Venkatachalapathi Samuldrala prayer controversy

This controversy centers on the first Hindu opening prayer offered in the United States House of Representatives by Venkatachalapathi Samuldrala, a priest of Shiva Hindu Temple in Parma, Ohio. This prompted criticism from the Family Research Council, a conservative Christian group, who protested against it in conservative media, in turn generating responses from their opponents and leading to serious discussions over the role of legislative chaplains in a pluralist society.

Hindu priests have on occasion given opening prayers in Congress since then. A 2007 Senate opening prayer led by Rajan Zed of Reno, Nevada, was criticized in advance by the American Family Association, and protesters interrupted the prayer from the Senate gallery. In 2013 Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii became the first Hindu member of Congress.

Prayer

Under the rules of the United States House of Representatives, a member can invite a guest chaplain once per term in Congress. Representative Sherrod Brown of Ohio invited Samuldrala to offer the opening prayer on September 14, 2000, to coincide with an address to a joint session of Congress by the Prime Minister of India Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

Samuldrala opened the House's day with the following prayer:

O God, You are Omnipresent, Omnipotent, and Omniscient. You are in everything and nothing is beyond You. You are our Mother and Father and we are all Your children. Whatever You do is for our good. You are the ocean of mercy and You forgive our errors. You are our teacher and You guide us into righteousness.

Today, in this great Hall, are assembled the elected Representatives of the people of the Nation. They are ready to perform their duties. God, please guide them in their thoughts and actions so they can achieve the greatest good of all.

We end this invocation with a prayer from the ancient scriptures of India:
:May all be happy
:May all be free from disease
:May all realize what is good
:May none be subject to misery
:Peace, peace, peace be unto all

Rep. Brown's comments

After the prayer, Rep. Brown made the following statement:

Today is a great day for Indian-American relations. For the first time, a Hindu priest has given the opening prayer at a session of Congress, and the Prime Minister of India tal Bihari Vajpayeelater this morning will address a joint session of Congress... The United States is also home to an Indian-American community of 1.4 million people. I requested the House Chaplain and Speaker to invite Mr. Samuldrala to give today's prayer as a testimony to the religious diversity that is the hallmark of our great nation.

I want to thank Mr. Samuldrala for his thoughtful prayer that reminds us that, while we may differ in culture and traditions, we are all alike in the most basic aspiration of peace and righteousness.

I thank the House Chaplain for inviting Mr. Samuldrala and look forward to the future efforts to strengthen the bonds between our two great nations.

Family Research Council response

On September 21, 2000 the Family Research Council (FRC) published a response to the prayer on their website and in mailings of their weekly newsletter. In the FRC's article "Religious Pluralism or Tolerance?", Robert Regier and Timothy Dailey said:

A Hindu priest was recently invited to give the opening invocation in the House of Representatives. What's wrong with this?

What's wrong is that it is one more indication that our nation is drifting from its Judeo-Christian roots...Alas, in our day, when 'tolerance' and 'diversity' have replaced the 10 Commandments as the only remaining absolute dictums, it has become necessary to 'celebrate' non-Christian religions – even in the halls of Congress...Our founders expected that Christianity – and no other religion – would receive support from the government as long as that support did not violate people's consciences and their right to worship. They would have found utterly incredible the idea that all religions, including paganism, be treated with equal deference. Many people today confuse traditional Western religious tolerance with religious pluralism. The former embraces biblical truth while allowing for freedom of conscience, while the latter assumes all religions are equally valid, resulting in moral relativism and ethical chaos...

And further stated:

As for our Hindu priest friend, the United States is a nation that has historically honored the One True God. Woe be to us on that day when we relegate Him to being merely one among countless other deities in the pantheon of theologies.

Aftermath of the FRC response

In response to news media reporting the FRC's response, Rep. Brown's spokesperson said that it is "unfortunate that the Family Research Council interprets the Constitution to say that religious freedom means Christian supremacy". Brown personally responded to the FRC statement, saying "I'm disappointed the Family Research Council doesn't understand what this country is all about. This country was founded on freedom of religion and religious diversity." He said their comments were "bigotry, plain and simple".

