Nothing to fear from Regent

Re 'Virginia is singing a sectarian song,' op-ed by Matthew Taylor, Sunday Forum, May 9:The paragraph that caught my attention in the article focusing on the governor's authorization for 'State Police chaplains to pray to Jesus at state functions' was: 'The issue is personal to me.'

A brief perusal of Taylor's website for the National Center for Agnostic Research clarifies what the essay hints at: That 'the issue' at the heart of his objections is not the subject of chaplains' prayers or establishment clauses but Christianity itself.

While only Taylor knows the source of his animus, it is powerful enough to transform the most innocuous elements of a local prayer breakfast.

A group of dedicated clergy, who ostensibly commit their lives to helping others, are metamorphosed into a 'pious retinue of Protestant preachers,' and a simple dais, through the bitter color of Taylor's lens, becomes an 'elevated, altar-like head table.' Though I am surely blinded by my own prejudices, it seems as though he is expending a lot of human capital to 'protect' us from a threat that does not exist.

Taylor made specific reference to the alumni of the university I serve, indicating somewhat ominously that they 'fill today's gubernatorial ministry with theocratic intent.' We can say with some assurance that Regent University grads, like most Virginians, are working hard to solve the very earthly problems that vex us, and are not plotting ways to 'make law(s) respecting an establishment of religion.' With all the challenges our commonwealth faces, even the most fervent agnostic must find it difficult these days to squelch some latent hope for divine intervention.

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