Written by Don Byrd
The separation of church and state deserves special thought today. Our Constitution guarantees the right to pray or not to pray, to believe according to the dictates of our conscience, and to be led by a government that honors those choices by refraining from promoting religion. That distance maintains and guarantees our religious freedom. It also preserves the act of free will that makes real and honest our personal religious decisions.
For Baptists like me, whose beliefs rely on principles of Soul Freedom and the Priesthood of All Believers, that distance honors not just my freedom but my faith.
All of that seems worth thinking about today, the presidentially-proclaimed National Day of Prayer. As the Baptist Joint Committee argues, such a day is unnecessary.
“There is nothing wrong with the American people getting together to pray on a designated day, even public officials,” BJC Executive Director Brent Walker said. “In fact every day should be a day of national prayer.” However, “the government shouldn’t be in the business of telling the American people what, where or when to pray or even if they should pray, ” Walker said.
“The problem with the National Day of Prayer is that it is an official act of the government urging citizens to engage in a religious exercise,” he said.
I understand why government wants to encourage prayer. When Congress passed the law mandating this proclamation, no doubt they wanted to uplift and honor the role of faith in American life. But, respectfully, it’s not all that helpful. We should have the space to figure such things out for ourselves. The separation of church and state is good for both.
