Pray for wisdom

For the past several years, there has been conflict concerning the Indiana House of Representatives’s penchant for holding a prayer before each session opens. The prayer isn’t a big deal just because it’s a prayer – it’s a big deal because this is the House of Representatives, and because the prayers are specifically directed to Jesus Christ.\nFor those of you scoring at home, not everyone in Indiana is a Christian. And there is still supposed to be separation of church and state in this country. After all, the last time I checked, neither the United States nor Indiana is a theocracy.\nThe American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana responded to the prayers with a lawsuit, and in November 2005, a U.S. District Judge ruled that the prayers couldn’t mention Jesus or endorse any particular religion.\nLast week, however, that ruling was overturned on a technicality. Three of the 11 judges of the 7th Circuit Court decided that the plaintiffs – four taxpayers – didn’t have the legal standing to sue. Still, this decision places the Christian prayer ban in danger.\nIn an Oct. 31 Indianapolis Star article, House Minority Leader Brian Bosma, a Republican, called the ruling a resounding victory for free speech, even though that’s not true – the ruling had nothing at all to do with the actual prayer, just the fact that evidently the wrong people sued. Even then, the court could not agree. A constitutional law expert of Virginia, Carl Tobias, said in the Indianapolis Star article that even this ruling might change if the whole Circuit Court convenes and that the case is far from over.\nFirst of all, whoever came up with the idea of public prayer in the first place doesn’t even seem to have a complete grasp of Scripture. Jesus Himself says in Matthew 6:5-6, “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen.”\nJesus may not have wanted “all prayer … erased from every aspect of public life,” as Rep. Bosma said in the Indianapolis Star article of the ACLU, but based on His words, I doubt He would be a fan of the Statehouse prayers.\nEither way, to have this prayer in such a public setting is unnecessary. It’s incredibly exclusivist; as Rabbi Arnold Bienstock said in the Indianapolis Star article: The prayers, if they must occur, should be neutral and all-inclusive. “The bottom line is that non-Christians feel uncomfortable, and they don’t feel like they are part of the group,” he said.\nThere are people who live in this state who are not Christian. There are Jewish people, and Muslims, and atheists, and Buddhists, among others. I know this because many of my close friends are non-Christians, as am I. All of us – every citizen of Indiana deserve fair representation. I’m not certain that’s what we’re getting in this situation. At the very least, the Christian prayer makes it look like we don’t.