The Oath and the Office by Corey Brettschneider

Author:Corey Brettschneider
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Epub3
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

WHY DOES any of this talk about prayer matter? Isn’t it just talk, not policy? Some might dismiss discussion of prayer as mere symbolic politics.

It is not. Madison cared about the Establishment Clause because it informs our constitutional culture and every debate we’ll ever have. The way we speak in public elucidates the values we will use to make law. When we debate what the state should say and how, we are really talking about how it should reason about the most important issues of the day.

In 2014, the Supreme Court affirmed in Town of Greece v. Galloway the right of government to offer public prayers so long as they are voluntary. The opinion takes a page from Madison, suggesting that government-sponsored proselytizing or prayers that degrade some religions or ethnicities have no place under our Establishment Clause, even though that clause does allow some government-sponsored prayer.22 The question is not whether to invoke religion as president, but how to do so. What is most important here is to avoid exclusive appeals to religion, not just when you speak but also when you sign executive orders or decide on whether a bill should be the law of the land.

Thinking back to that dinner as a student all those years ago, I often imagine what I should have said to the federal judge. I should have reminded the judge of Madison’s commitment to the nation: all government speech—and public prayer—must be inclusive of people of all faiths because of America’s commitment to avoid theocracy, or the rule of one religion over others. As Madison would have put it, a school-sponsored Christmas pageant, while doubtless an innocent endeavor, still shares a kernel of the reasoning that led to the European wars of religion.23

We can also look as an example to George Washington’s 1790 letter to the small Touro Synagogue, which still sits on a side street in Newport, Rhode Island.24 In his letter, Washington wrote of the difference between tolerating minority religions and honoring their equal place at the table: “it is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it were the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the free exercise of their inherent natural rights.”25 The idea of America is that minority religions don’t have to sit quietly and watch the pageant of bigger religions take place on a larger stage. Rather, we need to craft our plays, our government’s speech, and our policy with an ear to including all Americans, regardless of their faith.

So, attend the prayer breakfast. But use your prayer to stress the meaning of the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause. We are a nation that refuses to establish one religion as true or official. Our Constitution celebrates people of any faith, and none at all. Instead of calling America a Christian nation or a nation defined by any one religion, you should strive to strike a balance between acknowledging the cultural and historical importance of religion to America, while being careful not to exclude any of your fellow citizens.

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