Perhaps you heard about the controversy stirred by Rep. Stephanie Borowicz’s recent (March 25) opening prayer in the Pennsylvania state legislature. If you haven’t watched it yet, take a look below:
Personally, I hesitate to describe this exhibition as a prayer. It’s more a sermon, or a spiritual rant.
Was it an accident that Rep. Borowicz chose to “pray” in this way on the very day that Pennsylvania’s first Muslim-American legislator was being sworn into office? If you believe that, then I’ve got some Florida swamp land to sell you, real cheap.
I don’t doubt that Rep. Borowicz sincerely believed that she was offering a necessary Christian witness when she stepped up front and spoke as she did. But that is no excuse for her colossal mangling of an opportunity, her deliberate insult to a new colleague, or the anti-Biblical ideology of Christian Nationalism woven throughout her speech.
Doesn’t she make friends with her colleagues? Doesn’t she show them love and respect, getting to know about their personal lives? Doesn’t she speak with them individually about the work Jesus has performed in her own life?
Wouldn’t she communicate more effectively on a one-to-one basis, in personal conversation? Was this all for the benefit of the camera?
Finally, I am convinced that the brand of Christian Nationalism expressed in her prayer is one of the most significant impediments to the church’s witness today. No, Rep. Borowicz, America is not and never has been a “Christian nation,” raised upon the shoulders of exclusively Christian founders.
Neither is America’s “greatness” a product of the blind, unthinking support we give to the racist state of Israel.
Andrew Seidel has a good article at Religion Dispatches entitled, “Penn. Legislators Jaw-Dropping Prayer Showcases America’s Christian Nationalism Problem.”
I have excerpted a portion below:
“The prayer was jaw-dropping—literally. Watch Speaker Turzai, who introduced Borowicz. As she begins, his jaw drops, and then it drops again. By the end, he’s shooing her off the dais.
“This was 103 seconds of sectarian division and proselytizing and it speaks for itself: ‘at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow, and every tongue will confess, Jesus, that you are Lord.’
“That Borowicz meant for the prayer to intimidate non-Christians seems self-evident. It’s probably less clear to many observers that Borowicz’s prayer is also a symptom of the virulent strain of Christian nationalism under which America is suffering.
Christian nationalism is a political theology that claims we’ve “forgotten . . . God in our country,” as Borowicz said, and that we must return to that golden age of the American founding. This is wrong.
“The Founding Fathers chose to keep state and church separate precisely because religion is divisive and they were seeking to build a pluralistic nation. They didn’t build that nation or secure our freedom with theology or prayer, but with a Constitution that draws its power from We the People, not We the Christians.
“Religion only unites believers of the same stripe, it excludes all others and often calls for worse. An early Wisconsin Supreme Court justice put it eloquently: “There is no such source and cause of strife, quarrel, fights, malignant opposition, persecution, and war, and all evil in the state, as religion. Let it once enter our civil affairs, our government would soon be destroyed.” Borowicz’s proselytizing prayer is a perfect illustration of the division religion sows when mixed with our government.
“Brimming with sectarian arrogance and division, it was easy to miss the outright errors in Borowicz’s prayer: ‘God, for those that came before us like George Washington at Valley Forge and Abraham Lincoln who sought after you in Gettysburg, Jesus, and the Founding Fathers in Independence Hall, Jesus, that sought after you and fasted and prayed for this nation to be founded on Your principles in Your words and Your truth.’
“These historical moments were probably meant to be poignant ties to Pennsylvania and American history, but they lacked ties to reality, history, and nuance.
“For instance, Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address is typically rendered to include the phrase, ‘…that this nation, under God, shall…’ But history is a bit more nuanced, and unclear. Lincoln’s first two versions of the speech, written by Lincoln himself, don’t include the ‘under God’ and we cannot say for certain that he added those words during the speech itself.
“Borowicz’s other two examples are clear: Neither happened. Washington did not pray in the snow at Valley Forge and the delegates at the Constitutional Convention did not fast or pray. These are invented myths, not historical moments.”
Finally, I’d bet my bottom dollar that Rep. Stephanie Borowicz is a product of home-schooling, and that is where she first learned, not American history, but the American mythology embedded in her legislative lecture.
Question: does God respond to prayer requests based on myths?
