Prayers and Political Wish Lists

The following originally appeared in a recent Presbyterian Action e-newsletter.  If you would like to receive our weekly e-newsletter, click here and select “Presbyterian Action.”

It’s been a big week here in DC. There was a momentous transfer of power from George W. Bush to Barack Obama, and 1.8 million people came to town to witness and celebrate it. All sorts of inaugural traditions were re-enacted: the oaths, the speech, the songs, the poems, the parade, the fancy balls, and, yes, the prayers too. Especially the prayers. There was more attention paid to those than I can ever remember previously.

It seems to me that inaugural prayers can take two approaches. The first approach is a simple, humble petition that Almighty God will grant the incoming president wisdom and courage to face the challenges ahead. This is the kind of prayer that Scripture commands us to make—“for kings and all who are in high places, so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity” (I Timothy 2:2).

It does not matter whether we voted for the person or not; it is our duty to seek God’s grace for him to govern justly, for the sake of our country and the world. Many such prayers are being offered, publicly and privately, on behalf of President Obama. These are the prayers offered by the ministers in my congregation here in DC, and these are the prayers that my family says around the dinner table.

The second approach is really not a prayer at all. It is rather a speech, disguised as a prayer, that attempts to instruct God (and the assembled listeners) in how the new president should govern. The clergyman seizes his moment at the podium to put forward his opinions about the state of the country and what needs to be done to fix it. I believe I’ve heard a few prayers of that sort over the past couple of days.

A more honest approach would be to write the president directly and tell him our opinions. That way, we aren’t pretending that we’re praying to God. But even so, church leaders should exercise caution. Their calling, after all, is to preach the Word of God—not their own political opinions. And if they are speaking as officers of a church body—in the name of “2.1 million Presbyterians,” for example—they should also be sure that the denomination’s members actually agree.

Our denomination’s officials have a mixed record in this regard. None of them prayed at an inaugural event, as far as I know. But they have written to President Obama on at least two occasions. On December 1 Stated Clerk Gradye Parsons sent a gracious note “to convey our hopes and prayers for you as the 44^th President of the United States of America.”

Parsons listed generic “concerns about war, immigration, health care, globalization, care for the planet, racism, the Middle East and justice in our courts.” But he did not lay down a specific agenda for presidential action. The stated clerk asserted broadly, “Our country’s economy must be built on achieving good” rather than merely producing goods. He promised, “We are prepared to help you and your administration achieve that good.” I believe all Presbyterians could join in that promise.

A very different approach was taken in a January letter signed by PCUSA official Christian Iosso and National Council of Churches General Secretary Michael Kinnamon. Iosso, coordinator of the denomination’s Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy, and Kinnamon noted how many others were presenting “wish lists and urgent demands and heartfelt dreams” addressed to the president-elect. “The churches have a message for President Obama, too,” they declared. Their wish list was contained in the NCC’s “Social Creed for the 21^st Century,” which they commended to Obama’s attention. Iosso and Kinnamon, as it happens, are primary authors of this creed in which, they say, “[t]he social vision of the ecumenical churches is summed up.”

The PCUSA and NCC officials boast, “We Protestant and Orthodox churches … have long worked in the soup kitchen, sheltered the homeless, pushed for environmental justice, defended public education, volunteered overseas, and steadily opposed the war in Iraq.” They claim Obama as “one of us” because of his membership in “a distinctive, well-informed congregation of the United Church of Christ”—that would be the radical Trinity UCC long pastored by the inflammatory Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Iosso and Kinnamon advocated the “20 specific reform measures” in the Social Creed. They mentioned “full employment at a [government-imposed] living wage” with “time and benefits to enable full family life.” They called for “modern forms of usury to be regulated out of existence,” “progressive taxation” to redistribute wealth, and “adequate social welfare” to meet all needs.

The two church officials denounced “the kind of arrogant nationalism that confuses the flag and the cross.” They condemned “the deliberate violence of ‘wars of choice.’” In this time of multiple international threats, they proposed unilateral U.S. disarmament. “[I]t is now time for the military-industrial bubble to burst as well: we advocate ‘nuclear disarmament and redirection of military spending to more peaceful and productive uses,’” Iosso and Kinnamon proclaimed.

We in IRD/Presbyterian Action published a critique of this NCC Social Creed when it was released last year. We found it to be a collection of utopian leftist demands, verging on socialism in its domestic policy and pacifism in its foreign policy. We pointed out that the Bible did not mandate this agenda, nor did most church members support it.

When Iosso asked the 2008 General Assembly to endorse the Social Creed, Presbyterian Action issued a briefing paper warning the assembly that the creed would be used as “a super standard of PCUSA social policy” and “the political equivalent of the PCUSA Brief Statement of Faith.” I gave oral testimony urging commissioners to let the whole church study the creed rather than adopting it blindly. Unfortunately, a razor-thin majority of the assembly committee passed the creed, and it went on to win the whole assembly’s approval.

Now our prediction has come true. President Obama is being told that the quasi-socialist, quasi-pacifist Social Creed represents “the social vision” of all “the churches,” including yours and mine. I beg to differ.