Amen, Ay-Woman, and the Contours of the American Civil Religion https://mosaicmagazine.com/picks/religion-holidays/2021/01/amen-ay-woman-and-the-contours-of-the-american-civil-religion/

January 5, 2021 | Mark Tooley
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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.

Read more on Acton Institute: https://blog.acton.org/archives/118060-amen-and-awoman-emanuel-cleavers-prayer-mocks-u-s-civil-religion.html