Guest Post by Morbo
The National Day of Prayer is Thursday, May 1. I oppose it. I believe religious leaders should call people to prayer, not government officials. I believe religious services should take place in houses of worship, not government buildings.
Alas, the federal courts do not agree with me. Thus, we have a National Day of Prayer. Of course it has been taken over by obnoxious fundamentalist Christians who sponsor exclusionary programs that promote their narrow brand of Christianity.
If we have to have a day like this, it ought to be interfaith. But the National Day of Prayer Task Force, a private group run by Religious Right honcho James Dobson’s wife, Shirley, tells its volunteers not to let anyone near the microphone who has not signed off on a fundamentalist statement of faith.
That statement reads in part:
“I believe that the Holy Bible is the inerrant Word of The Living God. I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the only One by which I can obtain salvation and have an ongoing relationship with God. I believe in the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ, his virgin birth, his sinless life, his miracles, the atoning work of his shed blood, his resurrection and ascension, his intercession and his coming return to power and glory.”
Jews and other non-Christians can attend the event. They just get to stand there and be window dressing for the Jesus-athon.
Thankfully, some people have had it with the fundamentalist takeover and are fighting back.
Jews on First, an online group of activists who love the separation of church and state, is urging an “Inclusive National Day of Prayer” that is welcoming to everyone.
Says the Jews on First website:
“The organizations participating in the Inclusive Day of Prayer campaign are asking their states’ governors to refrain from issuing proclamations to the Focus-linked Task Force because it excludes clergy and leaders representing Jews, Catholics, Muslims, Buddhists, and even moderate evangelical Christians from its observances.”
Jews on First has set up a special website to promote the idea. And when they say inclusive, they really mean inclusive. They note that an event took place in Oklahoma City in 2004 that was dubbed “Oklahoma’s Interfaith Day of Prayer and Reflection.” It included representatives from non-theistic organizations.
I’d much prefer we didn’t have to go through this at all, so I’ll leave the last word to Thomas Jefferson, who, as president, refused to issue official proclamations calling for days of prayer and fasting.
In a letter to the Rev. Samuel Miller dated Jan. 23, 1808, Jefferson explained his views: “I do not believe it is for the interest of religion to invite the civil magistrate to direct its exercises, its discipline, or its doctrines; nor of the religious societies that the general government should be invested with the power of affecting any uniformity of time or matter among them. Fasting & prayer are religious exercises. The enjoining them an act of discipline. Every religious society has a right to determine for itself the times for these exercises, & the objects proper for them, according to their own particular tenets; and this right can never be safer than in their own hands, where the constitution has deposited it.”
Good stuff, that.