Now With Katrina, What About Prayer in Schools?
By J. Grant Swank Jr. (09/03/05)
A federal judge in Mississippi concluded on June 3, l996, that a public school district violated the Constitution by allowing Bible classes and prayers over the public address system.
This will bring another round of debate regarding the issue.
As a Christian pastor who ministers to an evangelical congregation, I have some questions to ask of my own people:
(l) If the school were leading Hindu prayers over the intercom, would you want your children to sit through that?
(2) If a New Age student prayed to the "god of any god" for the entire student body to hear, would you settle for that?
(3) If the Koran classes were held during school time, would you protest?
(4) If the public school system permitted a Buddhist teacher to instruct her pupils solely in this religion, treating it as the eternal truth, would you sit still?
When I was in junior high school, I read from the Psalms and prayed aloud over the intercom. No one said anything in protest.
But times have changed. Each person determines whether they are better or worse; nevertheless, they have changed.
Consequently, the orthodox Christian position of defending our stance in public schools is more complicated than it once was.
What I want to say to those who profess to be Christians is this:
(1) Why are so many of you not found praying faithfully in church on Sundays like you used to do?
(2) Why are you not conducting family prayer and Bible reading as you once knew as a child?
(3) Why are your children seeing you more at the mall on the Lord's Day than in God's House?
(4) Why are you deserting weeknight prayer meetings for television watching?
(5) Why are you so far behind in your own personal devotional life?
(6) Why do the prayer closet and Bible gather dust in your own soul? "Enter into thy closet, shut thy door, pray. . ." (Matthew 6:6).
If the church were truly into the power of prayer, the schools would be quite different for the good. The nation would be different as well.
If those who profess a personal connection with God were really into the might of His grace, then society would have to deal with that impact.
* The truth is that Sunday service attendance is dwindling.
* Mid-week prayer gatherings are becoming null and void.
* Family prayers have become nostalgia.
* Prayers are becoming increasingly clipped.
Until Christians return to their professed prayer power in churches and homes, they have little to condemn in the public schools.
Copyright © 2005 by J. Grant Swank, Jr.
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