Since the U.S. government shutdown ten days ago, Senate chaplain Barry Black has used his morning prayer in front of lawmakers to scold them for the crisis.
“Deliver us from the hypocrisy of attempting to sound reasonable while being unreasonable,” he told senators one morning.
“Forgive them for the blunders they have committed, infusing them with the courage to admit and correct mistakes,” he said on another.
And later, “Remove from them that stubborn pride that imagines itself to be above and beyond criticism.”
On Wednesday, he spoke out after reports that families of fallen soldiers were not receiving benefits because of the shutdown.
“Lord, when our federal shutdown delays payments of death benefits to the families of children dying on faraway battlefields, it’s time for our lawmakers to say ‘enough is enough’. Cover our shame with the robe of your righteousness. Forgive us, reform us and make us whole.”
The Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel later announced that a charity would pick up the death benefit costs instead.
With the crisis in its earliest days, the chaplain, a Seventh-day Adventist, former Navy rear admiral and collector of brightly coloured bow ties, began an epic ministerial scolding, “Save us from the madness.”
He went on, “We acknowledge our transgressions, our shortcomings, our smugness, our selfishness and our pride.”
Mr. Black, who has been the Senate’s official man of the cloth for 10 years, has taken one of the more rote rituals on Capitol Hill — the morning invocation — and turned it into a daily conscience check for the 100 men and women of the U.S. Senate.
In many ways, Mr. Black, 65, is like any other employee of the federal government who is fed up with lawmakers’ inability to resolve the political crisis that has kept the government closed. He is not being paid. His Bible study classes, which he holds for senators and their staff members four times a week, have been canceled until further notice.
His is a nonpartisan position, one of just a few in the Senate, and he prefers to leave his political leanings vague. He was chosen in 2003 by Sen. Bill Frist, R-Tenn., who was the majority leader at the time, from a group of finalists selected by a bipartisan committee. Before that he ministered in the Navy for nearly 30 years.
“I use a biblical perspective to decide my beliefs about various issues,” Mr. Black said in an interview in his office suite on the third floor of the Capitol. “Let’s just say I’m liberal on some and conservative on others. But it’s obvious the Bible condemns some things in a very forceful and overt way, and I would go along with that condemnation.”
Last year, he participated in the Hoodies on the Hill rally to draw attention to the shooting death of Trayvon Martin. In 2007, after objections from groups that did not like the idea of a Senate chaplain appearing alongside political figures, he canceled a speech he was scheduled to give at an evangelical event featuring, among others, Tony Perkins of the conservative Focus on the Family and the columnist and author Ann Coulter.
Mr. Black, who is the first black Senate chaplain as well as its first Seventh-day Adventist, grew up in public housing in Baltimore, an experience he draws on in his sermons and writings, including a 2006 autobiography From the Hood to the Hill.
In his role as chaplain, a position that has existed since 1789, he acts as a sounding board, spiritual adviser and ethical counselor to members of the Senate. When he prays each day, he said, he recites the names of all 100 senators and their spouses, reading them from a laminated index card.
It is not uncommon for him to have 125 people at his Bible study gatherings or 20 to 30 senators at his weekly prayer breakfast. He officiates at weddings for Senate staff members. He performs hospital visitations. And he has been at the side of senators when they have died, most recently Daniel Inouye of Hawaii in December.
He tries to use his proximity to the senators — and the fact that for at least one minute every morning, his is the only voice they hear — to break through on issues that he feels are especially urgent. Lately, he said, they seem to be paying attention.
“I remember once talking about self-inflicted wounds — that captured the imagination of some of our lawmakers,” he said. “Remember, my prayer is the first thing they hear every day. I have the opportunity, really, to frame the day in a special way.”
His words lately may be pointed, but his tone is always steady and calm.
“May they remember that all that is necessary for unintended catastrophic consequences is for good people to do nothing,” he said.
“Unless you empower our lawmakers,” he prayed another day, “they can comprehend their duty but not perform it.”