Obama, The Infamous Prayer Breakfast and Separation of Church and State

“Labor is the only prayer that Nature answers; it is the only prayer that deserves an answer -- good, honest, noble work.”

Robert Green Ingersoll

Though nothing in human history can be said to fail as often and as consistently as prayer (i.e., 100 percent of the time), President Obama urged the faithful (and presumably the rest of us) at this year’s ill-advised National Day of Prayer service on February 4th “to return to civility and an emphasis on prayer.

An emphasis on prayer?  How about an emphasis on reason, science and rationality?  I hope (but do not pray, for god’s sake) that our president’s programs for rescuing the economy, dealing with terrorists, reforming health care and controlling Republicans is more evidence-based than this fatuous call for reliance on lack magic.  (Please don’t read anything racial into the term “black” magic – I would have referenced black magic no matter what president called for prayer – and I won’t avoid it because this president who did call for it happens to be black.)

At the breakfast, Obama remarked: “While prayer can buck us up when we are down, keep us calm in a storm, while prayer can stiffen our spines to surmount an obstacle – and I assure you, I’m praying a lot these days – prayer can also do something else,” Mr. Obama said. “It can touch our hearts with humility. It can fill us with a sense of civility.”  Well, we’re all entitled to our own ways to buck up, calm down, stiffen the spine and be humble and civil."  No problem there – if the president wants to do a rain dance, consult an astrologer, burn incense or tea leaves, sacrifice a goat or whatever, I suppose that’s his right – but it would be a big help in this religion-besotted society if he would set a more rational example as first educator.  He could do this by giving the James Dobson/Focus on the Family-backed prayer breakfast rituals a pass.  He could instead lead the way in educating the electorate toward a more naturalistic understanding about how the universe works.  It is inconceivable to me and absolutely without evidence to believe that there is some sky god listening for or responding to prayers, pleas or other imprecations from presidents or other humans, on Earth or elsewhere in a cosmos too grand to even imagine.  Mr. President – Americans believe too many crazy things already – help us out here.  We can buck up, calm down, stiffen our spines and be humble and civil without begging for help from imaginary friends.  If we are to improve our lot, it will be as a consequence of good, honest and noble work – qualities that will be answered by nature (natural consequences), not a Grand Wazoo in the clouds by one name or another.

Or, as requested the day of the Prayer Breakfast by Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Barack Obama could "honor his pledge to reform the 'faith-based' initiative by banning job discrimination in tax-funded programs and making it clear that public funds cannot support proselytizing."  Unfortunately, the Obama Administration continues to fund religious groups.  It does so without requiring accountability, and as a result faith-based operations continue to use taxpayer funds to proselytize and discriminate within public programs on the basis of religious grounds.  During the presidential campaign, Obama raised hopes offor a return to separation within the secular community by suggesting that the Justice Department should look at the constitutional defects in the faith-based idea and put a halt to proselytizing and job discrimination based on religious grounds within such programming.

At a time of record deficits and amid calls to control discretionary spending, this would be a good occasion to stop the flow of  billions of federal tax dollars on untested programming that contains little or no safeguards for the protection of religious AND secular liberties as well as civil rights. During the campaign, the president remarked in a speech at Zanesville, Ohio that “as someone who used to teach constitutional law, I believe deeply in the separation of church and state.”  Well, the time for practice of that belief has come.

Mr. President, to paraphrase Ronald Reagan, don’t let the Religious Right tear down that wall, the one that separates our secular government from churches and stop allowing government to function at times like a theocracy.

Don Ardell is the Well Infidel.  He favors evidence over faith, reason over revelation and meaning and purpose over spirituality.  His enthusiasm for reason, exuberance and liberty are reflected in his books (14), newsletter (521 editions of a weekly report) and lectures across North America and a dozen other countries.