Franklin Graham

Pulitzer winning Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker is too conservative for me to agree with much of the time, but her opinions are more reasonable than most conservatives. Today, she provides some good background for the Franklin Graham, National Day of Prayer controversy.

Graham was dis-invited from participating in the Pentagon's observance of the NDP (why they have one is another question) because of prior statements he has made critical of Islam. He is not backing down; and, unlike his more famous father, he is not diplomatic about his belief in the exclusiveness of the Christian route to heaven.

According to Parker,

Graham's offense was expressing his belief that only Christians have God's ear, that Islam is evil, and that Muslims and Hindus don't pray to the same God he does. . . . We are fooling ourselves if we think we can have some big kumbaya service and all hold hands and it's all going to get better in this world. It's not going to get better."

Parker's asks: then what is the point of a National Day of Prayer?

For Graham, efforts at ecumenicism are wasted; only Christian prayers are heard by God. And no amount of cooperative spirit among people of various faiths is worthwhile. Only if they listen to him and accept his version of god would it be meaningful.

Doesn't this prove that his participation in a government sponsored day of prayer would be a violation of the non-establishment clause of the Constitution? And wasn't the Obama administration correct, then, in having him dis-invited?

Parker goes on the examine the changing views of religion in this country (nearly two-thirds of evangelicals under 35 believe non-Christians can go to heaven), as well as some neuroscience evidence that all prayers and meditation affect the brains similarly.

Quoting from a book by NPR's religion reporter, Barbara Bradley Hagerty, Fingerprints of God, Parker reports that brain-scanning techniques have shown that, whether one is a Sikh, a Catholic nun, a Buddhist monk or a Sufi Muslim, the brain reacts to focused prayer and meditation much in the same way. She concludes that "spiritual experience is a human phenomenon, not a religious one."

I'm sure there will be arguments from the other side, saying that brain activity has nothing to do with a concept of God. But it is an interesting piece of information that raises questions for some and confirms long-held ideas for others.

Ralph