Prayers in Jesus’ name

I posted the following elsewhere. It offers only a brief introduction of my thoughts on public ceremonial prayer in Jesus’ name by military chaplains.
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At the schoolhouse [Army Chaplain School], my class was told repeatedly not to pray in Jesus’ name. When I was a chaplain candidate, a supervisory chaplain asked me to write a prayer for a graduation; he scolded me for inserting Christ’s name in an “ecumenical setting”. I know of similar incidents secondhand.

I have also run into supervisory chaplains who would go to the wall for their chaplains who prayed according to the forms of their faith.

If the Army didn’t want me to minister according to my faith, it wouldn’t require me to have an ecclesiastical endorsement. If the Army prefers that I be deity-indifferent, it should have not required me to have an ecclesiastical endorsement. I can’t pray to a civic god because no such god exists; I can’t pray to an unknown god. My faith is in a specific (the specific) God, and to pray to anyone or anything else–or no one else–is only meaningless babble. If a commander bars me from praying at a ceremony because I do so in the name of Jesus, then he doesn’t understand prayer and only wants it for show–not to pray in Jesus name would be mere ceremonial blather. Meaningless prayer is no prayer at all.

I should expect clergy of other religions to feel the same about their own prayers.

There is no need, in prayer at a public civic ceremony, to have an “altar call”. After all, the prayer is directed to God, not to the crowd. The crowd is afforded the opportunity to listen in on the prayer, as a means of encouragement, reflection, and–if they desire–agreement. At a change of command, for example, the goal of the ceremony is not spiritual revival but recognition of the staff change; so, I should be offering a prayer that focuses on that topic. However, I will certainly direct the prayer to Almighty God; I will not invoke the favor of some nameless deity. I do not profess faith in a nameless god, and the Army knew that when I came in and wanted it that way.

Provide or perform? A ceremonial prayer is not an issue of providing. Since chaplains are called on to pray (to God), they are performing religious services according to their faith tradition. It is impossible to pray to an atheistic god because, in an atheistic worldview, no god exists. The fact that chaplains are called on to pray implies belief in God.