and the U.S. Senate with prayers invoking the

blessings of God on the legislators and our country. I have offered

invocations at countless council meetings and public school

gatherings.

I affirm the separation of church and state while acknowledging no

separation between God and country. It is not so much a wall that

divides the two realms as a heavy curtain. Religious life has never

been divorced from the political process, and governmental

neutrality, in matters of religious expression, has never been a

feature of the political landscape.

I am the rabbi of a synagogue that enjoys tax-exempt status as a

religious institution. Our government is officially on the side of

God, affirming its faith in God, its reliance upon God and the

relevance of God’s blessings to America’s survival and welfare.

Despite such a disposition toward religion, and despite displays of

religiosity in all branches of government, the founders wrote a

secular Constitution in which the powers and concerns of the

government were not to affect the religious conscience of the

individual.

Victims themselves of Europe’s religious wars, they believed that

full religious freedom was possible only in a secular state. I

believe the public school is a secular institution. A time set aside

for prayer to be recited in such a setting is coercive.

When I offer a prayer before Congress, it is uttered before adults

who are present voluntarily. A legislator who objects to ceremonial

deism may enter the chamber a few moments after the opening gavel for

the start of the business day. Students, though, do not enjoy such a

luxury and are compelled to either recite a prayer, distance

themselves from the students who are praying or remain silent while

their peers and friends are engaged in this exercise.

Other than praying “Please let the bell ring” or “Please let the

teacher grade on the curve,” the serious business of entreating God

should be left to the sacred precincts of the house of worship, the

home, or to any setting in which the worshipper feels the need to

engage in religious devotion.

RABBI MARK MILLER

Temple Bat Yahm

Newport Beach