A little fire from the Senate chaplain might go a long way
President Trump’s impeachment trial drew a spotlight on a position that rarely gets attention, let alone trends on social media.
U.S. Senate Chaplain Barry C. Black seized the nation’s attention by offering a prayer before one session of the impeachment trial: “Remind our senators that they alone are accountable to you for their conduct. Lord help them to remember that they can’t ignore you and get away with it, for we always reap what we sow.”
Even those Americans who already knew that the Senate has a chaplain tend to view his function as merely ceremonial. As the Rev. Peter Marshall, a former Senate chaplain, once put it, the office of the chaplain seems “a little like a bit of parsley garnishing the political platter.” Regardless of religious persuasion, we tend to expect from formal preliminaries nothing more than cliche, anodyne prayers with no fire in them – not bold remarks like those offered by Black.
But revisiting history suggests that Black’s directness should not be surprising. The Senate’s designated prayer time was long understood to be an occasion to exhort the consciences of members of Congress and to make them reflect on the moral standards that should guide their actions as they deliberated on the future of the nation.
On April 25, 1789, under the newly adopted Constitution, the First Congress appointed the office of the Senate chaplain and elected the Rev. Samuel Provoost of New York to the post. Central to the appointment was incorporating a moment of prayer to open legislative sessions. The purpose was to keep the nation accountable to God and to invoke divine guidance. Controversy over the constitutionality of the chaplaincy, in light of the separation of church and state, did not arise until several decades later.
Some of the chaplains that followed Provoost took the opportunity to confront government officials about their accountability to God. At times they were heavy-handed. John Brackenridge, the Senate’s 13th chaplain from 1811 to 1814, preached to members of Congress with “the boldest language of reprehension,” as one observer recalled. In one sermon, he lambasted them for the religious apathy in their personal lives and for passing legislation which, in his view, undermined religious piety: “It is not the people who will suffer for these enormities, you, the law-givers, who are the cause of this crime, will in your public capacity suffer for it.”
By the early 20th century, however, the chaplaincy descended into dullness, with observers complaining about a lack of substance in boredom-inducing prayers. Edward Everett Hale, the 51st chaplain of the Senate, who took over the role in 1903, brought new life into the prayer session, leading some to remark that “it was the difference between a mere ceremonialist and a believer, between a prayer by machinery or by rote and a prayer out of the soul.”
In the decades after Marshall’s tenure, the chaplaincy transitioned from a part-time job to a full-time one, with the responsibilities expanding considerably compared with its earlier days. More than just offering prayers at official gatherings, the chaplain’s role now consists of providing spiritual care and counsel, not only for senators, but also for their staffs and families – a constituency of about 6,000 people.
A spiritual force like Black could potentially bring some accountability into that chamber. He could inspire more senators to rise above partisan loyalties and resist the pressure to stand with their “teams.”