Praying at the Rodeo

religious freedom, multiculturalism, and the "inverted golden rule"

Photo by Daniel Lloyd Blunk-Fernández on Unsplash

One of the stops I knew I had to take my west coast born-and-bred family during our recent vacation was the rodeo. It’s the kind of kitschy Americana that you just don’t get exposed to in a big city. Plus I was pretty sure my daredevil kiddos would be hella impressed by the bull riders.

Even though I hadn’t been to a rodeo since I was a kid, I remembered well its pomp and ceremony. Sure enough, the sonorous announcer opened it with a tribute to a “special lady” who was 248 years young! Guess what? It was AMERICA!!! One of three rodeo princesses galloped in, a large flag trailing behind her. This was, of course, followed by another bedazzled cowgirl trilling the national anthem. Pretty standard stuff.

But what happened next caught me off guard. The announcer wrapped up his “rah rah America, greatest country on Earth” spiel by saying, “Let us pray.” I cringed at my husband as the announcer prayed, in Jesus’ name, for the protection of all the riders. While I agreed with the sentiment, I was instantly squicked out. I wasn’t even sure why it bothered me—did I believe God would specifically intervene to protect someone who willingly chose to get on a bull’s back? Not really. Still, couldn’t hurt, right?

After the rodeo, my husband and I talked about the Jesus of it all. I was surprised to find that Ryan (who tends to be less religious than me) wasn’t at all bothered by the praying. He liked that, unlike many other instances of public prayer he’d been exposed to, this announcer framed his prayer with gratitude for America’s “unparalleled religious freedom.” I pointed out he followed up this declaration with the mention of the nation’s “300,000 churches”—no mention of temples, mosques, etc. To me, the implication was that all patriotic Americans were Christian, but Ryan didn’t see it that way. What struck me as veiled Christian Nationalism struck him as gratitude for religious freedom.

There’s been a profound shift in the definition of “religious freedom.” Twenty years ago, it meant the ACLU defending a religious minority (such as Seventh Day Adventists or Jehovah’s Witnesses) against laws that infringed on their religious practices. In recent years, however, “religious freedom” has come to mean a license to discriminate. As Andrew R. Lewis wrote in The Atlantic:

“Republicans leveraged religious-liberty arguments to advance their position on cultural issues. They argued that Christians’ religious freedom was under threat, and emphasized cultural conflict. In doing so, Republicans adopted the cultural arguments for religious freedom that were championed by white evangelicals.

Evangelicals had become a core part of the party’s activist base and electoral coalition, mobilized by a mixture of opposition to civil rights and abortion rights, as well as support for religious nationalism. Evangelicals had been emphasizing religious-freedom arguments for decades to push back against secularism and the sexual revolution, and to promote cultural conservatism, such as prayer in schools. When conservative Christians became integrated into the Republican Party, their religious-freedom messages gained broader appeal.”

As many have pointed out, “religious freedom” arguments rarely center on feeding the poor or sheltering the homeless, rather they’ve become wedge issues and cudgels against LGBT people and women seeking contraception or abortions. It’s “freedom for my kind, not yours,” or as scholar Paul Djupe calls it “the inverted golden rule”: “expect from others what you would do unto them.” It’s raising the alarm about Sharia Law while advocating for Christian Nationalism. It’s assuming that the best way of protecting yourself against persecution is to persecute others.

Is that what was happening at the rodeo, though? Or was it just an assumption of a monoculture where none existed? I will admit that, given my personal history, I am a little sensitive to being pressured into religious participation. Is it better to give the rodeo announcer the benefit of the doubt, assume that his assumption was innocent rather than coercive?

Monoculture is nice because it grants even strangers accessible common ground. If we all root for the same sports team or the same god, we can more easily offer each other empathy and build community. That’s nothing to sneeze at. Finding commonality with someone outside your ethnic group, political affiliation, class, or race can feel awkward and hard.

Monoculture is easy—it doesn’t challenge us. Multiculturalism, on the other hand, pushes us to honor each other’s backgrounds without needing to impose our identities on each other. I see this in my kids’ elementary school as they celebrate everything from Lunar New Year to World Hijab Day. It doesn’t matter if it’s your home culture, everyone is invited to the party. I saw it, also, in the Olympics closing ceremony. When the announcer asked everyone to stand for the French national anthem, it wasn’t out of a desire to make everyone admit French superiority, rather, it was an invitation to celebrate and honor. What would Christianity be like if we adopted this ethos? If we stopped trying to convert others and insist on the superiority of our belief system? There’s beauty in being able to recognize and honor each other’s differences while holding onto our own identities.

And here’s the thing: I don’t think God cares about what labels we attach to ourselves. After all, terms like “Christian” were never used by Jesus or any of his followers. Instead, when I read the Bible, I see a god who cares about justice, about doing the work of caring for each other, who, again and again, transcends the prejudices and labels people apply to each other.

More important than your ethnicity, religion, gender, etcetera, is what you do. Someone doesn’t have to be a Christian to be a good person (or a patriotic American), and being a Christian doesn’t necessarily mean someone is good or trustworthy. (Though wouldn’t it be nice if it did?)

Can we take our political and religious beliefs and hold on to them humbly and loosely? Can we honor the good in those who are different than us? Can we bring back the meaning of “religious freedom” as “practice your beliefs however you like, so long as you aren’t hurting anyone”? That, I think, is what true freedom would look like.

BONUS MATERIALS:

-info from Pew Research Center on how different groups view religions’ impact on politics. (There are graphs!)

-my fav Amy Poehler quote from Yes, Please, very applicable to multiculturalism: