Curtis A. Bronzan

I recently came across this on the Facebook:

President Obama has decided that there will no longer be a “National Day of Prayer” held in May. He doesn’t want to offend anybody. Where was his concern about offending Christians last January when he allowed the Muslims to hold a day of prayer on the capitol grounds. As a Christian American “I am offended.” if you agree copy and paste no matter what religion you are, this country was built on Freedom PASS IT ON

It turns out, however, President Obama had nothing to do with it. The USA Today put it this way:

The rumors arise out of Thursday’s decision by Wisconsin U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb that the National Day of Prayer is unconstitutional. She ruled that it violates the First Amendment’s ban against a law respecting an establishment of religion.

The National Day of Prayer has been in effect since Harry S. Truman signed a bill bringing it into law in 1952, stating that it provided an opportunity for “the people of the United States [to] turn to God in prayer and meditation in churches, in groups, and as individuals.” It has been held on the first day of May since 1988, during President Reagan’s second term in the White House.

All that aside, upon returning to the Facebook status update itself, we ought to question what is really at stake, what is really going on in the statement. At the outset, the assertion is that “President Obama has decided that there will no longer be a “National Day of Prayer” held in May.” It concludes, on the other hand, with “if you agree copy and paste no matter what religion you are, this country was built on Freedom PASS IT ON.”

So, let’s question what’s really at stake: Is it prayer we are urged to fight for, or is it freedom? This may seem unimportant, but is this not the most important?

Christian faith – at least biblically speaking – is firmly based on the principles of both freedom and prayer. But can either of those things be granted by a government? Can true freedom – in the Christian sense of the term – be granted by a civic agency? Can true prayer be legislated?

Notice 1st Thessalonians 5.16-24:

Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

Do not put out the Spirit’s fire; do not treat prophecies with contempt. Test everything. Hold on to the good. Avoid every kind of evil.

May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it.

How is it that in the midst of the thoroughly pagan Roman empire, followers of Jesus were encouraged to “pray continually”? Had they been granted that opportunity once a year?

Of course not. Their simple faith statement “Jesus is Lord” had, of course, been stolen from the playbook of Caesar, who, believing himself to be god incarnate, required all Roman citizens to state “Caesar is Lord.”

And Christians throughout the centuries have prayed not because they have been given the opportunity to pray by their governments, but rather because they have been given freedom through the work of Jesus, the Messiah, Son of the Living God.

Notice also Romans 8:

I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. The creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.

Could our attempts to legislate prayer be abdicating our responsibility to live as “children of God”? Do we spend more time “fighting for our rights” than we do living the true freedom granted us by Jesus himself?

Or, to put it in even more stark terms, would the Christian movement be exploding exponentially in China – where Christians are not allowed to gather together – if instead of gathering subversively they took to the streets to fight for a day of prayer?

The church has always spread explosively when governments tried to put it down. Always.

But, with all due respect to my well meaning friends, we don’t want the good news of freedom to spread, we just want our Commander in Chief to recognize our rights. And if he doesn’t, well then, let’s post it to Facebook.

I find it immensely interesting how contemporary culture continually reappropriates the role of a two-thousand year old historical figure to assert the relevance or “correctness” of a particular issue. It happens with other historical personages, of course, though Jesus seems to have become quite a hit these days.

From Buddy Christ to Jesus is My Homeboy merchandise, most “Jesus Junk” as it’s been called is created simply to make a quick buck. I even found a blog devoted to revealing the ridiculousness of it all. While I can see their point, there’s something about the role of kitschy paraphernalia in our hypermodern, consumerist society that I cannot so easily dismiss.

This t-shirt is, of course, an attempt to legitimize the previous occupation of our current president – an unnecessary attempt if you ask me. Like all bumper sticker and t-shirt ideology, no one who has a problem with such a job will be “converted” by it.

It does beg the question, however, was Jesus a community organizer?

The Supreme Court confirmation proceedings for Judge Sonia Sotomayor continued today. I am interested in the previous comments she has made, but even more so in what others have – and continue to – make of them.

Yesterday, Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions, the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, addressed a statement made by Sotomayor:

During a speech 15 years ago, Judge Sotomayor said, ‘I willingly accept that we who judge must not deny the differences resulting from experience and heritage but attempt… continuously to judge when those opinions, sympathies, and prejudices are appropriate.’ And in the same speech she said, ‘My experiences will affect the facts I choose to see as a judge.’

In light of her now famous statement regarding the superiority of Latin women, he later continued:

Each assumed that the nominee misspoke. But the nominee did not misspeak. She is on record making this statement at least five times over the course of a decade. These are her own words, spoken well before her nomination. They are not taken out of context.

And later, he juxtaposed these statements with the oath judges take:

I do solemnly swear that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me… under the Constitution and laws of the United States. So help me God.

The necessary question, then – assuming that Sotomayor did mean these statements as Sessions reports, of course – is an epistemological and hermeneutical one; is she at fault for assuming her ethnicity most effectively prepares her to make judgments? Have not men from European-American descent assumed this since America’s founding?

With her Princeton and Yale education, it may a little difficult to establish connections between Sotomayor and Liberation Theology, though questioning the role of the movement in context of the highest court in the land can’t hurt. So, a quick question, if we are really concerned with achieving justice for “the poor and the rich,” what could it hurt having some judges “from below”?

I’m thinking of Žižek’s Violence here, too, alongside Leonardo Boff. Maybe we need more “violence” after all.