The use of official prayers at a political convention damages the integrity of both the political convention and the prayers. Opening and closing the political convention with prayers converts the occasion into a religious ritual that excludes people whose beliefs don’t fit those expressed in the prayers. The prayers become politically partisan, imagining that a divine creator of the entire universe has a particular political agenda, and needs to use human preachers to lecture us about that ideology.
The closing prayer for last night’s events at the Democratic National Convention in Denver, provided by Christians Jin Ho Kang and Yoougsook Kang, showed how small a political prayer can imagine the supposed ruler of the Cosmos to be. These preachers imagined that God had given them a message to give to the political leaders at the convention. They presumed to declare that all the delegates had come to Denver because they were “heeding God’s call to justice.” They said that God was trying to send a particular message to voters about who America’s leaders should be: “We hear your call for this nation to wake up to a voice that longs for leadership to be relevant to a new day.”
In closing, Jin Ho Kang and Yoougsook Kang made a further declaration of the purpose of the Democratic National Convention: “May the work of this convention provide hope for all people of God in the nation.”
Hope for the people of God? What about the rest of us? What about the millions of Americans who are not “people of God”?
I guess as far as the Democratic Party is concerned, we can all go to Hell.
Those people who wonder why it’s a negative thing to mix religion and politics, and what’s wrong with having official prayers in the public sphere, need to think about the message of last night’s Democratic Party prayers.
In the public square, prayer is not healing. It is not unifying. In the public square, prayer is used as a weapon to divide. These prayers are a tool of discrimination, sending the message that if you’re not with God, you don’t belong in this Country.
This week, the Democratic Party is spreading the message that the United States of America is a place where religious citizens will be lifted up into a place of special privilege, and the rest of America will be left behind.
