The United States Supreme Court has decided – student led prayer that
is part of the public school football game pre-game agenda and broadcast over
the public address system has been ruled unconstitutional.
The United States Supreme Court has decided – student led prayer that
is part of the public school football game pre-game agenda and broadcast over
the public address system has been ruled unconstitutional.
The expected cries of “throwing God out of schools” have indeed risen
across the nation. But people who are concerned about the government meddling
in religion would be wise to consider carefully the implications of the ruling.
People who want freedom of religion should not expect to have it both ways.
They cannot expect government to take a “hands off” position when
it best serves their religious purposes, and then expect to have government
support their causes when that is beneficial. The problem with this kind of
“having it my way both ways” thinking is, “Who decides when it
is right for government to sponsor religious activities, and when it is wrong?”
Would the majority decide? Would a World Council of Churches kind of board decide?
Would the United States president decide? Would a local judge decide? Would
the decisions change according to who controls the matter?
Some have said that certainly a nonsectarian prayer would be permissible, and
wonderful. But the thought of a “nonsectarian prayer” should be abhorrent
to Christians. One of the premises of believing Christians is that we become
totally identified with Jesus Christ. For a committed Christian, Jesus Christ
is the only God, and we know that our access to God is only through Jesus Christ.
We pray in Jesus name not as some magic formula tacked on to the end of
a prayer, or as some kind of expression we use among our brother and sister
Christians. For Christians, it is an identification of who we are at our core,
and who God is. We cannot be true to Who saves us if we fail to address God
in Jesus name, in all circumstances.
For the Christian, to take away praying in Jesus name is turning the
verbal expressions just offered into something less than prayer as we are taught
prayer is to be. If we close our prayer in a “non-offending” “In
your name we pray,” the Christian has no business calling that prayer.
Accuracy would be better served by calling it, “Lets make a wish.”
For the Christian, prayer is accepting the invitation to address God, and that
can be done only in Jesus name.
To dumb down what is passed off as prayer that is a generic wish-filled talk
with religious expressions to some generic god should be simply unacceptable
for Christians. Christians should never turn away from true prayer to settle
for a religious exercise that is meant to make us feel better about ourselves
because we have had a religious moment. As Christians, do we really want to
hold up as an example of prayer something as undirected as “nameless”
prayer that could just as easily be addressed to Santa Claus? Do we really want
people to think that is prayer?
When considering the U.S. Supreme Courts ruling, we will be wise to remember
that for a Christian to be free from having others religious beliefs forced
upon us, other people of other faiths or no faiths must have the same freedom.
Unless we are willing to have a Muslim or Buddhist or a Satanist lead in prayer
at a public high school football game, and close that prayer in the name of
their God, we should not be willing to put them in the position of having Christians
pray in Christs name.
The vast majority of people in Louisiana are Christians, but many laws are
established to protect the rights of minorities from the presumptions of the
majority. Baptists understood the sound reasoning of this constitutional principle
when we were a minority. Our spiritual forefathers came to this country for
the opportunity to be free from the privilege of majority religions of their
day. It was in the soil of religious freedom and the air of the separation of
church and state that gave Baptists the conditions to grow to be a majority.
Vibrant Christianity prospers and grows best when it is totally a matter of
choice. Christianity has its greatest power of influence on others when believers
are steadfast in Whom they believe, and refuse to step back from this commitment.
The Supreme Court did not, and cannot, make prayer at football games illegal.
One wag said, “There will be prayer every time a team faces fourth down
and one, or kicks a ball into the air trying to score a field goal.”
The court did not rule against students gathering voluntarily any time or place
for prayer in anyones name. The ruling was against official prayer mandated
by an agent – in this case public schools of the government.
Surely the power of two students bowing their heads in prayer in the locker
room to offer a prayer in Jesus name would be greater than some religious
expression in no ones name heard by an entire stadium of people.
We as Louisiana Baptists will be wise to maintain a Biblical standard of praying
that will inspire others to true prayer and relationship with God rather than
trying to uphold a very poor form of expression called praying that is indeed
not prayer at all.