I grew up going to a small town school in southwest Arkansas where we had the freedom of being able to pray. We prayed at almost all the sporting events and as a team we prayed before and after the games. We had "see you at the pole" meetings and had a good FCA club despite the size of the school. I loved the way I was raised and taught to believe. But it just seems that today, saying a prayer in school or at a public school function is just like selling illegal drugs. They have to hide it and they can't tell anyone what they were doing or where they got it from. Case in point, a couple weeks ago in a small Florida town, two school officials are facing jail time for saying a prayer at a school related function and violating the school districts from promoting religion. It is a sad, sad, world we live in where we have lost the right to share our beliefs and from being able to pray over those in need. We always say that we are grateful to live in a country where we have the freedom to express our religious views, but do we really? I grew up knowing that I was safe in my public school for saying prayers and singing worship music. But I don't think that my future kids will ever get the privilege of knowing and feeling that. No wonder the home schooling rates have gone up every year, it seems like one of the only places where they are safe, besides church, to pray and worship Jesus. I don't know about you, but I commend these two school officials to sticking to their beliefs and for becoming, in my opinion, modern day martyrs. I admire the courage and the strength that they had, knowing that they would get in trouble, but there are some things that need to be more important to us. I know that they could have kept quiet and kept their prayers to themselves, but is that what we were called to do? To keep Jesus all to ourselves. If we don't want our kids going to jail, it seems that they do.
2 comments:
This is an interesting comment.It is interesting to compare my background to yours, as I did grow up in a very secular environment, academically speaking. I do also support the absence of prayer in schools. Faith and religion can be wonderful things--but they can also be terrible things when they are imposed upon others. The act of a school official praying openly in front of students, while in and of itself is an expression of that person's faith, can easily be perceived as a threat or even insult to students of other faiths, or students who choose not to follow a faith. In this country, I believe that is not just the freedom to express your religion, but the freedom to not have others impose their religion upon you. This means that religion should be expressed only in places where people voluntary come together to share that faith--never by leaders in a public setting where people haven't explicitly come together for that purpose. Groups like the FCA club are designed to allow for that balance, but I am confident that you would be uncomfortable if your child was sitting in an academic classroom and the teacher of Jewish or Muslim faith encouraged your child to share a prayer within his/her faith? To defend the right of prayer in schools means that you would have to support the right of ALL prayer, not just Christian prayer--this would include cults and sects, which people have a right to belong to. Then you get into the field of which prayers are allowed or not allowed--and that goes back to the imposition of government control for religious freedom. I think it's a dangerous game when you allow public prayer in schools--but I'd love to hear more of your thoughts on this. I enjoy your blog.
Oh, this is Marcela by the way... :)
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