Editorial says it’s bad manners to invoke Jesus in public prayer
The Layman Online, January 29, 2001
While few dispute that legislators in Colorado need some divine guidance, a Presbyterian minister has sparked a brouhaha over where the petition for guidance should be directed. He offered a prayer that concluded “in the name of Jesus.”
Please, an editorial in The Denver Post said to the offending preacher and others who might follow suit, “be sensitive to the need to offer prayers that do not offend those of different persuasions … it is simply bad manners to invoke Jesus in a prayer for all members of a legislative chamber.”
Twelve members of the Colorado State House took the issue to the floor with a motion to eliminate start-up prayers. Their proposal was defeated.
The offending preacher, the Rev. Robert Dooling of Mountain View Presbyterian Church in Loveland, was unrepentant.
After being invited by Sen. Stan Matsunaka, a Democrat, to offer an opening prayer for the legislature, Dooling said he was reluctant to do so because “I will have nothing to do with praying in public to some nameless, nondenominational divinity who’s been sucked of all meaning so that his/hers/its vacuous remains will be acceptable to Protestant, Catholic, Jew, Atheist, Hindu, Moslem, Animist, Communist, Socialist and Nudist sentiment.
“My friend, the senator, agreed and said he expected nothing less of me than to pray as a Christian,” Dooling said.
There may be a small comfort for those who opposed Dooling’s Christian prayer. He announced he would not accept the $25 normally paid to clergy who offer the opening prayers.