Where's the need for prayer at meetings?

Recently the Daily Herald had a front-page story headlined, "Some say halt prayers at county board meetings," and the focus was on invocations given at the start of DuPage County Board meetings and Wheaton City Council meetings. Board member Dawn DeSart said she wanted prayers to be discontinued because most of the prayers given are Christian prayers, yet we are a diverse community of Christians, Muslims, Jews, Sikhs, atheists, agnostics and other constituents, and therefore we should have a separation of church and state. But county board Chairman Dan Cronin said that an invocation is a wonderful way to start the board meetings.

I myself have a different viewpoint. When I am preparing to vote at elections of public officials, I consider their qualifications, credentials, abilities and talents to administer our government organizations. I do not consider that if they are so qualified, I will ever need to pray for them at council meetings, nor do I feel any need to pray for myself at these public meetings.

When I pray, I am focusing on my own personal relationship with God, and I can pray in my home and in my church. I do not wish to pray publicly inasmuch as in the Bible in Matthew 6:5-8, we are told, "When you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners that they may be seen by men. But you, when you pray, go into your room and shut the door, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly."

So, I see no need to pray in public at government meetings, and that should be the answer to the question whether we should have prayers or not at public government meetings.

Theodore M. Utchen

Wheaton