Texas governor Rick Perry has called for a day of prayer and fasting for the nation. There is a long tradition of this in America. Even presidents have done this in the past. But in our current cultural environment, this seems to be a horrible thing – at least according to the Secular Coalition for America and Interfaith Alliance. Are you kidding me? I guess not. So, just what is going on here?
What we are witnessing is a serious clash of worldviews. You have Gov. Perry on the one side advocating action which reflects a Theistic worldview (specifically Christian), and the other players advocating actions based on a Naturalistic worldview.
The way that the Naturalists are trying to spin this is that Perry’s call represents a breach of the separation of church and state. They are claiming that he is advocating religion (specifically Christian) in his role as a political figure.
The big problem with that argument is that every worldview position is a faith position. It is not only overtly advocated actions which are based on faith, but passive, default positions also represent a faith position. In other words, by pressing Perry not to call for the day of prayer, these secular groups are pushing the Naturalistic point of view that God should not be invoked. They are insisting that their faith position to be the dominant one.
The fact is, there is no possible point of view in this debate that is not the advocacy of someone’s faith position. It seems to me that as long as government funds are not used to promote the activity (which they are not) and no one is compelled to participate (which they are not), Perry has just as much right to live out his worldview as his opponents.