Reverend Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said the FRC's statement "reeks of religious bigotry... howing aremarkable lack of respect for religious diversity". He also said, "It is truly rare, even within the Religious Right, to see a group display simultaneously such a poor understanding of history and a remarkable lack of respect for religious diversity. Usually such profound ignorance like this is commonly found in the 18th, not the 21st century."

After the FRC's comments were reported by the Associated Press, the original critical article was removed from the FRC website; and Kristin Hansen, an FRC spokesperson, told reporters that "the piece had not been approved by FRC officials and was published accidentally". Chuck Donovan, the Executive Vice President of the FRC, issued a press release on September 22, 2000, which said, "It is the position of the Family Research Council that governments must respect freedom of conscience for all people in religious matters ... We affirm the truth of Christianity, but it is not our position that American's Constitution forbids representatives of religions other than Christianity from praying before Congress." Donovan also decried secularization in the American culture, but pointed out his group's support for religious freedom legislation. Donovan also wrote against the persecution of Christians across the globe, calling on India to protect the Christian minority there just as the United States ensures the rights of the American Hindu minority.

Timothy Lamer article

The issue continued to resonate among the Christian right, which led author, and managing editor of the Christian magazine ''World'', Timothy Lamer to publish an essay on October 7, 2000, entitled "Spiritual adultery - A case of infidelity in the public square". He began it by stating that "the U.S. House and Senate basically bowed down to Baal". He went on to say "the event showcased everything that is wrong, from an evangelical perspective, with the congressional chaplaincy in particular and civil religion in general". He called for evangelicals "who have fought so hard for a resurgence of civil religion" to demand that legislators who attended the "officially sanctioned Hindu prayer in the halls of Congress" be "call dto repentance and, if he doesn't repent, excommunicate him".

God's Word teaches that a Christian who bows down to a false god—or takes part in a prayer that denies Christ—is engaged in spiritual adultery, which is every bit as serious as physical adultery. Christ demands our exclusive spiritual allegiance, and the church must not tolerate violations of the first two commandments among its members.

Lamer postulated that "another response is appropriate: Perhaps Mr. Samuldrala's invocation will cause evangelicals to rethink their devotion to civil religion. As the United States increasingly becomes a gigantic Vanity Fair of false religions, it will become more difficult every year for Christians to see religion in the public square as a good thing."

Lamer held that a denial of what he saw as basic Christian doctrine among "nominal Christians in theologically liberal churches" had fully detached them from Christianity, thus making actual Christians a minority, but that this is no surprise in light of Matthew 7:13-14. With this in mind he stated:

Nor should we be surprised that an unchristian majority would reserve an honored place for untruth in its civil religion. A Hindu invocation is only an extreme version of this habit. Other forms of civil religion routinely are calculated to be inoffensive to those who deny Christ....Polite universalism is America's civil religion, and it is an absolute enemy of the gospel. It assumes that those who are not in Christ are on good terms with God—a lie, according to the Bible.

Lamer warned Christians that they should "Get ready for Mormons, Muslims, New Age shamans, and, with the rise of Wicca, even Wiccans leading congressmen in prayer on the floor of the House." He therefore called for a reconsideration in evangelical policy regarding their support of legislative chaplains:

We could recognize that under the new covenant, civil government doesn't have authority over spiritual matters, and that legislatures shouldn't have chaplains. (For centuries some evangelicals, such as Baptists, made this argument.) We also could recognize that civil religion, by affirming unbelievers in their unbelief, hinders the spread of the gospel. Or evangelicals could continue to fight for symbolic civil religion. But, increasingly, the result of their effort will be a golden calf in America's pluralistic public square. How will they react? If Mr. Samuldrala's invocation is any indication, they will silently bow and not make waves, for the sake of having religion—any religion, even soul-destroying religion—in the public square."

Responses to Lamer's article

Neuhaus

Richard John Neuhaus pointed out that Lamer's position in ''World'' was in contrast to another article entitled "Genuine pluralism" in the same issue, by James Skillen of the Center for Public Justice

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