Thoughts on Prayer at Government Ceremonies

Invocations at government ceremonies are legal. The 2014 Supreme Court case of Town of Greece v. Galloway established that ceremonial invocations at government events are constitutional. Of course government officials should check with  legal counsel. Run these guidelines by them to get the thumbs up before you apply them. 

Rationale: The Supreme Court held that ceremonial invocations lend gravity to public proceedings. They are a part of our national heritage, a recognition of the role that religion holds in the lives of our citizens, and a means of accommodating the spiritual needs of those to whom they are addressed. Volunteer prayer-givers are speaking for themselves, and not for the government. 

Implications: The government cannot discriminate among volunteer prayer-givers on the basis of their religion. The government cannot censor or dictate their prayers. Audience members cannot be coerced to assent to the prayer being offered. The ongoing practice of conducting invocations should be judged by whether it serves the intended purpose of elevating the occasion and uniting the participants in their common effort. Over time, a reasonable observer should not be able to discern a pattern of favoring one religious group over another, a pattern of exploiting prayer to proselytize or a pattern of using the invocation to denigrate other faith groups. 

Religious Nature: Prayer may be a ceremonial tradition that lends solemnity to an event, but it never loses its religious character. That’s true whether we call it a prayer, an invocation, a blessing, a benediction or any other such word. That's true even if the invocation is non-theistic and delivered by a secular humanist. Public invocations at government events take place within the space created by the first amendment for religious freedom.

There is a qualitative difference between prayer and other kinds of speech. If we intend an activity to be completely non-religious, we should use a non-religious word to describe it, avoiding any implication that it is a kind of prayer or a substitute for prayer. The religious character of prayer has consequences for government ceremonies.

The Need for an Invocation. An invocation can accommodate the religious needs of an organization's constituents, and such an accommodation can contribute to their spiritual health.  Include prayer, then, when it accommodates a significant spiritual need of a significant segment of audience.

Leaders should determine if an invocation or other prayer is necessary and appropriate. Not every event needs a prayer. Even though I’ve been asked, at points in my career, to offer prayers at events as routine as weekly staff meetings, I would not recommend that course of action. The event should be of such gravity that it causes praying people to want to pray.

Is there a reason for personal or organizational anxiety? Are people experiencing grief or uncertainty? Are people celebrating and giving thanks? Are there human needs that call for prayer among the religious members of our constituencies? Bottom line: include a prayer when it accommodates a genuine and significant religious need. A prayer should serve the religious or spiritual needs of the people involved, and not simply the organizational need to dress up its ceremony.

Memorial Ceremonies. If the deceased was religious, by all means include a prayer. Preferably, have someone from the deceased’s own faith group deliver the prayer. If the deceased was anti-religious, by all means do not have one! Respect the memory of the deceased while considering the needs of those assembled. 

Personal Transitions. Retirements, promotions, award ceremonies. These are significant events in the lives of individuals. Whether or not to have a prayer should be based on the preference of the person being recognized. 

Major Organizational Transitions. Changes of command, deployment ceremonies, homecoming ceremonies, activation or deactivation ceremonies. These, too, are significant events in the life of an organization and its people. In the case of changes of command, the preferences of the outgoing and incoming commanders should be respected. In other cases, where there are no individual preferences at stake, a prayer may still be appropriate. 

Organizational Social Events. It has become customary to have prayers at organizational social events (dining outs, holiday parties, hails and farewells, organizational balls, etc.). Based on the fact the religiously observant often pray before meals, a brief prayer may be appropriate. 

Other Organizational Events. Organizational anniversaries, town hall meetings, group award ceremonies, etc. The people attending the most solemn of these events might benefit from prayer, but it is certainly possible to conduct most organizational events without a public invocation of the deity. 

The Government Doesn’t Write Prayers. It is beyond the government’s authority to provide the person saying the invocation with an approved, government sanctioned prayer. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion” means that we can’t tell someone what to pray. The government is not in the religion business. 

The Government Doesn’t Censor Prayers. Once an invitation to say a prayer is extended, the government has little say over what the invited person can pray. Government leaders don’t ask for brief-backs or approve prayers before they are delivered. “Or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” means that we can’t tell someone what not to pray. 

Volunteers Only. Government leaders should never task an employee to pray at a government ceremony. At events open to the public, it may be most appropriate to use volunteer religious leaders from the community. At internally focused events, it may be most appropriate to use volunteers from among the employees. When using employee volunteers, however, you should probably look outside the circle of senior supervisory personnel. 

Rotate Responsibilities. Try to obtain different volunteers for different events, preferably from different faith traditions. Having one person pray all the time may give the impression that he or she is the approved and official “prayer person” in the organization. If your volunteers represent the diversity in the organization, so much the better! 

