Kent Bernhardt: Let us pray ... or not

By Kent Bernhardt

As if they don’t have enough problems in the form of budget difficulties, the high cost of central school offices, and general friction with the state, our county commissioners now have another bullseye on their backs.

Taking direct aim at their practice of opening their meetings with prayer is none other than the American Civil Liberties Union.

Let us pray. Or not.

Speaking on behalf of some concerned citizens, the ACLU seems, if you’ll forgive the description, “hell bent” to stop the practice of prayer before county commission meetings; particularly prayers that end with the phrase “in Jesus’ name”.

It seems that a large number of governmental board meetings begin with Christian prayer. That’s troublesome, the ACLU says, to individuals who are not members of the Christian faith, or have no particular faith at all.

They’ve also had more complaints about Rowan County commissioners than any other group. They don’t say how many or from whom, or give any specific details about the nature of the complaints. Such is often the case in these instances.

I have no direct quarrel with the ACLU, but like PETA, it seems that they have a knack for taking two steps backward for every step they take forward, almost to the point of becoming a mere caricature of the organization they once were.

This time, they want to stop Christian county commissioners from praying publicly as ... well, Christians, for heavens sake. If they’re allowed to pray publicly at all, the commissioner’s prayers should be more neutralized and homogenized for the consumption of a delicate public, so that no particular leanings can be detected and hence, no one will be offended.

And heaven forbid that any of us should ever be offended by someone else’s expression of faith.

We have an amazing penchant in this country for seeking out things that offend us, and working diligently to have them extracted from our lives “for the public good.”

Find a book in the library that offends? The solution is simple. Call in a watchdog group or person of authority and have the book removed. Threaten a lawsuit, public pressure, or boycott, and budda-bing, budda-bang, the book is gone.

It’s really that easy. Fearing negative publicity, the powers usually cave. The ACLU has been surviving on that notion for years.

This time, I hope our commissioners don’t cave.

If they choose to have a group public prayer at the forefront of their meeting, and they happen to all be Christians, they should have a Christian prayer.

If they want to begin it and end it in Jesus’ name, and even mention him in the middle, they should. I would expect that. It’s their way, and they should be allowed to express their own faith publicly as they choose, as long as they’re not requiring you to subscribe to their faith. And they’re not.

By contrast, if they were all Buddhists and wanted to have a Buddhist prayer, I’d be OK with that, too. If I’m present, I’ll simply substitute my own prayer. It’s pretty easy to do that, and I’m not required to convert.

If you don’t fit into any spiritual classification, you can think about the weather, tomorrow night’s basketball game, make a mental grocery list, or try to remember the all the words to an obscure song.

The point is, you’re invited to participate if you want to. The choice is yours. Where’s the threat in that? Better question: What’s really so offensive about that, ACLU?

Besides, I must confess I like the idea of prayer before governmental meetings. If it does nothing more than remind all participants who’s really in charge, it has served its purpose.

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Kent Bernhardt lives in Salisbury.