The God Squad: Park your protests over prayers at NASCAR

Question: I regularly watch NASCAR racing.

Before every race, there’s a prayer for the safety of the drivers and fans, usually spoken by a local minister. The prayer usually invokes Jesus’ name.

While I understand these races often take place in the South and NASCAR racing is associated with the South, in this age of political correctness, shouldn’t the prayer be non-denominational? Non-Christians might be in the minority of spectators, but they must all be offended, as I am, by such prayers. Are we off-base? — Anonymous, via godsquadquestion @aol.com

Answer: Thanks for your question, which, frankly, has me stumped. On one hand, I agree with you. Since all religious people in the West believe in the same singular, unique and loving God, but not all of us believe in Jesus as the Son of God, it would seem both courteous and inclusive, loving and embracing to pray in the name of God rather than in the name of Jesus as the Christ.

The purpose of the prayer is to ask protection for the drivers, crew and spectators for an exciting but often dangerous sport. I agree with you, and whenever I hear a Christian clergyperson make an effort to be inclusive in his or her prayer, I’m deeply grateful for this theological and personal kindness. However (and there is a big however), I also think it’s wrong and arrogant to expect an invoker of God to speak in language that’s both unnatural and incomplete for him or her.

We don’t represent generic vanilla religion when we pray. We speak in the thick, real and believed language of our faith, and being forced by convention or courtesy to alter our language is both unfair and distorting. When a Christian clergyperson prays in the name of Jesus Christ, I’m not offended. I’m not outraged. I don’t feel marginalized. After all, when I praise my parents, I’m not subliminally derogating other people’s parents.

What I do at such moments is simply pray my own prayer, and I don’t say “Amen” to the Christ prayer. I would hope atheists would also use this prayer time to offer a non-theistic moment of reflection and hope for the safety of the drivers. There’s just too much phony outrage in our culture over perceived slights not intended to wound. When a Christian chooses to offer an inclusive prayer, I consider it a gift, not an obligation.

Gentlemen, start your engines!

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