Massachusetts City Council Rethinking Lord's Prayer
Concern about privileging Christianity was brought up by an interfaith group of religious leaders who suggested that prayers from Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism all be used on a rotating basis:
"To baptize the Lord's Prayer as the exclusive approach seems like we're saying, 'You're not a part of the community here,' " said Steve Fisher, president of the Greater Lowell Interfaith Leadership Alliance and a former United Church of Christ minister.
The request has been met with resistance from some council members, who say they are not willing to tamper with a tradition that dates to 1966. "I am not about to be bowing down and taking and eliminating that which should be there," said Councilor Rita Mercier , a Lowell native with Polish and Irish roots. "They call us a melting pot. But if you melt something, you lose its identity."
Echoing a concern shared by other councilors, Mercier added that once four additional prayers are added, other religious groups could come forward and demand recitation of their prayers, creating an alphabet soup of prayers at council meetings. "How far do we go with this?" asked Mercier, a former mayor.
Source: The Boston Globe
Fortunately, the idea of rotating sectarian prayers was dropped. Mercier was right to point out that once you start down that road, you open yourself up to any prayer that anyone wants to add. As soon as the council decides to reject any request, they would effectively be saying that certain religions are privileged while others are not — or even that certain forms of certain religions are privileged over others. No government body or agency has the authority to do that.
On the other hand, the choice to give an official stamp of approval to a some "non-sectarian prayer" is problematic as well. Either the prayer will be so vague as to say nothing in order to say nothing that contradicts anyone's beliefs, or it will express some particular religious, theistic, supernatural beliefs. In the former case, this will be perceived as insulting to sincere and devout religious believers — many would prefer no prayers over a prayer like that.
In the latter cases, we'll still see a government body endorsing particular religious, theistic, and supernatural beliefs over others. Why? What legitimate government purpose does that serve? If members of the council feel a need for prayer of some sort before meetings, they can do so on their own — and that way, they will ensure that they will have prayers that accurately reflect what they personally believe. They would get what they feel they need but also leave the government out of it.
Comments
I have a solution to the problem! Dispence with the prayers and get down to doing the business of the city council!
Ron- Are you kidding? That makes way too much sense. Not to mention that since that’s what they are really there to do, they have to do everything they can to keep from having to do it. Especially if it’ll end up costing the city obscene amounts of cash.
Gaa, don’t you know anything about public service?
PRAYER IS JUST A WASTE OF TIME AND A BUNCH OF CRAP. GET ON WITH MORE PRODUCTIVE THINGS FOR THE GOOD OF HUMANITY. HAS ANYONE EVER HAD A PRAYER ANSWERED?? DO PRAYERS LOWER TAXES? DO PRAYERS LOWER GAS PRICES? CURE CANCER?
SKEP
This ones real easy…
Say your prayers as your taking a dump on the toilet BEFORE the meeting, school, work or anywhere else you may be going that day!! STOP shoving that crap in everyones faces!
Chuck
C’mon folks, go easy here! It’s just going to take these guys a while to accept that the U.S. is moving inexorably into a post-Christian era. Most of the Europeans have made their peace with this reality, and, eventually, our Christians will too. Once they realize that: 1) no one, no, not even the big bad atheists and secular humanists, is going to attempt to forcibly prevent them from practicing their religions or instructing their young in their tenets and traditions, and 2) that civilization will be in no greater danger (and probably less!) of catastrophic collapse than it is now, they’ll likely calm the heck down.
Let’s just try to give them some space, eh? Well, as much as they’ll allow us to give them anyway.
The uneasy question though, regarding both Christianity (mostly in the U.S.) and Islam (mostly in Europe), will be: how do we cope with the extremists? What do we do about people who’ve gotten it locked into their brains that God wants them to persecute and kill people who don’t agree with them?
C’mon folks, go easy here! It’s just going to take these guys a while to accept that the U.S. is moving inexorably into a post-Christian era. Most of the Europeans have made their peace with this reality, and, eventually, our Christians will too. Once they realize that: 1) no one, no, not even the big bad atheists and secular humanists, is going to attempt to forcibly prevent them from practicing their religions or instructing their young in their tenets and traditions, and 2) that civilization will be in no greater danger (and probably less!) of catastrophic collapse than it is now, they’ll likely calm the heck down.
Let’s just try to give them some space, eh? Well, as much as they’ll allow us to give them anyway.
The uneasy question though, regarding both Christianity (mostly in the U.S.) and Islam (mostly in Europe), will be: how do we cope with the extremists? What do we do about people who’ve gotten it locked into their brains that God wants them to persecute and kill people who don’t agree with them?