EDITORIAL

The name of Jesus Christ can be uttered in a curse in a public place and no one takes notice. But if Jesus is invoked in a sincere prayer in the presence of those who don’t call Him Lord, a controversy is likely to erupt with great offense taken by non-Christians claiming that religious pluralism and tolerance have been violated by the Christian.

This perversion of pluralism and tolerance is killing religious freedom in America. And it may have cost a Leesburg hospital chaplain his job.

Danny Harvey lost his job last month as the director of pastoral care at Leesburg Regional Medical Center after he refused requests by his supervisors to not use Jesus’ name in prayers with non-Christian patients and hospital officials.

According to The Daily Commercial, a Leesburg newspaper, LRMC’s president Louis Bremer says the hospital received several complaints about Harvey praying in Jesus’ name with non-Christian patients during his eight years on the job. LRMC required Harvey to attend a religious tolerance course in 2002 and was asked to abide by Association of Professional Chaplain guidelines which call for chaplains to respect for the beliefs of others and refrain from imposing their beliefs on others.

“It would be very appropriate to say Jesus’ name in the presence of a Christian family. That’s no problem,” Bremer told The Daily Commercial. “What must be understood is knowing the audience and what is appropriate for that particular situation.”

In multiple media accounts Harvey has denied imposing his beliefs on others.

“If you were Jewish, I would get somebody from the Jewish synagogue; if you’re Muslim, I’d do my very, very best to get someone there to meet your need,” Harvey said. “But if you ask me to pray, I’m not talking to you, I’m talking to my God that I know through Christ.”

In a Sept. 6 statement, a hospital official said, “The administration of LRMC has made it clear that it has tried to work with Mr. Harvey for years on the execution of his duties pursuant to the generally acceptable guidelines and principles of hospital chaplain care. We regret that it seems Mr. Harvey is either misrepresenting the issues and/or omitting the facts, but we wish him well in whatever endeavors he pursues.”

To protest Harvey’s termination, area pastors and others of various Christian denominations will hold what they are calling a “silent” march “in the name of Jesus” Sept. 15 from Leesburg City Hall to LRMC and back.

Franklin Graham, the son of world-renown evangelist Billy Graham and founder of the international relief organization Samaritan’s Purse, wrote a book, The Name, which addresses the increasing hostility to the name of Jesus in our society.

“Many times Christian pastors praying in public forums just finish their prayers with ‘… in the Name of God.’ But for me to do so would falsify who I am. I would be disobedient by denying the One I follow. I have always prayed in Jesus’ Name. I know of no other ground on which a sinner like me can come before God who is holy,” Graham wrote.

Graham illustrates the magnitude of praying in Jesus’ name for the Christian by recalling the decision of the Queen of England to knight his father in 2001. Due to Billy’s heath-related travel restrictions, the queen authorized the British ambassador to the United States to confer the honor on her behalf in Washington, D.C.

“What if the ambassador had acted on his own, without Her Majesty giving him that power? His knighthood would have been meaningless. Similarly, we have no basis or authority to come to God any way except through the Lord Jesus Christ – the Representative God Himself personally sent to us when, through our human striving, we could not reach Him.”

In his book, published in 2002, Graham writes about a controversy that erupted when he and Kirbyjon Caldwell, an United Methodist minister, both invoked Jesus’ name in their prayers during the 2001 inauguration ceremony for President George W. Bush. Editorialists and professional agitators protested the prayers as insensitive, divisive and inappropriate in our pluralistic nation, coming as they did in the midst of an event for the entire nation.

Graham writes about the controversy, “None of this discussion and fuss really amounts to a hill of beans if Jesus Christ was just another ‘great teacher.’ But what if He is more than that? He is the One who said, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.’ A loyal follower of Jesus does not concoct personal ideas about these matters. All he or she does is faithfully represent the words of the Master. But this is increasingly considered suspect and even subversive in America.”

Three years ago, a similar controversy occurred when Clayton Cloer, pastor of First Baptist Church of Central Florida in Orlando, dared to pray in Jesus’ name before the Florida Senate. Moments after Cloer concluded, then Senate president Jim King apologized to his colleagues, resulting in statewide news media coverage of the flap.

In an interview with Florida Baptist Witness, Cloer said, “The only reason God hears me is because of the work of Jesus Christ, because of His high priestly work of allowing me to come into the Holy of Holies … . Secondly, Jesus said, ‘if you ask anything in My name,’ that He’s going to answer. So, when I pray, I pray in His name. That’s what He taught me to do.”

Cloer said that if he is told he is not permitted to use Jesus’ name in public prayers, he refuses the invitation. “To me, it’s a way of denial and accommodation for me to allow somebody to dictate how I talk to God. That’s an imposition on my freedom, even if it is public.”

Asking a Christian minister to not pray in Jesus’ name is simply unacceptable – and it fails to appreciate just how important an issue this is, both for the praying minister and those who would hear his prayer.

Graham makes this crucial point in his book: “The Ted Turners, Jesse Venturas, and others who ridicule or demean the Name and His followers must not understand what they are doing and whom they are dealing with. Unfortunately, the fence-sitters and even many who follow the Lord Jesus do not grasp the incredible scope and impact of His life either.”

He continues, “The Name stands before, beyond, and after all others. In the beginning was the Name. At the end will be the Name. In the present time, all things depend upon the Name. The Name is above all names. The Name will cause all knees to bow … Jesse’s, Ted’s, yours and mine … for all time.”

This week marks the sixth anniversary of the horrific terrorism attacks on our nation. In the wake of those attacks committed by radical Islam, it’s incredible that Americans are increasingly told that pluralism and tolerance requires acceptance of all religious views – unless it’s Christian and so long as the name of Jesus is not invoked.

True pluralism and tolerance permits all to practice their faith in accordance with the demands of that faith as dictated by each believer’s own conscience. Requiring some believers – usually Christians – to cloak central truth claims of their faith is intolerant.

Requiring a Christian minister to deny or refuse to acknowledge the One whom He believes makes his ministry possible does not honor religious pluralism; it is indeed intolerant. That the Christian minister is doing that ministry in the context of a hospital chaplaincy or a governmental body in which a wide array of religious views is held should not negate his Christian convictions. Further, to permit a Christian minister to pray in a manner consistent with his conscience is the very ideal upon which pluralism and tolerance is based.

Left unchecked and allowed to flourish, the perversion of pluralism and tolerance will result in the demise of religious freedom in our nation and in a diminution of the use of Jesus’ name in public places – and fewer souls being confronted with their spiritual state.