Non-believers now offering invocations rather than fighting them

[SecularMotion]

For the first major shot in the invocation wars, the 344-word "prayer" Dan Courtney read Tuesday night was a gentle salvo.

No defiance. No anger. No disrespect.

Just a few morsels of humanistic uplift — "it is from the people that moral authority is derived"; "it is in seeking the counsel of our conscience that we find the beginning of wisdom" — followed by an appeal that "all officials present ... heed the counsel of the governed (and) seek the wisdom of all citizens."

But the setting itself provided more than enough firepower: Greece, N.Y., the town outside Rochester that attracted national attention in early May when a 5-4 majority of the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, in Greece v. Galloway, that it's permissible for legislative bodies to open their meetings with sectarian prayers.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-oped-secular-prayers-zorn-0718-20140718,0,1183923.column

[skepticscott]

1. If they want to play church, that's fine

What in the world they're "invoking" that couldn't be done as effectively by just getting down to business remains a mystery, though. Meetings somehow manage to proceed productively without "invocations" every day.

[pinto]

3. I don't get the point of invocations, as well. And don't see it as a big deal, one way or the other.

[Staph]

2. A camp that I've been involved with for many years

changed its policy on grace before meals this year. It's now "talk before food", and any of the campers can sign up to offer whatever words that they wish before the meal is served. We've had traditional graces in the Catholic, Protestant, Jewish and Muslim traditions, as well as non-religious poems and readings.

The talk before food often serves to create some interesting talk during food as well.

[longship]

4. What a great concept.

When I was an executive in the county Dem party in the 90's, we opened meetings with "The Word". One of the delegates would volunteer to say a quotation, or some such thing, at the beginning of our meetings. It was always thought provoking.

Nobody ever said a prayer. We left that to the GOP meetings, which undoubtedly always began with a Christian prayer.

[cbayer]

5. Great resolution to a sticky problem.

Good for those that seek compromise.