DNC and God: Religion Present at Both Conventions, But in Very Different Ways

Amid the high and low minded rhetoric and the “slamming” of the other party and its policies at this year’s Republican and Democratic national conventions there has been a backdrop of faith on display. Representatives of many faiths were on hand to offer up official and unofficial prayers throughout each of the conventions. Christians of all stripes, Muslims, and Jews were all represented to some degree either on the platform or in nearby venues. In an interesting twist, the same man, Catholic Cardinal Timothy Dolan, will have deliveredthe benediction both conventions. With the notable exception of a prayer offered by a man of the Sikh faith at the RNC the prayers were a relatively quiet and mostly overlooked part of each night, but a close listen to those prayers reveals the values that each party holds as they each seek to send their nominee (back) to the White House.

The prayers offered at the RNC, starting with the one given by retired police chief and Mormon Ken Hutchins, were largely vague. While I don’t doubt the sincerity of those delivering the invocations, there seems to have been little effort to really know anything about whom they were praying for. There were prayers for those who suffer from war, famine, drought and fire – largely natural disasters, but short shrift was given to those who suffer from manmade disasters, financial and otherwise. These kinds of prayers, while important and needed, can seem empty and impersonal. It’s relatively easy to pray for these uncontrollable things, to ask God to help those who have been devastated in ways beyond our control. But to pray for specific people who are suffering specific ills is a much more difficult task. That kind of prayer requires an empathy with the plight of the individual that seems to evade most public policymaking whether Republican or Democratic.
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