A Religionless Pastor on Prayer and Prayer in Schools

A Day after the National Day of Prayer (May 1), just after the other day the U. S. Supreme Court heard arguments on the State of Oklahoma allowing taxpayer dollars to fund religious school education, a couple of thoughts on prayer. I am a Christian Pastor, retired now for 4 years after almost 40 years leading congregations. I have done some praying.

I call myself a Religionless Christian, not because I have no faith in God or eschew spiritual practices, but because I use that term “religionless” in the manner that Dietrich Bonhoeffer used it: religion is when God is counted on to come to the rescue when we can’t get done what we want done and/or when we can’t figure out or explain what we don’t know. Religion is when God is on the margins of life and is called in to assist when we can’t do the heavy lifting.

The opposite, Religionless, is when God is at the absolute center of all of life, not the margins. God does not come to the rescue to fix things or explain things, but is, rather, all things. Even Evil.

The Christian Bible is at pains to describe, not prescribe, what goes on in the very real battle of Good versus Evil. We are primed, however, to see it as God versus Evil, because how could any God worth her name allow or create Evil? That, plus this, and no little matter: if God is behind both the Good and the Evil what becomes of our agency of choice in deciding against Evil and deciding for God? If God is behind both Good and Evil then our choice matters not. Things will happen and we have no say in the matter. Epicureans take this case and cast care to the wind. Stoics take this case and stiffen the upper lip. Religionless Christians take this case and engage the Evil on the face of it, and don’t try to look behind it to see Who is behind it. “Engage” means resisting with either violence or nonviolence (I can make the case for God’s penchant for nonviolence, God’s way being nonviolence). There is Good and there is Evil and the fight is on. But take God out of it. We have agency on whether a good relationship happens between people (the justice or the injustice of it all) but have no agency on whether a good relationship happens between people and God (again, the justice and the injustice of it all). Religion doesn’t make such a distinction. Religionless does. Religionless means choice matters in our people matters but that there is no choice in God matters.

Thus, the battle in the Christian Bible is God versus God, not God versus Evil. Small example: Exodus 4 where God tries to kill what God just set in motion and God intervenes to stop God (Moses, called by God, gets attacked by God and saved by the bell!). Big picture example: God keeps killing off God’s own Chosen People and at the same time pushes back by always saving some for another day.  God is both Demand and Promise and when push comes to shove, one of those wins. They are both God, from God. But one does win. Which one do you think? The story of Jesus of Nazareth is that Promise, not Demand, wins. It is a story that I think is too good not to be true.

So, what about prayer? What about my prayers? I do not pray asking God to intervene to Help and Explain. Yes, I pray the Psalms and there is a lot of that in there and I use those words daily for emotional and psychological venting as good as the next guy. But I do not expect supernatural intervention.

I only have one prayer these days and that has been the case for some time. I normally say it once a day, and that only when I have my wits about me. I say it after I awake and before I get out of bed. It is a statement, a declaration, not a request. It is a Promise. It is Promise. It brings me in real time to the Promise by God made at my baptism of January 8, 1956 at Trinity Lutheran Church in Brooklyn, New York. It goes like this: “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus….Jesus, Jesus, Jesus….Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus….You Love Me! Jesus, Jesus, Jesus….Jesus, Jesus, Jesus…Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus….I Love You!” That’s it! On with the day!

Ok, enough about just what prayer is and what my prayer is. What about prayer in schools? I read today that the Roberts Court (current U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Roberts) has ruled in religious cases in favor of religious people and groups over 83 per cent of the time, compared to 50 per cent of the time for other courts since 1953. The rub, of course, is that our Constitution says government should do two things at the same time: not support religion and not discriminate against religion. When it comes to government paying (supporting) for any type of religious education (i.e. taxes funding religious schools) I simply don’t see how that is not flat up against what the Constitution says should happen: Not supporting religion. Is it also discriminating against religion? One could argue that, and it is, of course, argued. If all religions, and not just one or another are being ruled out, then all are being discriminated against. Yes. That is discrimination. But it is discrimination in favor of the other Constitutional priority regarding religion, not supporting religion, without favoring (discriminating) one religion over another.

[This is saying nothing, by the way, of the actual nature of the faith that is being taught when faith is being taught. Regarding Christianity, there is enough atrocious theology (e.g. you will be blessed when you invest and give to a church program) and unjust ethic (e.g. transgender persons are not only second-class citizens, they are anathema to God) being taught in the name of Jesus Christ these days to make one’s head spin and stomach turn. But if we can keep prayer, and religious teaching, out of our public schools, at least then the lousy, damaging and heretical doctrine can be sequestered in the churches that want that stuff.]

Prayer does not belong in our public schools. Care belongs in our public schools. Lots of care. And don’t even get me started on School Vouchers and how our taxpayer money is being used to fund schools that are not required to have the rigorous and necessary academic standards that our regular public schools have, thereby draining funds from good schools to bad schools. Care belongs in our public schools. Not Prayer. Our public schools are one of the foundational reasons America is Great and if anybody is going to Make America Great Again if you think it is not Great Now then you will pour your Care into Public Schools.