Some governmental bodies (legislatures, local governments, etc.) begin with official prayers.
Often those are required by conservative politicians.
Those conservatives typically oppose “Big Government.”
Ironically, they want “Big Government” to force us to pray in certain ways.
Not only does that blatantly contradict their opposition to “Big Government” oppressing us, but it also blatantly undermines legitimate religion.
Prayer should be personal and truly spiritual, but when “Big Government” imposes any prayer upon us, prayer is perverted and trivialized into just a meaningless ritual — a contemptible abuse by “Big Government.”
Jesus told people to pray privately instead of in public settings where people display their religiosity for other people to see. See Matthew 6:1-8.
Publicly mandated prayer even more blatantly violates what Jesus taught.
Since the late 1960s Glen Anderson has devoted his life to working as a volunteer for peace, nonviolence, social justice, and progressive political issues. He has worked through many existing organizations and started several. Over the years he has worked especially for such wide-ranging goals as making peace with Vietnam, eliminating nuclear weapons, converting from a military economy to a peacetime economy, abolishing the death penalty, promoting nonviolence at all levels throughout society, and helping people organize and strategize for grassroots movements to solve many kinds of problems. He writes, speaks, and conducts training workshops on a wide variety of topics. Since 1987 he has produced and hosted a one-hour cable TV interview program on many kinds of issues. Since 2017 he has blogged at https://parallaxperspectives.org He lives in Lacey near Olympia WA. You can reach him at (360) 491-9093 glen@parallaxperspectives.org