Is Non-Sectarian Prayer Required? No. The government cannot dictate that volunteers limit themselves to so-called “non sectarian” prayers. Government may not mandate a civic religion that stifles any but the most generic reference to the sacred any more than it may prescribe a religious orthodoxy. It is up to volunteers to decide how they will integrate their own faith commitments with the pluralistic setting and the distinctive nature of the occasion. 

Can Atheists Pray? It is definitely permissible for employees with non-theistic beliefs (e.g., humanists, atheists, agnostics, etc.) to offer the invocation under the same conditions offered to those with theistic beliefs. 

Only One Prayer Per Event. More than this, and it starts to look like a church service. 

Time. The government can’t tell people what to pray, but it can probably tell them how long they have to say their prayers. Invocations should be less than one-minute long. This is important for two reasons. First, no one likes overly long prayers. Second, we are asking those who do not value prayer to accommodate those who do by sitting quietly. Brevity reduces the prayer’s imposition of those who don’t see value in it. 

Intent. When asking a volunteer to pray, commanders can explain their intent for including prayer in a ceremony. What need is it meeting? Who does the commander believe will benefit from the prayer and why? How does the commander hope that the prayer will accommodate the overall needs of the particular audience that will be gathered to hear it?  Certainly, the commander is looking for a dignified, respectful, positive and encouraging invocation, one that will contribute to the spiritual well-being of all employees and the unity of the organization. Using the invocation to proselytize or denigrate any faith group is not acceptable. Such a discussion can provide information that should be important to volunteers as they write their prayers. 

Audience. The commander can also remind the volunteer that the government organization  is a religiously diverse organization. Volunteers should speak for themselves in the prayer and not presume to pray on behalf of others. 

Long-Term Impact. The volunteer’s prayer will have an impact on future ceremonies. In the long run, the practice of having invocations at government events is conditioned upon their serving the purpose of elevating the event and uniting the organization in its common effort. 

Alternatives to an Invocation

  • Just omit it. Nothing says you have to have any particular element in a ceremony, including an invocation.
  • Have a recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance or the Soldier's Creed or the Army Civilian Creed or
  • Have a recitation of a poem or other brief writing that provides a solemn beginning to the ceremony
  • Have a guided moment of silent reflection.

Popular posts from this blog

If My People

Performative civil religion was on full display this week during the America Reads the Bible series of public Bible readings. The performance is supposed to commemorate the 250th anniversary of America’s Declaration of Independence. During the event, a series of politicians, MAGA supporters, and other ostensibly notable figures will read aloud the entire Protestant Bible in piecemeal fashion. The readers are using the King James Easy Read Bible, one of many obscure revisions of the KJV. The live readings take place at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C. Tickets are $50. You can also register to watch a live stream. I cannot understood why anyone thinks merely reading the words of the Bible aloud will mean anything to God, have a positive effect on the nation, or draw anyone to Jesus. On Tuesday, President Trump read from Second Chronicle. The organizer's website features a recording of the president's reading on the home page of it's website and declares, As...
Read more

The Problem with Religious Affiliation Codes

Religious preference codes only exist to give commanders and chaplains a big, one-over-the-world view of the religious needs of the unit as a whole. They reside in the big Army database of personnel records as useful data points for generalized planning. They are not terribly useful for individual religious support where people don't always fit their labels. There, chaplains need to get to know their soldiers personally.  Soldiers entering the Army are overwhelmed by an avalanche of administrative requirements. It’s a normal human response to proceed through that process without much thought.  I found that Soldiers had often chosen their religious preference codes hastily, and the religion coded in the personnel database did not accurately reflect their religious identities.  The previous list of religious codes was long (5 single spaced pages) and not logically organized. It was a jumble of institutional identities and religious categories, most of which were going to be...
Read more

Is the President Saving Religion?

The president spoke to the National Prayer Breakfast on February 6, 2026. The event is sponsored by a Christian organization, but its official website says that it is open to people of all faiths. It is supposed to bring national leaders of faith together regardless of political affiliation.  As a Christian pastor, I would like to respectfully offer some reflections on the president’s 77 minute speech. This essay is long because the speech was long. What’s In the Speech What was the tone of the speech? Uplifting? Inspiring? Unifying? Spiritual? I would characterize it as political. It’s tone matched the tone of all his speeches, if you know what I mean. Most of it echoed themes and talking points common to every speech he makes. Little of it had any bearing on on the purpose of the assembly, and I can’t begin to address those parts of the speech. Simply put, I found much of it objectionable.  But what about the rest, the parts that talked about religion? In over 12...
Read more