Advance Indiana has an article entitled Bauer Applauds Prayer Ruling: “The Majority Of People Are Christians” in which he notes a South Bend Tribune article entitled Bauer: Christian Majority justifies House prayer. The story quotes Democratic House Majority Leader, Pat Bauer as saying, ”
“The majority of people in this state are Christian,” Bauer said, pausing a few seconds before continuing, “but if you exclude a minority, then you have a problem.”
Bauer derided as “censorship” a November 2005 injunction, ordered by U.S. District Judge David Hamilton, against the House’s long-held tradition of preceding business with prayers that contain words such as Jesus Christ and savior.
“Censoring one particular religion is almost reverse discrimination,” Bauer said. “We’ve had the Jewish faith and even a Muslim over the years.”
Advance Indiana comments:
“The majority of us are Christians” comment is a frightening comment for people who are not Christians to hear from such a high-ranking member of their government. Bosma was taken to the woodshed by Jewish groups when he used a “2%” reference, which supposedly represented the percentage of Hoosiers who were Jewish. Let’s see if anyone complains about Bauer’s comment.
Don’t mind if I do, Advance Indiana. Bauer’s comment is most likely just pandering, but I’ll go ahead and take it at face value, anyway. The idea that the Christian majority somehow justifies government-sponsored sectarian prayer is exactly wrong. The Bill of Rights was enacted to protect minorities against the majority. The majority needs no such protections against the government because, by virtue of their majority, they control the government. Bauer is wrong about this being censorship, at least any sort of censorship with which we need to be concerned. The Constitution is all about setting boundaries and limitations on government power. The right to private speech is expansive and protected — the government is limited in its ability to restrict such private speech. The government’s right to speak is not protected, in fact it’s limited by the Constitution. One of the limitations on government speech is that the government is not allowed to endorse a particular religion.
Rep. Bauer’s predecessor as Speaker of the Indiana House admitted that — while the Minister of the Day was at the Speaker’s Podium, the House was in session, and nobody else was allowed to speak from the podium — that Minister of the Day was a governmental speaker. It’s simply inappropriate for the government to be leading revival-style, clap and sing-alongs in the nature of what Speaker Bosma allowed to transpire with the “Let’s Take a Walk with Jesus” episode.
Our Founders did a number of clever things when setting up our government that have allowed our republic to remain stable over the years. First, they limited the ability of government to become intertwined with religion. Back in the late 18th century when our government was being invented, memories of the religious wars that devastated Europe were still fresh, and our Founders recognized that combining the two makes for a toxic mix. Second, they recognized that the majority did not have carte blanche to dictate to the minority. Look around the world and you will quickly see that when a religious minority feels alienated from their country, bad things happen.
Maybe somebody can enlighten me, but what is gained from a sectarian prayer to open House proceedings? Because, to me, it resembles nothing so much as a dog peeing on a tree. I think certain vocal and politically influential segments of the Christian population simply feel a need to mark their territory. Vague assertions about “tradition” by proponents of sectarian government prayer do not do much to reduce this feeling.
Well said, Doug!
I would add that Bauer is conflating Christianity as a cultural and religious phenomenon. Most/many self-identifying Christians are so, primarily, in a cultural sense.
I would also add that our politicians seem to have little sense of how the federal and state constitutions should constrain government activity, so why is it a shocker (or especially deplorable) in this context?
If we’re going to have prayer in the statehouse (for the sake of argument), perhaps most would agree that a mixture of reasonably tasteful prayers to Jesus, Allah, Yahweh, etc.– and especially to the god of civil religion (the majority religion)– would be ok.
All that said, your conclusion is the punchline. (And I loved that mental picture of a dog peeing on a tree!) What good is such vague and varied prayer? Perhaps, culturally, it helps promote religious pluralism. From a biblical worldview, it’s certainly not all that exciting. It’d be far better to have moments of silence– religiously, so people can open an important activity with prayer to the god of their choice (or not); and practically, so politicians can spend at least a moment in solitude and silence, hopefully settling their hearts and minds before conducting their business.
BRAVO! As always ON THE MARK, Doug!
Someone quick, copy this and lay it on every Rep’s desk.
I suspect that an occasional prhase, particularly at the end of an otherwise nonsectarian invocation, to “we pray this in Jesus’ name”, would not have spwaned litigation. But there seemed to be a piling-on feeding frenzy, culminating with the “Little Walk With Jesus” thing. This is more than a dog marking its territory…..it’s more like the restrooom facilities have overflowed.
If they had any evidence that any of their incantations accomplish anything rather than making themselves feel “chosen”, maybe we could think about letting them do their voodoo on our dime.
It’s embarrassing, and Bauer should know better (though Bosma had his share of whoppers IMO). Why the one thing the Democrats & Republicans can agree on is the need to waste our money on prayer in their chamber is beyond me.
What really irks me about the self-proclaimed Christians is that they claim that this is a Christian country on one hand,but exclude everyone who doesn’t have the same ‘ Christian political agenda’ as they have. For them, Christianity is a socio- political agenda of what is prohibited and who is excluded. So far they have had it both ways with the Bush administration.
Yesterday (Wednesday) there was a rip-roaring, bible-thumping praise-Jesus event in the state house rotunda – complete with rows of chairs, podium, and substantial sound equipment. Don’t know what it was about exactly (I assume about the house-prayer dismissal on a technicality, but I don’t know that for sure), but it frequently made it difficult to follow the property-tax hearing going on at the far end of the building.
But I guess it’s ok – afterall, now that they can pray on the taxpayer’s dollar again, they’ll need even more of our money, right?
I suppose I should find it heartening that Brian Bosma, Pat Bauer, and Eric Miller can all agree on this important issue. Given his past contributions to Doug’s blog, I suspect Kenn Gividen, a “Libertarian” politican and Christian minister, can join them as well.
I should…but I don’t. I guess all of the Bible is inerrant except for Matthew 6:2. Even the most rigid of Christian dogmatists happily bend on that one.
It may be true that ‘most Hoosiers are Christians’ but that must be irrelevelant to making government.The devil comes in the definition of Christian and it’s more accurate to say that our culture is founded on Judeo-Christian principles and that we have a common culture not a religion.But culture is always up for discussion because of many other influences and the devil is again in the definitions. The next point is that Christians are hypocrites by nature( Matthew 6:20) and that’s why we need to have belief in a supreme being to give us a way to redemption,but it’s an individual choice,not an excuse for public display and the assembly of like-believers comes afterwards and again is a free choice,and no one should be held captive to doctrine. But someone wanting to control the political agenda would not want the uncommitted individual having any input into agenda making. Religion is a powerful tool for control.We need processes agreed upon by all to get things done in the secular world where all of us live and work daily.Constitutional Law is our processes for law making ,and along with the scientific method of systematic fact finding and evaluation, inspires many of our individual processes we negotiate and agree upon to ‘get things done’.We’re all free to believe what we choose, and that’s who we are, but we must realize that all personal belief is not religious-based,and belief is not to be assumed as a solution for others.I consider my above points ‘a Christian’s point of view.’
I think Branden meant Mt 6:5. Ironically, Mt 6:2 applies more often to those among the Religious Left– especially in their use of other people’s money to try to help the poor.