On Sunday, Congressman Emanuel Cleaver, an ordained minister, offered a moving prayer for the opening of the new session of the House of Representatives, invoking human fallibility, the need for divine guidance, and the importance of overcoming differences. But it was the prayer’s conclusion—“amen and ay-woman”—that brought it a great deal of attention, and no small amount of mockery. Cleaver’s fellow Methodist Mark Tooley looks at its more serious problems:

[Cleaver’s] two-minute prayer was otherwise conventional, full of biblical references and King James cadences—until the very end, when he appealed to the “monotheistic God,” the Hindu creator deity “Brahma,” and the “god known by many different names and many different faiths.”

It is likely unique to Western liberal Protestants to strive for faux inclusivity in public spirituality. Rabbis are not expected to pray to Christ. Imams are not expected to address the Trinity. Hindus probably won’t offer prayers to the Heavenly Father. A Methodist cleric should feel no need to pray to any Hindu deity, which likely no Hindu would expect.

Some might declare that such prayers in civil pageantry are doomed to be shallow and, by extension, potentially sacrilegious. Some critics, both secularists and spiritual purists, prefer to eliminate prayer and religious lingo from state affairs. . . . They would be wrong.

The venerable tradition of civil religion dates to America’s founding and is a laudable effort to affirm a transcendent purpose for the nation and to allow religious citizens to share their faith publicly. It originally sought to be inclusive of all major Protestant sects and was sufficiently elastic to incorporate Catholics, Jews, and others. It is often Old Testament-focused, avoiding specific Trinitarian references. [While] Protestant in origin, [it] is inclusive without directly contradicting the theological specifics of most monotheistic traditions.

At the same time, clergy and other adherents are not expected to violate their own traditions when participating in civil religion.

Early Friday morning, Israel attacked military installations near the Iranian cities of Isfahan and nearby Natanz, the latter being one of the hubs of the country’s nuclear program. Jerusalem is not taking credit for the attack, and none of the details are too certain, but it seems that the attack involved multiple drones, likely launched from within Iran, as well as one or more missiles fired from Syrian or Iraqi airspace. Strikes on Syrian radar systems shortly beforehand probably helped make the attack possible, and there were reportedly strikes on Iraq as well.

Iran itself is downplaying the attack, but the S-300 air-defense batteries in Isfahan appear to have been destroyed or damaged. This is a sophisticated Russian-made system positioned to protect the Natanz nuclear installation. In other words, Israel has demonstrated that Iran’s best technology can’t protect the country’s skies from the IDF. As Yossi Kuperwasser puts it, the attack, combined with the response to the assault on April 13,

clarified to the Iranians that whereas we [Israelis] are not as vulnerable as they thought, they are more vulnerable than they thought. They have difficulty hitting us, but we have no difficulty hitting them.

Nobody knows exactly how the operation was carried out. . . . It is good that a question mark hovers over . . . what exactly Israel did. Let’s keep them wondering. It is good for deniability and good for keeping the enemy uncertain.

The fact that we chose targets that were in the vicinity of a major nuclear facility but were linked to the Iranian missile and air forces was a good message. It communicated that we can reach other targets as well but, as we don’t want escalation, we chose targets nearby that were involved in the attack against Israel. I think it sends the message that if we want to, we can send a stronger message. Israel is not seeking escalation at the moment.