Be Careful What You Ask For?

Jeff Justus

December 29, 2002 

Preface: 

Added 3/27/2006

Too many Christians were missing the point of this article and writing me to let me know how wrong I am about refusing to let kids pray in school.  Let me be perfectly clear that I do not oppose personal prayer.  I encourage all Christians to pray and to teach their kids to pray.  

The point of this article is to oppose school-sponsored prayer.  Please keep this in mind while reading the article.

Thank you

Jeff

Picture this:  you are seated at the commencement exercises for a relative who is graduating high school.  As the event comes to order, an attractive, wholesome young lady steps to the podium to deliver the invocation:

Goddess of love, honor and hope.  Grant my wish of needing help.  Guide me through this time of need; this time of loneliness and despair.  Heed my call of wishes.  Love me as I love you.  Grant my wish of protection and lead me to higher ground.[i]

“What was that?  Goddess of Love?” you think to yourself.  Your indignation rises as you realize that this person just prayed to a goddess.  Bracing yourself, you make it through the ceremony and try to dismiss the incident as an isolated event. 

Later that night, at the homecoming game, you rise for the invocation before the game.  A handsome young man steps to a microphone in the middle of the field and proceeds:

May all beings everywhere plagued with sufferings of body and mind quickly be freed from their illnesses.  May those frightened cease to be afraid, and may those bound be free.  May the powerless find power,  and may people think of befriending one another.  May those who find themselves in trackless, fearful wilderness--- the children, the age, the unprotected-- be guarded by beneficial celestials, and may they swiftly attain Buddhahood (enlightenment.)[ii]

“Buddhahood?” your mind races.  “Since when did we allow Buddhists to pray at school?”

The next day at s school sponsored lunch for the graduating class, a staff member invites you to join in the Lord’s Prayer.  But to your surprise, the prayer she recites is not what you learned in Sunday School.

Our Mother, who art all around us,
Hallowed be thy soil.
Thy Kingdom come,
Thy will be done,
On Earth, as it has been forever.
Give us this day our daily bread,
And forgive us should we forget to thank You,
As we forgive those who forget to thank us.
Let us not forget that we are Your children,
As are all the Earth’s creatures,
(Each provided for by Her bounty,
And governed by Her laws.)
None more important than any other.[iii]

Your indignation has reached its limit.  “What is going on here?” demanding an answer from the staff member who recited the Pagan Lord’s Prayer.  She calmly replies: “Aren’t you the one that urged the school board to allow prayer in school?”  “I’m quite sure you were the one that stood before the school board and demanded that we allow prayer in school and even presented a petition with a significant number of signatures.  I don’t understand the problem, sir.  You wanted prayer back in school.  So did I.  Are you now saying that only Christian prayers should be allowed?   What a hypocrite.”

She turns and walks away.

Now perhaps you in particular did not lead an effort to get prayer back in school, you might not have even signed a petition to that effect, but if you did not oppose prayer in school, then you got what you asked for.

Now, before you close this web page and remove all bookmarks to this site, please read the entire article.  This is a very important message that I have prayed about and have delayed writing for fear of how Christians would react.  But I believe we, as Christians, need to wake up to the reality of our world and exercise wisdom in what we ask for.

The hard, cold fact is this: America has become not only a melting pot of peoples, but also a melting pot of religion.  As Christians, we have been silent to long to the liberal voices that demanded that we keep Christianity in the church and out of the public.  We have rolled over like scared dogs as the secularists have turned our society into a hodge-podge of (anti-Christian) religious ideas.

In the 1960’s, we allowed prayer to be removed from schools.  Now, the very Pledge of Allegiance is being challenged.  Public display of the Ten Commandments is being condemned by our own judicial system. 

And now, we muster courage to demand that we allow prayer back in schools. 

But we should be very careful what we ask for.  Today, the number of Christians among public school students is decreasing as the number of Wiccan (witch), pagan, Buddhist, Hindu, and other religions dominate.  If we demand that student-led prayer be allowed in school, the prayers that you read above will be commonplace.  The schools will edit out the name of Jesus from any prayer so as not to offend anyone (remember “tolerance”).  But Witches, Pagans, and everyone else will have full freedom to pray as they wish. 

