Fairlight on Civil Religion

Today my wife, Fairlight, received an email alerting her to the fact that prayer might be banned at the presidential inauguration.  She was asked to sign a petition that would be forwarded to the court that would be trying the case.  Below was her response, which immediately went to the top of my "things I wish I would have written or said myself" list:

While I appreciate the endeavor to combat secularism in our society, it seems to be that prayer at a civil affair is inappropriate. And you know me, I love Jesus. But I am also wary of invoking "God's" name and not knowing to which God we are praying and asking the entire nation to participate in a religious activity during a secular one. While "We were a nation founded by religious refugees",  we are no longer. The signers of the constitution were mostly Deists (which is not by definition Christian.)

The idea that "our nation should not be steered in such a secular direction" is not up to us. People are moral agents. God is not a God of force. People choose to be ungodly. Why ask for folks to be nominaly Christian?

Perhaps the best thing for the Church today would not be to simply claim a religious tradition as a foundation on which to stand, but to rather claim Jesus Christ and his way of life--that would not include this complacency and nominal Christianity. The Church may need to let the civil realm be turned over to secularism, so that those who truly want a new way of life will find it in the Church--not in meaningless prayers at an inaugural civil ceremony. Let George Bush (or any other president) pray when and where he/she wants to pray, not force prayer into a civil ceremony. But more importantly, let him/her live out the ethics of Jesus and proclaim the values of the Kingdom in an inaugural speech.

Having said that, I cannot sign the petition. But I would like to begin a discussion around this.

Fairlight Collins-Jones

Comments

[timsamoff]

My first response to something like "banning" prayer at the inauguration is revulsion -- how dare politics get in the way of my belief system!

But, Fairlight (that's an awesome name!) is right:

> The idea that "our nation should
> not be steered in such a secular
> direction" is not up to us. People
> are moral agents. God is not a God
> of force. People choose to be
> ungodly. Why ask for folks to be
> nominaly Christian?

(And my hearts always tends first not to remember this fact.)

While God appreciates prayer in any circumstance -- no matter who is or who isn't a "nominal" Christian -- adding prayer to a civil event (especially a major American one) just makes for more pseudo-Nationalistic B.S.

Thanks for posting this.

[Bill]

Great thoughts, Fairlight!

[Zossima]

My response would've been that I'm ashamed to have once been a Republican, given that they now so routinely stoop to outright lies such as this in an effort to maintain an ideological rift that favors their short term corporate and military interests by blinding and distracting their own party members from their true agenda and by avoiding open discourse among all Americans in search for a true consensus on what is the national interest. And then I would have said, 'Kiss my ass!'

[WTM]

I had a class with Fenn at PTS this past semester and he would have loved Fairlight's response!

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Scott, I just found your blog. I'm glad you're still doing karaoke since I left PTS in May.

[Robfre]

While I realize that much of the equipment, the structures and the participant auspices that were used at the inaugauration were public trusts, and I generally do not respond to petitions declaring the attack by secularists 'to be well on their way to success', I note that the inauguration utilized invocation and benediction, and doubt that that was because of some petition. The constitution stops the secularists from dictating to me or Geo. W when and where we clebrate our Liberty.
The main aspect of circumscription I see is the one that tells the likes of Osama Bin Laden, Charles Manson and others, they cannot try to achieve their paradise in dreaded forceful manner without the consequence we have begun to wreak upon the surviving numbers of that wayward bunch of lunatics. An atheist on the other hand is allowed to practice that disbelief if they so choose, but only in a non violent, non restrictive of others practice of belief or disbelief way, as is constituted 'in pursuit' of happiness without guarantee of success, as any other citizen enjoys.

[germerian]

dude, maybe your blog should be called "SCJ Last Month."

[david]

Fairlight, I agree. I also remember you from the other PTS (i.e. Pittsburgh Theological Seminary). You had me substitute for you in your Hebrew-Greek Tutoring. I just happened upon Scott's site via a picture of him posted @ pomomusing [google keyword: theodicy]?!

One thought I had: I often hear from certain conservative-minded Christians how we need to bring prayer back into the public schools. "Really?" I ask them, "It's a multi-cultural world. Which God will they have my kids praying to?" Let public schools bring the kids up academically; Let parents bring them up spiritually.

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