The Lord’s Prayer: Not just for Christians Anymore

Here in the tiny state of Delaware we have an interesting microcosm of the country. The northernmost of our three counties, New Castle County, is one big suburb wrapped around the city of Wilmington. Newark is home to a university, and Wilmington is a center of banking and business with lots of Fortune 500 companies incorporated there. It’s where most of the population is concentrated, and it’s a fairly liberal-leaning, democrat-voting region.

Kent County, in the middle, is the home of the state capitol, a prominent air force base, and a NASCAR track, with a mixed population of suburbanites, rural folks, and even a few Amish – it makes for a varied cultural mix where you can never make a safe assumption about the political or religious leanings of the guy stuck in traffic on Rt 13 next to you.

And then there’s Sussex. With the exception of a narrow strip of wealthy resort area along the coast where the high gay population has helped drag the place a bit leftward and tone down the religiosity just a little, you could rip Sussex up and drop it someplace in the deep south without many people noticing until they started laughing at the signs for Assawoman. It’s a God-fearin’, pickup-truck-drivin’ region where they listen to both kinds of music. It’s been the site of school prayer controversy in the recent past, and it’s the mystical source of Christine O’Donnell’s eldritch powers.

Today the state’s main newspaper reported on “weighty issues” brought up by a lawsuit filed down there. It seems that for over 40 years the County Council has been opening their meetings by saying the Lord’s Prayer, and a few residents have challenged them on it, claiming it violates church-state separation. No, say its defenders, it’s perfectly okay, because it’s not a Christian prayer.

Picard Facepalm

Really? They’re reciting it at the mosques these days, are they? Widely used to open meetings in the Punjab region of India, is it? The Wiccans have taken it up, have they? (Oh yeah – O’Donnell. I guess you have a point on that last one.)

The simple fix for this, the one that wouldn’t waste any tax dollars on legal battles, would be to replace the opening prayer with a moment of silence during which individuals can beg for the blessings of whichever version of whichever fantasy character they choose. If your faith loses value when you can’t put it on parade, you don’t have a religion, you have a public relations strategy. And I’m pretty sure the Divine Zombie himself left specific instructions not to do it that way.

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