Notwithstanding the fact that most of the mainstream media couldn’t care less about anything having to do with religion – indeed just got through with its usual ridicule of CHRISTmas – it nevertheless is obsessing about Kentucky Governor Ernie Fletcher’s recent prayer breakfast. The breakfast was featured on the front page of the Lexington Herald-Leader, a Knight-Ridder newspaper up for sale, two days in a row. The salient fact triggering all the attention had to do with the event’s being led by – gasp – Christians. Indeed, the editorial gang at the H-L even gave the matter its lead position on 28 January and delivered itself of this wisdom: “This wasn't a Baptist church meeting; it was a state event that attracted state workers, business owners, judges, lobbyists and legislators.”
Well, of course all those folks attended, as is always the case. The effort was also made to contact by e-mail every state worker, regardless of religious orientation or denominational affiliation, if any, and it certainly was not described as a big bad Baptist Church revival. It also was not referenced as anything but a prayer breakfast, and a list of those who would be unwelcome was not furnished because there wasn’t such a list. The media folks have a fixation about “public” events, to wit, that they should be governed in part or in whole by a gaggle of minorities who, in order not to be emotionally offended, have the right to define what is and is not acceptable for the majority. In the case of the prayer breakfast, the event was narrowly described not as some sort of civic observance necessitating the usual genuflection before the oracle/altar of political correctness, but an honest-to-God effort to engage in a spiritual exercise – prayer.
Fletcher is an ordained minister. Besides that, he is a medical doctor, former USAF fighter pilot, former state legislator, and a former U.S. congressman. He was quoted as saying, "I certainly have utmost respect for different faiths. But I think most people knew when they were voting for me they were voting for somebody who held the Christian faith, and I'm not going to be somebody different than who I am." In other words, Fletcher’s concept of prayer is understood within the framework of Christianity as he perceives it to be. In this light, the thought that he would invite a Muslim imam to pray to Allah (not God) is absurd. People are being slaughtered day and night in particularly the Middle East, Sudan, and Indonesia by adherents to the imam’s Islamic tenets as spelled out clearly in the Koran, the holy book of Islam, and in the name of Allah.
Fletcher’s Christian faith is inclusive of the Old Testament, with particularly the Torah but the whole document as written by Jews the foundation of the Christian faith. So, one’s praying in the name of Jesus, a Jew descended through Jewish lineage, should not be anathema to Jews, whether they believe or not in Christ as Messiah. Prayers by Christians are made to God, just as prayers of Jews are made to God…the same God, the Creator. Notwithstanding the exception taken to the event by the ADL, the belief-system of the overwhelming majority of Kentuckians is Christian; consequently, it should be expected that prayers should reflect that circumstance. Those adhering to other faith-systems, including Buddhists, Shintoists, Confucianists, Moslems, etc., are welcome to conduct prayer exercises in their own faiths, regardless of who happens to be in attendance.
Predictably, Kentucky Council of Churches Executive Director Nancy Jo Kemper criticized the Fletcher crowd for excluding non-Christians from leadership roles and for not notifying her office about the event. There’s nothing sacrosanct about her office. This event was for individuals, not for organizations. According to the Herald-Leader, she complained in 2001 during the previous administration for its not inviting her organization and had the gall to accuse that administration of being insensitive to Jews and Muslims because the breakfast menu included pork. Imagine that! Why didn’t she include steak, in case some Hindus, to whom the cow is sacred, might be in attendance? This is the kind of silliness that might cause any group not to invite her office. Nobody forced anyone to eat anything that might be offensive, but the Kemper approach is that a handful will decide for a multitude what they can do at their own exercise. Ironically, kosher items were available at this year’s event. This is political correctness gone amok and has nothing to do with prayer, religion or anything else of worth.
Of course, the ACLU is now on Fletcher’s case, since the event took place rent-free in a state-owned building, notwithstanding the fact that all governors’ events held there are rent-free. The ACLU general counsel for Kentucky, David Friedman, said his organization will be looking closely. According to the H-L, a Fletcher aide said, “This isn’t Berkeley, California. This is hometown America. The ACLU has no credibility in this matter at all.”
No clergy members spoke at this event. The homily was delivered by Pat Day, a recently retired jockey. A passage from the Old Testament was read in addition to words from the New Testament. Hymns were sung. There was nothing all that unusual about the prayer breakfast, led by Christians in an overwhelmingly Christian state, but it had to made into a circus by a handful of people with the usual axes to grind. Usually a quiet, solemn, and serious observance, it fell victim this year to a damnable political correctness that many religionists, apparently placing it above spiritual considerations, even though unintentionally, and…
So it goes.
Jim Clark
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