Governing prayer

With new rules governing how one can pray at public meetings, fewer clergy are willing to be designated prayer givers at our local city council meetings. Isn’t this a 1st Amendment right? Why do public groups like city councils need designated prayer givers?

I once joined several local clergy in signing a letter to members of our Newport Beach City Council asking that one of them offer the invocation just as one leads the Pledge of Allegiance at the beginning of each of their meetings. For several years I declined to be the designated prayer giver at such public meetings of groups with which I am not regularly involved.

I would like to have freedom to pray publicly in the name of God in Christ Jesus and to include saints and angels. I appreciate hearing members of other faith communities offer prayer in their specific terms; I’ve learned much by such listening. I believe that when Jesus said, “In my Father’s house there are many rooms” (John 14:2a) he meant that there are certainly nonAnglicans in God’s eternal house and one everlasting home for all of us if we choose to live together. One of the reasons I rejoice to be an Episcopalian is that I’ve never heard anyone say that only Episcopalians/Anglicans get into heaven. By and large, we accept the risk of grace by not setting limits to God’s love with our own judgment of others.

Although I don’t like being a designated prayer giver, I understand doing so to be one of my responsibilities. Like others nationwide, our Newport Beach City Council created guidelines for invocations available at www.city.newport-beach.ca.us/Councilpolicies/A-19.htm.

Just as I enjoy hearing my Jewish, Muslim, Zen, and other sisters and brothers pray, I am sure I would appreciate hearing members of our City Council offer invocations, for we would learn more of what they believe and in whom they believe.

(THE VERY REV’D CANON)

PETER D. HAYNES

Saint Michael & All Angels

Episcopal Church

Corona del Mar

The Rev. David Hall, an Episcopal rector who frequently serves as guest chaplain for the Vermont Senate, once attracted objections to an invocation. Hall recited Psalm 8, which opens, “O Lord our governor, how glorious is your name in all the world.” He was admonished by several senators. “Please,” he was reprimanded, “never refer to the Lord as ‘governor’ again.”

An Indiana judge cited the numerous references to Christ in ruling that prayers in the state Legislature amounted to unlawful establishment of religion. Of 45 prayers considered, 29 mentioned Jesus. In one incident that ignited controversy, the guest chaplain invoked: “We look forward to the day when all nations and all people of the earth will have the opportunity to hear and respond to messages of love of the Almighty God who has revealed himself in the saving power of Jesus Christ.”

In another, the guest chaplain led legislators in singing “Just a Little Talk With Jesus,” prompting some lawmakers to clap rhythmically and others to storm out.

No matter how the Establishment Clause is parsed, it means that government may not exhibit a predilection for one faith group or creedal dogma. There must not be a state endorsement of Christianity, placing nonChristians beyond the pale and conveying to Christians that they are privileged insiders. Rather, a prayer before a governmental body should be unidentifiable as Christian, Muslim or Jewish.

The country’s founders were concerned over divisions created by religion. They would denounce attempts to proselytize in governmental contexts. Any reference to the divinity of Jesus would imply that a government body was a Christian group and thus advance a particular religious belief. I know that such a statement gives ammunition to the “Christianity is under attack in America” crowd, but let it ring out from church steeples and capitol domes that America owes supreme allegiance to the Constitution, not to the New Testament.

I concur with the judge who wrote: “When we gather as Americans, we do not abandon all expressions of religious faith. Instead, our expressions evoke common and inclusive themes and forswear the forbidding character of sectarian invocations.”

When preparing a prayer to be offered prior to governmental meetings and public occasions, I am aware that there are various paths to God, that my audience is diverse, and that many do not share my angle of vision. I take my being directed to offer a general, inclusive prayer as civic virtue, not censorship.

Those clergy who stand before others of different beliefs and yet feel compelled to testify to sectarian creeds violate the contract that should obtain when we join together in prayer.

While I am not an ecumaniac, I submit that invocations ought to be ecumenical.

And besides being free of denominational references, I entertain one more hope for invocations: that they be kept under one minute! What a true blessing that would be!

RABBI MARK S. MILLER

Temple Bat Yahm

Newport Beach

Prayer at public functions challenges those who have strong beliefs about their own religions. Prayers that are too specific to names and customs challenge those who are not familiar with those names and customs, and sometimes offend the listener.

For instance, if a Christian minister says, “In Jesus’ name we pray,” and the listener is not Christian, he or she might feel that the prayer is more about the religion than the event. Or, if the minister is a Muslim and begins the prayer by invoking the name Allah, is it possible that a non-Muslim might be offended?

This is one of the complaints many city councils are trying to address by having designated prayer givers.

Whenever I am asked to pray at a public meeting, I generally start my prayers with the following: “However you know God to be, whatever your faith or religion, bring that idea forward in your heart now, and together let us bless this event.”

