Interfaith leaders seek House chaplain revisions
A chaplain program at the state Capitol has come under fire once again as several leaders from the interfaith community publicly called for an Oklahoma lawmaker to reverse new guidelines they deem discriminatory.
The Interfaith Alliance of Oklahoma and other interfaith groups hosted a news conference at the Capitol on Wednesday, with representatives from five faith traditions asking that Rep. Chuck Strohm reverse new rules he recently imposed on the House Chaplain of the Day/Chaplain of the Week program.
The Rev. Shannon Fleck, community engagement director for the Oklahoma Conference of Churches, said the chaplaincy program is discriminatory; the changes in practice would prevent nonChristian spiritual leaders from participating. In her remarks, Fleck said Strohm, the program’s overseer, rejected a Muslim leader’s application for the program, avoided subsequent queries from interfaith leaders and then changed the program’s guidelines twice since January.
“This group is calling for the discriminatory practices that had been happening under Rep. Strohm’s oversight to come to an end, for there to be a reversal of the discrimination that has occurred and for acceptance and inclusion to be the message that the Oklahoma Legislature wants to put out,” Fleck said.
Strohm could not be reached for comment. The Oklahoman visited his office on Monday and asked for a return call. Strohm had not returned a phone call as of Wednesday.
Meanwhile, Rep. Jason Dunnington, D-Oklahoma City, was the representative that sponsored Imad Enchassi’s application for the chaplain program in 2017. Wednesday, Dunnington said when he asked Strohm to reconsider Enchassi’s application, Strohm told him that chaplains should be from the same faith tradition as the sponsoring
representative. No current representatives have claimed to be of a faith tradition other than Christian.
Dunnington said he is a former Nazarene minister and hoped to sponsor Enchassi’s application because they are colleagues at Oklahoma City University, and he and many of their students at OCU respect the imam for all he does as a leader in the community.
Wednesday, Dunnington said the rejection of Enchassi’s application and the recent alterations to the chaplain program were not partisan but rather a personal issue of Strohm’s. He said Enchassi had participated in the chaplain program about two years ago when the program was coordinated by a different representative.
“I know as a member of the House that five minutes prior to session at the beginning of a stressful day, when we know there will be contentiousness on the floor, that time of reflection, that time of learning is a great opportunity to hear from persons of all different backgrounds and faiths as we prepare for the difficult work that we do,” he said. “To exclude people from that process is just wrong. I stand with this group happily and look forward to moving past this discriminatory process to a time where we’ll return to having persons of all faiths speak to us and help us learn from them.”
Several spiritual leaders from the Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Jewish and Baha’i Faith communities
attended the news conference. The Rev. Chris Moore, senior minister of Fellowship Congregational UCC, said the Tulsa Metropolitan Ministries, of which he is a board member, has been doing interfaith work for many years and supports an interfaith chaplain at the City of Tulsa and Tulsa County jails.
“Any chaplain will tell you, whether serving in a hospital or jail setting, that the most important thing is that you learn to be God’s love to every person you encounter,” Moore said. “So a chaplain’s role, is not, of course, to promote a particular religion. It’s not, of course, to ignore some people in favor of other people.”
Fleck said the interfaith community is hoping to have the matter resolved quickly.
“The Oklahoma Conference of Churches stands here, alongside our beloved interfaith community, to ask yet again what is the goal of this House chaplain program. We call upon the leaders in this building to make the goal one steeped in the fundamental to love one’s neighbor and show that love in guiding their actions,” she said.
“We know that there are big issues for the Legislature to be dealing with at this time and this does not need to be one of them. This is an easy solution. The interfaith community stands here ready to talk, ready to be a part of any process and ready to work together to be inclusive of everyone.”