The Bible in American Law and Politics. John R. Vile
and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.” Although many Muslims would undoubtedly share in the sentiments expressed in this verse, it seems likely that some members of the audience might have interpreted the admission of a Muslim as the sin at issue.
Borowicz further praised President Trump for recognizing Israel. She ended with a quotation from Philippians 2:10, “I claim all these things in the powerful name of Jesus, the one who, at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow, and every tongue will confess, Jesus, that you are Lord, in Jesus’ name” (Thebault 2019).
Although the Supreme Court upheld the practice of prayer in state legislature in the case of Marsh v. Chambers (1983), the general expectation is that the individual giving the prayer will do so in a nonpartisan and nonsectarian manner. Although outsiders are instructed to pray in that manner, members are not apparently given the same instructions.
A number of fellow legislators considered the prayer to be Islamophobic, disrespectful, and inappropriate. Rep. Movita Johnson-Harrell observed that “I came to the Capitol to help build bipartisanship and collaborations regardless of race or religion to enhance the quality of life for everyone in the Commonwealth.” Democrat representative Frank Dermody reacted to the prayer by saying, “Prayer should never divide us. It should bring us together.” Rep. Jordan Harris tweeted, “Prayer should never be weaponized, especially on a celebratory day” (quoted in Barillas 2019). As for Borowicz, she responded, “That’s how I pray every day . . . I don’t ever apologize for praying” (all three quotations found in Dicker 2019). At least one Christian news site portrayed the criticisms as a way of persecuting Borowicz (Barillas 2019).
See also Trump, Donald J.
For Reference and Further Reading
Barillas, Martin M. 2019. “U.S. Legislator Persecuted for Praying to Jesus before Swearing In of Muslim.” LifeSite News. March 27. https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/u.s.-legislator-prays-to-jesus-before-swearing-in-of-muslim-and-is-accused-of-islamophobia. Accessed March 30, 2019.
Dicker, Ron. 2019. “Lawmaker’s Prayer Mentions Jesus 13 Times before Muslim Colleague Is Sworn In.” HuffPost. March 27. https://www.yahoo.com/huffpost/lawmaker-apos-prayer-mentions-jesus-113436078.html.
Thebault, Reis. 2019. “GOP Legislator Prays for Forgiveness before Pennsylvania’s First Muslim Woman Swears In.” Governing. March 27. https://www.governing.com/topics/politics/GOP-Legislator-Prays-for-Forgiveness-Before-Pennsylvanias-First-Muslim-Woman-Swears-In.html.
Boucher, Jonathan
Numerous historians have noted the effect that preachers had on stirring patriotic sentiments that led to the U.S. Revolutionary War, but it is important 64to keep in mind that pastors were split on both the legitimacy of the colonial cause and on the proper measures for them to take. Anglican priests often faced particular difficulties because their church was the official Church of England, and they were sworn to uphold the English king. Not nearly as many of their sermons survive as those of Patriot preachers, but those that do are quite instructive.
One of the most forceful Anglican priests who opposed the Patriot side in the American Revolution was Jonathan Boucher (1738–1804), who, after giving a series of sermons urging the cause of passive obedience and nonresistance, left for England at the beginning of the conflict but continued to survey the situation from afar. In 1793, he published a series of thirteen sermons that he had given in the years from 1763 to 1775 with respect to this topic, each with appropriate scriptural citations. They included the following discourses: “On the Peace” (Isaiah 2:4); “On Schisms and Sects” (Judges 17:5–6); “On the American Episcopate” (Isaiah 5:5–7); “On the Character of Absalom” (2 Samuel 18:33); “On the Character of Ahitophel” (2 Samuel 17:23); “The Dispute between the Israelites and Their Two Tribes and an Half, Respecting Their Settlement beyond Jordan” (Joshua 22:22); “On Civil Liberty; Passive Obedience, and Non-Resistance” (Galatians 5:1); and “A Farewell Sermon” (Nehemiah 6:10–11).
There is general consensus that the twelfth sermon, “On Civil Liberty; Passive Obedience, and Non-Resistance,” is the most relevant in expressing Boucher’s view on the Revolution. Moreover, it has the advantage of responding to a sermon by Jacob Duché, who (while he would later join the British side) had invoked God’s help in the First Continental Congress for the Patriot side.
One of the fascinating aspects of Boucher’s sermon is that he had lived in Virginia and Maryland and tutored George Washington’s stepson. Boucher admired and actually dedicated his discourses to George Washington even though they had been on opposite sides of the revolutionary conflict.
Boucher chose for his text the words of Galatians 5:1, which admonished Christians to “stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free.” This was a popular Patriot text, which Duché and other Patriot advocates had cited. Boucher believed that in so doing they had taken the text out of context, and he cited both the words of the catechism that promoted the duty of “honouring and obeying the king, and all that are put in authority under him” and St. Paul’s injunction in Titus 3:1 “to be subject to principalities and powers, to obey magistrates, and to be ready to every good work” (1793, 498).
Recognizing that some individuals had complained about preaching about politics, Boucher observed that their real quarrel was not with politics per se but with “unpopular politics” (499), whose spokesmen called for obedience to existing governments. He linked those who called for violent resistance to ancient Jewish zealots, and he argued that Paul and other biblical writers had not used the word “liberty” to mean “civil liberty,” which Boucher thought was nowhere to be found in Scripture (505), but the liberty of “the spiritual or religious kind” (506). For Jews, liberty was liberty “from the burthensome services of the ceremonial law” while for Christians “it meant a freedom from the servitude of sin” (504).
65
According to Boucher, the gospel writers “make no manner of alteration in the nature or form of Civil Government; but enforce afresh, upon all Christians, that obedience which is due to the respective Constitutions of every nation in which they may happen to live” (506). He further argued that “obedience to Government is every man’s duty, because it is every man’s interest: but it is particularly incumbent on Christians” and “is enjoined by the positive commands of God” (507–8). For Boucher such obedience was essential to the rule of law.
Opposing secular writers, especially John Locke (a favorite among revolutionaries), who would base government on conceptions of “the common good” (512), Boucher thought this was too vague and unstable a standard. He was equally dismissive of the idea, which the Declaration of Independence affirmed, that government was formed by a compact or that individuals were equal: “Man differs from man in every thing that can be supposed to lead to supremacy and subjection, as one star differs from another star in glory” (514–15). Government based on continuing consent carries “the seeds of it’s decay in it’s very constitution” (518). Siding with Sir Robert Filmer against Locke, Boucher thought that God had created men in society and that Adam, as “the first father[,] was the first king” over both his wife and children (525).
Boucher further evoked the example of Jesus to argue against anything other than passive nonresistance—disobeying laws that commanded individuals