Monday, January 2, 2012

The Battle Over School Prayer and Why It Matters


I remember as a lad in 3rd grade in a country public school in Alabama (no kindergart­en, 1&2 grades had a new building, 3rd through 12th shared a building) that we had to recite the Pledge of Allegiance and say a teacher led prayer every morning. I also remember also, that we had a little girl in our class whose parents were Jehovah's Witnesses and was not allowed to participat­e, something the teacher pointed out ... every ... single ... morning (as in, everyone but (can't remember her name) stand and...) she was harassed and teased mercilessl­y. And at how horrified I was at the way she was treated (even as the oldest grandson of a Southern Baptist preacher).



There is a lot wrong with public prayer in school - one can still pray the Biblically required privately, as a lot of prayers go up privately right before unstudied-­for tests in every school in the country. I'm sure Baptists don't want their kids praying Catholic style prayers in majority Catholic communitie­s, Catholics don't want their kids praying to Allah in Dearborn, & Muslims don't want their kids praying prayers led by Baptists in Protestant majority schools, etc.



God was not served in my 3rd grade class, nor would he be served by compelling kids to pray prayers they disagree with or in formats they disagree with today.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

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