If we allow school-sponsored prayer, or the exercise of any measure of religion in public schools (or any public venue for that matter), then we expose ourselves to even more non-Christian ideology than we have today.  Schools will have the freedom to teach any religion.  A Pagan teacher will have the freedom to evangelize all of their classes.  The Hindu, Muslim, and Atheist will all have the same right.  And you will be powerless to stop it, because you endorsed the idea of school-sponsored prayer (and/or religion) in school.

I sincerely believe that Christians should oppose the idea of any sort of religion in school.  This includes any sort of curriculum or books that deal with religion as well as school-sponsored prayer.  If we allow school- sponsored prayer or any kind of religious thought in schools, then everyone will want (and will be granted) equal time.

We had our chance and we blew it.  We let the liberals and anti-Christian religions get a toe-hold and now we must deal with the apathy of our past.

I was encouraged by an article in the Religion section of the Dallas Morning News last November that addressed this very subject.  I was refreshing to find other Christian leaders who had the same apprehension about mixing Christian and non-Christian prayer.  The Archbishop Dmitri, an Orthodox clergy, wrote in a guest column[iv]:

“The person and centrality of Christ are played down.” 

“This is what inevitably happens when, for example, Christians take part in prayer services between Christians and non-Christians.  Such was the case during a post Sept. 11 ‘Service of Prayer for Peace and Reconciliation’ at one local Roman Catholic church."

"A friend who was obliged to attend reports that … the text of the service refers to Jesus Christ not once.”

He continues:

“Can Christians join in prayer with those for whom Jesus is only a prophet, and not even the greatest one?” (Emphasis added)

If we allow co-existence of Christian and non-Christian religion, the Christian doctrine inevitably is diminished.  This is historically true even among the Israelites who allowed non-Jewish wives to retain their religious ideas.

King Midas wished that everything he touched would turn to gold.  He delighted as he touched his throne, his garments and goblets.  But distress must have set in as he touched the food at his banquet but was unable to feed himself, as even the olives became solid gold before he could eat them.

Finally, his daughter came in to see him and before he could prevent it, she kissed him and became solid gold.  No longer was she the sweet, bounding soul that brought him joy.  That adorable child that would run to his arms as he entered a room was now a lifeless statue. 

The thing that he thought that he wanted most ended up bringing him great sorrow.

As Christians, we need to ensure that our families are grounded in Jesus and the Bible.  We must be the light to the world.  We also need to understand that all religions will recoil at the name of Jesus.  And there is one simple reason why.  All religions outside of Christianity are Satan’s attempts to divert people away from Jesus.  So, naturally, they will be offended by Him.  If we try to make Christianity palatable for the world, then we will be guilty of the worst sin; neutralizing the person and role of Jesus as Lord.

(1 Corinthians 1:23 NASB)  But we preach Christ crucified, to Jews [this is] a stumbling block, and to Gentiles [it is] foolishness.

The word for “stumbling block” is “skandalon” in the Greek.  It is the root from which we derive the word “scandal.”  It may mean a trap or some device that causes one to falter, or an offense.  The point is, the Gospel will always appear offensive to the world.  It is only through faith that the Holy Spirit allows us to overcome that offense.

We cannot water down the Gospel.  We must not.  Therefore, we must be prepared to present the Gospel in its fullness and the world will be offended.

The apostle Paul said “So what?”

(2 Corinthians 11:12 NASB)  But what I am doing, I will continue to do, that I may cut off opportunity from those who desire an opportunity to be regarded just as we are in the matter about which they are boasting.

(2 Corinthians 11:13 NASB)  For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ.

If you want prayer back in school, be careful!  You may get what you ask for.  But is it what you really want?

Author's note: All of the prayers included above are actual prayers found on the internet.  See the footnotes for the actual site.  The first was found on a Wiccan site.  The second on a Buddhist site, and the third was found on a Pagan site.