Bruce Braley serves as U.S. Representative for Iowa’s first congressional district. He sits on the House Energy and Commerce Committee at a time when a shift in energy policy is at the core of the nation’s identity.

Braley has not been making much news with any activities on the Energy and Commerce Committee, however. Instead, Braley’s big news is that he managed to get his brother Bradford a professional gig on Capitol Hill. “Welcoming my brother to the Capitol as Guest Chaplain is one of the proudest moments of my career,” Congressman Braley says. A local Iowa paper quotes Braley on the arrangement: “It was very moving. My mother got tears in her eyes.”

Bruce Braley might do well to pause, and remember that he was not elected to Congress in order to serve his family. He was elected to serve his constituents, and his nation.

Braley was also elected to uphold and defend the Constitution. The Constitution of the United States declares that there shall be no religious test for public office. It further states that Congress shall make no act regarding an establishment of religion. Yet, Congress has long ignored these two parts of the Constitution in order to set up an office of religious patronage through the House of Representatives – the office of the House Chaplain.

Bruce Braley’s favor to his brother was a part of this corrupt system of government religious patronage, a system that uses the power of government to reward religious leaders who use their positions to assist the political ambitions of elected officials. Braley’s brother Bradford, you see, is a Presbyterian minister. He was invited by his brother, through the office of the House Chaplain, to conduct a government-sponsored religious ceremony – to deliver an official congressional prayer.

The separation of church and state was established in order to protect not only the integrity of the people’s government, but also to protect the integrity of religion in America, to keep it a matter of private conscience, rather than government policy. Bruce Braley’s religious nepotism on behalf of his brother may seem to be petty, but it reflects a more serious form of corruption.

Through the creation of the taxpayer-funded office of the House Chaplain, and through the daily official government religious rituals conducted by that office, Congress has established a means for using the power of the federal government to elevate certain religious leaders above their colleagues, and to support certain religious sects over others.

The Braley incident shows one small way in which the House Chaplain’s office can establish patronage by members of Congress over religious leaders. In the case of Bruce and Bradford Braley, that patronage has a personal motivation. Bruce wanted to use his power as a member of Congress to solidify his brother’s religious credentials.

In other cases, however, the patronage can result in a great deal more than mere family favors. Recent years have seen an increase in the use of church networks by politicians who are campaigning for Congress. Candidates give political speeches in churches where they seek to gain voters’ support. Priests and ministers are increasingly giving open political speeches instead of sermons, in which it’s quite clear which candidates church members are expected to vote for. In spite of this campaign activity, the churches are keeping their tax exempt status, and are often, as a consequence of the connections they make during campaign season, receiving large amounts of government money through the Office of Faith Based Initiatives.

The office of the House Chaplain helps to facilitate unethical relations of dependence between religious leaders and members of Congress, as U.S. Representatives act like lobbyists to the House Chaplain, seeking to bring their favored religious leaders into the potentially profitable national attention. Through this arrangement, both individual members of Congress and Congress as an institution is placed in the position of deciding which religious sects, and which religious leaders, should benefit from the promotional machinery of the House of Representatives.

Is it any wonder that so many members of Congress introduce legislation seeking to promote their own religion above the religions of their neighbors? Bruce Braley’s religious nepotism reminds us that the office of the House Chaplain is a corrupting influence within what is supposed to be a representative assembly serving all Americans, not merely the sacred elites.