Stewartstown Baptist Church

Presidential Prayer: A meaningful moment or worthless words

As we come upon a new presidency in our country, it’s disturbing that one of the hot issues of the inauguration on January 20th is an issue of prayer. Many people were outraged when Barack Obama made the decision to have Rick Warren pray. Newsweek asks “To Whose God Will Rick Warren Pray?” They cite the inclusive language of President Bush’s 2005 inauguration. The minister closed his prayer, “We ask in your most holy name.” That was considered OK. But in 2001, Franklin Graham closed his inaugural prayer with, “In the name of the Father, and of the son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit.” Alan Dershowitz wrote in the L.A. Times that Graham’s prayer “excluded tens of millions of American Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Shintoists, Unitarians, Agnostics, and Atheists from his blessing.”

This demonstrates a problem in how people look at prayer. People like Dershowitz view prayer as words that are supposed to encourage or inspire. In fact, many ministers who pray in a public place will type out their prayer and read it. A prayer is not a speech. Our words are not for impressing people, but for petitioning a response from God. I believe in freedom of religion. I believe that freedom allows me to pray in the name of Jesus, just as it allows a Muslim to pray to Allah or for an atheist not to pray at all. So if a Christian pastor is asked to pray at an inauguration, doesn’t freedom of religion mandate that he be allowed to pray his convictions? How can a President be allowed to lead an entire country by his convictions during a four year term, but a minister is expected to toss his convictions aside for one prayer?

Here is your part in Presidential Prayer: Pray for our new President. As of January 20th, Barack Obama is the President for all Americans. 1 Timothy 2:1-2 says, “Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence.” Your Christian responsibility is not to agree with your President on everything, but to pray that he would lead our country for God’s glory.