Police Chaplains Told to Stop Mentioning Jesus

Volunteer chaplains in North Carolina's Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department will no longer be allowed to invoke the name of Jesus in prayers at public events held on government property, Fox News reports. Pastor Terry Sartain, who has "prayed in the name of Jesus" for the seven years he has ministered to police officers and their families, was scheduled to give an invocation at a promotion ceremony, but received a phone call from his superior major before the event telling him he could no longer use the name of Jesus. The police department wanted him to deliver a "secular prayer," he said. "Even when I wasn't a Christian -- in my past -- I didn't even know what a secular prayer was." Sartain said the decision put him in a difficult position -- "You don't want to compromise your faith ... [but] at the same time you want to honor those who are in charge over you" -- so he asked the police department to withdraw his name from consideration for future public prayers. "I'm very sad about it," he said. "Christians for the most part are targeted in these days that we exist in." According to Major John Diggs, who oversees the chaplain program, the policy is a "matter of respecting that people may have different faiths" and is "not aimed at any one religion or denomination."