J.B. Coltrain: Praying for good choice

Regarding the Nov. 2 letter “No politics on church grounds”: I couldn’t agree more with the writer but for a different reason. It’s simply bad form.

Why would Christian brothers and sisters want to get caught up in the ugliness of American politics? Church is about the only place where we can get away from all the idiocy for a couple of hours and concentrate on the important things. That’s not to say that the election is unimportant.

The letter writer quoted the First Amendment (as it concerns religion) and pointed out how the courts have interpreted that to mean separation of church and state. We would have to agree that conclusion is accurate. But it never fails to mystify me how the second clause of the amendment, “or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;” gets totally trampled by the first clause.

I’m not asking for Sharia law but to totally cleanse the public square of all vestiges of religion is just plain dumb. So, I must make a decision. Do I vote for a further leftward swing? In good conscience I cannot. Do I vote for the alternative? I honestly don’t know.

I’ll do some praying about it but not at the polling place as that would probably be a First Amendment violation. See what I mean?

This story was originally published November 6, 2016 at 6:00 PM with the headline "J.B. Coltrain: Praying for good choice."