Today, I point readers to my recent column at The Christian Citizen, A Christian Case Against Prayer At Public Meetings. I’ve been publishing there with some regularity. Who knew in 2022 I’d start writing for the American Baptists (yes, there are progressive Baptists).
Happy week of thanksgiving y’all!
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Reflections from a progressive Lutheran pastor in the South.
It's difficult to discern, if there's an argument or line of thinking that would induce the "wearing it <their Christianity> on their sleeve" types to rethink their position on this. In any case, I've always found it more positive/productive to cast it in terms of the tension between these two scriptural edicts: #1 "Don't stand on the street corner and pray, that you may be seen of men..." and #2 "Don't hide your light under a bushel..." Clearly, the pro prayer-at-public-meetings types completely ignore #1. It's hard to condense what deserves (at least) an essay length treatment (to fully "grok"), down to a few pithy lines, but resolving that tension basically boils down to humility. The most enthusiastic public prayer types never fully interrogate _why_ they feel this need--the whole thing begins & ends for them with what they perceive as "living" their faith in a demonstrative (performative) way. They pay little--mostly no--heed at all to being the kind of Christian that instead avoids bringing attention to their faith, and yet that faith comprehensively informs their life; the type that _truly_ embody their faith as a lived experience, most if not all of the time. We need more actual Christian _praxis_, not empty performance.