Christopher Coen
Melissa Sogard
nancylee1
Is praying at staff meetings a form of worship prohibited by government funding?
Posted by Christopher Coen on March 22, 2010
According to a recent story from Seattle, World Relief recently rejected a muslim refugee for a paying job as an interpreter because he is not an evangelical Christian, and World Relief thought he might feel uncomfortable at their staff meetings when they pray (see here). He worked as a volunteer Arabic interpreter with World Relief for six months before applying for a paid position doing the same thing.
But why are they praying at staff meetings? Isn’t that a form of worship? Federal agencies that provide funds for refugee resettlement do not allow the use of their funds for religious activities. According to HHR regulations 45 CFR 87.1 using these federal funds for inherently religious activities is prohibited (here):
“…a participating organization may not use direct financial assistance from the Department, as well as from State and local governments or intermediate organizations administering funds under Department programs, to support inherently religious activities, such as worship, religious instruction, or proselytization. If the organization engages in such activities, it must offer them separately, in time or location, from the programs or services funded with direct Department assistance, and participation must be voluntary for the beneficiaries of the Department-funded programs or services. This requirement ensures that direct financial assistance from the Department to participating organizations is not used to support inherently religious activities. Such assistance may not be used, for example, to conduct worship services, prayer meetings, or any other activity that is inherently religious. The rule clarifies that this restriction does not mean that an organization that receives Department grant funds may not engage in inherently religious activities, but only that such an organization may not fund these activities with direct financial assistance from the Department.”
It seems to me that praying is an inherently religious activity. Resettlement agencies such as World Relief pay their staff members with federal funds to attend these meetings, so praying at staff meetings by staff members would seem to be the use of federal funds for worship, an inherently religious activity.
This entry was posted on March 22, 2010 at 2:42 pm and is filed under Christian, discrimination in hiring, evangelical, HHS, Iraqi, Islamic, religion, Washington, World Relief. Tagged: 45 CFR, division of church and state, employee, evangelical, faith-based, federal funding, government regulations, HHS, islam, Muslim, praying, prohibited, refugee, refugees, religious activity, seattle, World Relief, worship. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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