Retooling in order for chaplain program
WE’D like to say it’s surprising that the Oklahoma House of Representatives would apparently try to keep non-Christians from leading legislators in prayer, but, sadly, the Republican-led body has shown its intolerant side more than once through the years.
After all, the House is home to a member who has made a career out of railing against Muslims. Rep. John Bennett of Sallisaw has called Islam “a cancer” and an enemy of the American way of life. Last year he conducted an interim study on “radical Islam, Shariah Law, the Muslim Brotherhood and the radicalization process.”
The Oklahoma House once had a member who, during debate on a bill, said customers of his business “may try to Jew me down on the price. That’s fine.” When informed moments later that he had used the derisive term, he said, “Did I? All right. I apologize to the Jews. They’re good small businessmen as well.”
Then there was former Rep. Sally Kern, a staunch Christian who several years ago said the “homosexual agenda” was a greater threat to the United States than terrorism.
Thus, it’s not a stretch to think the representative who oversees the House Chaplain of the Day/Chaplain of the Week Program might encourage his colleagues not to invite non-Christians.
At an interfaith prayer service Friday at the Capitol, Imad Enchassi, senior imam of the Islamic Society of Greater Oklahoma City, noted that new guidelines issued recently by Rep. Chuck Strohm, R-Jenks, require that clergy in the program “be from the representative’s own place of worship.” Oklahoma’s House members are overwhelmingly Christian.
Enchassi said he applied for the program in January 2017 after Rep. Jason Dunnington, D-Oklahoma City, nominated him, but that his application was denied later in the session with no reason given. Enchassi said he was stung by the rejection, understandably so, because “This is my state. This is my city. This is the place where I choose to raise my children.”
The Oklahoman’s Carla Hinton reported that in a letter to House colleagues in January, Strohm said the chaplain program “is not a platform for personal agendas, but an opportunity to ask for God’s wisdom and to speak blessing and hope over those who are often overwhelmed by the many voices that are converging upon them.” Fair enough, but certainly leaders of faiths other than Christianity can do that.
And, the men and women elected to the House were not sent there solely by Christian voters. As the Rev. Shannon Fleck, community engagement coordinator for the Oklahoma Conference of Churches, points out, lawmakers “represent people of all faith traditions and people of no faith traditions.”
The reaction of Carl Rubenstein, a Jew who is immediate past president of the Interfaith Alliance of Oklahoma, was spot on. Rubenstein called it “a travesty” and “an insult to the entire interfaith community.”
Christ said His followers should love their neighbors as they love themselves. The House would do well to follow that command.