Then I go on with my prayer invoking the highest and the best for whatever is being blessed. No matter where you go, however, you will always find that certain words used in public prayers are a distraction to some listeners. But if you can remind yourself that God is in all religions, and that all of life is waiting for your blessing, perhaps you can simply affirm the best no matter how it is worded.

SENIOR PASTOR

JAMES TURRELL

Center for Spiritual Discovery

Costa Mesa

Prayers at public meetings are constitutional only if they are nonsectarian or generic. This is a compromise that may please few people.

On the one hand, some religious leaders will object if their prayers must be altered, restricted or diluted so that they no longer express the specific beliefs of their particular sect. On the other hand, those like me who follow non-theistic paths, or those who believe in no religious tradition, or civil libertarians who prefer a greater degree of separation of church and state will object to even nonsectarian prayers.

I prefer a few moments of silence simply inviting those who wish to pray, meditate or to reflect upon their highest purposes to do so.

The Supreme Court noted that legislative prayer has coexisted with the principles of religious freedom and the prohibition against the establishment of religion since colonial times. For that reason, the high court granted a very limited exception permitting public prayer at government events, but only if it does not give one religious denomination official preference over another. I predict that public prayer at government events will eventually be viewed as unconstitutional as our society becomes more and more religiously diverse.

Clergy do not have a 1st Amendment right to be given a microphone at a government meeting to say whatever prayers they like. Those who claim that their 1st Amendment freedoms are violated because they are not allowed to use an official public forum to advance their religion are slyly twisting the meaning of the 1st Amendment so that it would require the very thing it was designed to prevent ? government support for one religion over others.

Clergy do have the right to refuse an invitation to give an invocation if they do not wish to comply with the guidelines and adapt their prayers to the setting. They may offer whatever prayers they like at their church, at home or anyplace that is not a government forum. That is religious freedom.

If a city chooses to continue to offer prayer before its meetings, it does not matter if they have a designated prayer giver or a rotation of local clergy so long as those who lead the prayer agree to follow the constitutional guidelines that best respect the rights of all.

REV. DR. DEBORAH BARRETT

Zen Center of Orange County

Costa Mesa

It is not necessary for the success of a council to pray to a deity. However, when one looks at the world around us and the success or lack thereof that our government bodies have been able to make in improving it, I would think that they would want all the help they can get.

The task of leadership is a heavy mantle that should be taken seriously. Perhaps in the invocation of a blessing there is the realization that the task set before them is mighty and that despite partisan politicking, children and the poor and the victims of our world depend on the benevolence of their decisions. It is a shame that such a wedge has been driven between the church and the government. There is no greater distribution system in the world than the church. Even villages without a school or post office have churches.

The church is waking slowly to the monumental task that we must take up. For far too long, we have neglected our duties to the “widows and the orphans” and focused too much energy on denominational issues that have paralyzed us.

Today is a new day, though, and denominational barriers are falling. Government has little political interest in the downtrodden of the world unless it is an election year. The success of the political system is paramount over the success of the individual in our current political climate. In this climate, religion is taboo. This is unfortunate because with the church distribution system as a partner, the governments of the world could be far more effective in their social agendas.

As we see increasing corruption in government, we also see God increasingly unwelcome.In 1996, a Kansas pastor was asked to open the state Senate with prayer. His prayer was far from politically correct: “Heavenly Father, we come before you today to ask your forgiveness and seek your direction and guidance. We know your word says, ‘Woe to those who call evil good,’ but that’s exactly what we have done. We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and inverted our values. We confess that; we have ridiculed the absolute truth of your word and called it pluralism; we have worshipped other gods and called it multiculturalism; we have endorsed perversion and called it an alternative lifestyle; we have exploited the poor and called it the lottery; we have neglected the needy and called it self-preservation; we have rewarded laziness and called it welfare; we have killed our unborn and called it choice; we have shot abortionists and called it justifiable; we have neglected to discipline our children and called it building self-esteem; we have abused power and called it political savvy; we have coveted our neighbor’s possessions and called it ambition; we have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of expression; we have ridiculed the time-honored values of our forefathers and called it enlightenment. Search us, O God, and know our hearts today; try us and see if there be some wicked way in us; cleanse us from every sin and set us free. Guide and bless these men and women who have been sent here by the people of this state and who have been ordained by you to govern this great state of Kansas. Grant them your wisdom to rule, and may their decisions direct us to the center of your will. I ask in the name of your son, the living savior, Jesus Christ.”

Seems to me, our government leaders could use a little humility before making decisions for the rest of us.

SENIOR ASSOCIATE PASTOR

RIC OLSEN

Harbor Trinity

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