With Georgia stricken by a devastating drought, Gov. Sonny Perdue joined legislators and ministers at the state Capitol Tuesday for public prayer for rain.
Naturally, even an invocation on a non-controversial matter like severe drought becomes a matter of controversy when God is introduced into the equation.
If there is no controversy, you can count on my colleagues in the establishment press to create one – and that’s just what the Associated Press did in its coverage of the story.
All it took for a local atheist leader to get international attention was for him to suggest that he might muster as many as a dozen protesters at the state Capitol as Perdue prays for rain to fall on believers and unbelievers alike.
“The governor can pray when he wants to,” said Ed Buckner of the Atlanta Freethought Society. “What he can’t do is lead prayers in the name of the people of Georgia.”
Then AP staff writer Greg Bluestein notes: “In the U.S., public expressions of faith are often discouraged as a breach of the separation of church and state.”
What does this mean? I suppose it is true that in America today public expressions of faith are discouraged more than in the past. But don’t Americans deserve a little more clarity from the world’s largest news-gathering agency in the world with regard to the definition of “separation of church and state”?
Without ever pointing out it was Thomas Jefferson who coined this term in a letter to the Danbury Baptists, the AP story then suggests the third U.S. president was opposed to public prayer. That was hardly the case.
Jefferson could have no idea that his reassuring words to the Danbury Baptists, who feared persecution through the establishment of a state church, would someday be twisted to mean prayer and matters of faith would be excluded from the public square.
Let’s examine the record of the atheists’ favorite Founding Father:
- In 1774, Jefferson, as a member of the Virginia Assembly, personally introduced a resolution calling for a day of fasting and prayer.
- In 1779, as Virginia governor, he signed a decree for a day of “public and solemn thanksgiving and prayer to Almighty God.”
- As president, Jefferson signed bills that appropriated federal funds for chaplains in Congress and the military.
- As president on March 4, 1805, he offered “A National Prayer for Peace,” which would cause today’s atheist activists to go into cardiac arrest:
“Almighty God, Who has given us this good land for our heritage; We humbly beseech Thee that we may always prove ourselves a people mindful of Thy favor and glad to do Thy will. Bless our land with honorable ministry, sound learning, and pure manners.
“Save us from violence, discord and confusion, from pride and arrogance, and from every evil. Defend our liberties, and fashion into one united people the multitude brought hither out of many kindreds and tongues.
“Endow with Thy spirit of wisdom those to whom in Thy Name we entrust the authority of government, that there may be justice and peace at home, and that through obedience to Thy law, we may show forth Thy praise among the nations of the earth.
“In time of prosperity fill our hearts with thankfulness, and in the day of trouble, suffer not our trust in Thee to fail; all of which we ask through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.”
It’s incredible that Jefferson could today be cited as the inspiration for this atheist jihad against prayer and expressions of faith in the public square.
If he were still around today, he would be perceived as some kind of fundamentalist zealot.
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