Hearing is believing

Introducing an article about the legal status of Christian prayer in the public square, Stephen Webb notes that secularists seem to have an almost magical belief in the power of Jesus's name:

No other name has ever had such power for both believers and deniers alike. Simply saying that name in public is enough to traumatize secularists possessed by the conviction that they have the right not to be exposed to religion. Some secularists have come around to tolerating the occasional public benediction or blessing, as long as it is generically addressed, but many still draw the line at the concluding phrase of a Christian prayer that typically begins, “In the name of. . .” It is almost as if secularists instinctively realize that hearing is believing. They just don’t want to take that risk.

FIRST THINGS: On the Square » Blog Archive » The Terrible, Traumatic, and Intolerable Name of Jesus Christ