Imagine you’ve invited your Jewish neighbors over to your house for dinner. Immediately after serving your guests, you question whether or not you should offer a prayer. You think to yourself that both Christians and Jews believe in God, so you offer a prayer. As you near the end of this prayer, you begin to question whether or not you should end your prayer in Jesus’ name or offer a more generic ending? What would your guests think, and how would it make them feel?
Even in the privacy of your own home, this is an awkward situation. Now imagine this scenario outside of your private home at a government-sponsored public school board meeting.
Andrew Gardner
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In May, the Supreme Court accepted a case that seeks to provide some clarity to the legality of sectarian prayers given at public functions as well as establish some criteria for the nature and purpose of these prayers. This is not, however, the first time the Supreme Court has ruled on a legislative prayer case.
In a 1983 case, Marsh v. Chambers, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that legislative prayers were constitutional in so far as individuals did not use the prayer as an opportunity “to proselytize or advance any one, or to disparage any other, faith or belief.” This rather ambiguous wording provides little guidance for determining the nature of prayer at public governmental gatherings.
The recently accepted case, featured in the Baptist Joint Committee’s June edition of the Report from the Capitol, will hopefully clear up some of this ambiguous language. This particular case — Town of Greece v. Galloway — results from a complaint regarding the town’s ministerial selection policy that favors Christianity over other religious traditions. This favoritism cuts against most constitutional sensibilities that strive to maintain neutrality among religious beliefs.
This question of sectarian prayers at public gatherings is not new. While in New York City this summer, I’ve been reading some of the works of Walter Rauschenbusch as well as some biographical material. In 1916, Rauschenbusch prayed on the National Day of Prayer against tuberculosis. In his audience were scores of people, many of whom were Jewish. Recognizing that Rauschenbusch was no longer leading solely a group of Christians, he tailored his prayer by resolving not to use the name of Christ.
After receiving harsh criticism in a conservative Christian newspaper, Rauschenbusch responded to the editor: “What would you do, Mr. Editor, if you were asked to lead in prayer in a congregation composed of Christians and Jews on some popular civic occasion? Would you insist on using the ordinary Christian terms, or would you consider the feelings of the Jews whose prayers you were expected to lead? Perhaps you would feel bound to mention the name of Christ at all cost. But is not another man within his right if he chooses the other way, speaking to the Christ whom he trusts? I was leading a great congregation of all kinds of people when I wrote that prayer, and I do not believe Jesus Christ frowned on me.”
Rauschenbusch recognized that giving such a prayer at a public function was a position of influence that should be handled with great care. Belief and faith are personal choices, willfully accepted, without coercion. Showing preference to the Christian majority provides the impetus, ever small, for the minority to seek to become a member of the privileged majority if only for matters of convenience. Such is not a Christianity Christians should desire to promote. Instead, we should desire for all people to make willful choices in their faith practices uninhibited by coercive or forceful acts.
We should not understand cases like Town of Greece v. Galloway as an attempt to take God out of the public sphere. The mere suggestion that God may be taken out the public sphere indicates a belief that such a thing is actually possible. Instead, we should understand these court cases as attempts to create a society where individuals find God without interference or aid from governmental, public sources.
During this Fourth of July season, I think it is important for us as Christians, and especially as Baptists, to dwell on and remember our religious freedom, a freedom Baptists played a major part in achieving in this country. Rather than allow our churches to fall victim to the worship of America, let us praise God that we are individuals created with a free conscious with which we may make our beliefs our own.
Andrew Gardner ([email protected]), a student at Wake Forest University School of Divinity, is spending the summer working at Rauschenbusch Metro Ministries, a social advocacy group affiliated with Metro Baptist Church in New York City. From time to time he will be writing about his experience.