Blog from the Capital

Today, May 1, is the National Day of Prayer. This year the cry for diversity and inclusion has gotten more attention than usual, but still I have been searching for the right way to express my ...discomfort with the whole idea. As luck would have it, I don't need to. I've come across a poignant piece that says perfectly what I've been fumbling around trying to write. In a Report From the Capital from May of last year, Rev. Brent Walker - the BJC Director - penned an essay entitled "National prayer day not an occasion for government to push piety." Here's a snippet, but you should read the whole thing:

[T]here’s nothing wrong with people getting together to pray on a designated day, even public officials. Indeed, every day should be a day of national prayer. The rub comes when the government declares it to be such and exhorts its citizens to engage in a religious exercise, then leads the way by example.
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As church-state controversies go, a congressional resolution and a presidential proclamation establishing a National Day of Prayer is not a cataclysmic breach. After all, there is little (if any) actual coercion of anyone’s conscience. But actual coercion has never been the standard for judging whether government has overstepped its bounds in endorsing religion. And it is helpful to understand that two of our most influential Founders — Jefferson and Madison — either opposed religious pronouncements in principle or refused to issue them in practice.

While I'm at it, this is as good a time as any to mention that Brent has a new book coming out! Church-State Matters is a collection of Rev. Walker's speeches, congressional testimony, essays and sermons, arguing the Baptist perspective on religious liberty and church-state separation. You can purchase the book now through Mercer University Press, and it's also available on Amazon.com.