# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1954_S110
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

110 Proceedings of the Forty-Third Convention,

Pacific Coast some football games will be opened with prayer. The
Pledge of Allegiance to the flag has been amended by the addition
of the words “under God.” That people do understand such phrases
to be more than an empty gesture is well shown by a letter pub-
lished in a recent copy of Newsweek. The writer, a Californian
with an English or Irish name, wrote very correctly: “The Pledge
of Allegiance was never meant to be a prayer or an invocation.
As amended, by adding the words ‘under God’ divisions are in-
evitable in the one nation indivisible.” That’s the trouble with
the attempt to unite things that don’t belong together; it causes
divisions.

When we are unwilling, perhaps even unwitting, participants
in such joint prayer which is forced upon us, over which we have
no control, no one will denounce us as unionists. But when we
ourselves conduct and control such meetings, when we become
willing participants and even defend the practice with clever argu-
ment, then we cannot escape the charge of unionistic practice.
It does not exonerate us to say: “I had complete control of the
service.” Neither does it justify such prayer that we give it a name
like “joint prayer” and insist that it is not prayer fellowship, even
though we willingly participate in it or even defend it.

Prayer in public or with groups and in conferences of the kind

tion conveys to the public the impression that differences really
make no difference, then we are practicing unionism. Without ac-
tually saying so, we can proclaim so that everybody understands
that a difference in doctrine need not be taken seriously. Joint
public prayer, participation in union services, our being ecclesias-
tical good sports, will make us popular in the community, but at
the expense of truth and good conscience.

The test is not whether a prayer is public or private, whether

constitute denial; and by this test, too, Catholic husband and Lu-
theran wife may at table thank God for food they are about to eat
while at the same time holding firmly each to his own faith.

The last sentence, which refers to a Catholic husband and a Lu-
theran wife praying at their table while disagreeing in religious
conviction, must not be taken as conceding the propriety of joint
prayer at meetings where two bodies not in fellowship discuss

octrine.

In the case of a family a principle is involved that does not
apply to doctrinal iscussions between church bodies. Disagree-

wife. And they are to live as husband and wife; the family is to
function as family. The confessional principle is involved if the
husband prays only to Mary; then the Second Commandment
applies. We have a clear word of Scripture that these two need
not part company because of religious differences (1 Corinthians 7).