Prayer, reason and the elephant in the room ....

I've been reading a little this morning about last week's National Day of Prayer, observed on Thursday. The president attracted the most attention by calling his fundamentalist and evangelical advisors to the White House to witness the launch by executive order of a White House initiative focused on "religious liberty" and faith-based initiatives.

"Religious liberty" in this instance involves a presidential blessing on those uncomfortable with LGBTQ folks who wish to discriminate against us in one way or another. That's understood. What  "faith-based programs" might mean is less clear.

And it's only fair to point out that Thursday was National Day of Reason, too, an annual --- smaller --- observance for the non-theistically inclined. Non-theists generally are not interested in discriminating against anyone but tend to lack faith in the good will of those inclined to prayer. Many of the prayerful perceive a threat here, since humanists, secularists, agnostics, atheists and the like generally favor reproductive rights, oppose enforced prayer and Bible reading in public schools, affirm gay people, etc., etc. As do a good number of non-fundamentalist/evangelical Christians, too.

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Curiously enough, I found myself the LGBTQ "elephant in the room" during a regional gathering of Episcopal laity and clergy on the eve of these propitious days of prayer and reason.

Episcopalians in general are one of the most LGBTQ-affirming Christian denominations. In the Diocese of Iowa and elsewhere, gay folks are welcome to participate fully and unreservedly in the the life of the church, including marriage, and we also have quite a few gifted LGBTQ clergy.

This doesn't mean, however, that gay folks do not make some of our numbers nervous, including the priest who sometimes attends these regular regional gatherings and almost always brings up "the elephant in the room."

This is not a specific reference to me --- or at least I don't think it is. Merely to his belief that the Episcopal Church's gay-friendly stance interferes with his ability to grow his congregation. The argument seems to be that if Episcopalians appeared to be more "moderate" on social issues, all of those much-desired young families would be more inclined to show up on Sunday morning.

Somehow, I doubt that; and I'm always tempted to point out that since relatively few gay folks actually attend church, having been spooked over the years by non-affirming faithful, we might form a mission field ripe for the harvest that he could consider, too.

As it was, I just expressed appreciation to Episcopalians for welcoming me and my kind and left it alone after that.

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And I have to admit that when Thursday dawned, I failed to observe either National Day of Reason or National Day of Prayer.

But I was struck by the comment of the Rev. James McDonald, president of San Francisco Theological Seminary (Presbyterian Church U.S.A.) --- “SFTS has always embraced science and spirituality, reason and prayer," he said. "A national day of prayer coinciding with a national day of reason sounds like a regular day for us here on campus.

“We would only hope that this country’s public policy be both evidence-based and rooted in social justice and compassion, which is at the heart of Jesus’ gospel. At the moment, our public policy seems rooted in a very narrow, ideological approach that punishes marginalized, vulnerable people. We can do better.”