My colleague, Jordan Lorence, wrote a blog about the recent prayers that took place on the Penn State Nittany Lions’ football field before last Saturday’s game.  In it he was surprised to see that no groups on the left had come out and criticized this event.   His very logical conclusion was that even those groups would have the public relations sense not to criticize prayers that were lifted up over such a tragedy as has been recently exposed.  Sorry, Jordan, you not only spoke to soon, but you also assumed that such groups would have the common sense or decency to let it go.  No such luck.

Just today, I came across a press release sent out by our atheist friends at the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF).  Can you guess what it was about?  Yep.  The prayers offered at the football game.  Apparently not too worried about the public relations debacle that the objection presents, the FFRF had some harsh words for the two schools.  Before it lashed out at those involved, it made clear that it spoke for its 17,000 members across the country, 600 of which were in Pennsylvania.  Of course, FFRF does not speak for the 100,000+ at the stadium or the millions of viewers on television that did not object to the prayers.

Attempting to capitalize on a statement made by one of the coaches that the decision to pray was a “no-brainer” given the circumstances, FFRF retorted that “the coaches failed to use their [brains].”  A bit childish, if you ask me.  But that’s not all.  In an amazing display of irony, FFRF quotes from the Bible.  They claim that Jesus’ words from the Sermon on the Mount support their claim that to pray publicly is to engage in “rank hypocrisy.”  First, let me say that I am glad to see that the FFRF is reading the Bible, or at least part of it.  But it is a bit odd  to say that you don’t believe what the Bible says, but yet quote it in an attempt to  prove your point.  FFRF’s reliance upon this scripture is, unsurprisingly, mistaken.  This passage is not condemning public prayer—just read Daniel.  It is condemning those who pray publicly just to bring attention to themselves.  It addresses the condition of the heart, not the prayer.  So was everyone praying really just grandstanding–not actually caring about those victims whom they prayed for–but merely trying to look religious?  I doubt it.  FFRF should stick to what it does best, misinterpreting the Constitution, rather than misinterpreting the Bible.

One final thought.  Does it violate the so-called separation of church and state to have a prayer before a collegiate sports event that anyone can participate in, or not.  Don’t think so.  Was anyone coerced to participate?  Nope.  It’s quite incredible to claim that the Founding Fathers were drafting a document forbidding any “government” participation in prayer while they were engaging in it themselves.  But don’t bother with the facts.  According to the FFRF, our Constitution is a living and breathing document that evolves into whatever we (or, a few of us, at least) want it to say.  But that’s a whole other post.

When I read about Penn State and Nebraska football players and coaches praying  for the victims of the repulsive child abuse at Penn State in the middle of the field before the game started last Saturday, I wondered whether some extremists would object that the opening prayer violated the Establishment Clause (I will refrain from the obvious comments about college football being a state religion, prayer or no prayer).

Interestingly, I cannot find (yet!) any blog posts or op-ed pieces criticizing this alleged “breach of the wall of separation of church and state.”  Even though the event had coaches paid by state universities leading football players in prayer at a state-sponsored football game, in a state-funded facility, no one is (yet!) filing a lawsuit because they were offended by being subjected to watching others pray at the game.  Now, the public relations instincts of those advocating “strict separtation” probably realize that they would look like uncompassionate whiners if they criticize what the football players and coaches did, so they are keeping their mouths shut.

However, one atheist blogger did complain that they prayed at all, and I think his remarks reveal the deeper issues at work when people react to a great tragedy with collective public prayer and the related Establishment Clause issues.  Hemant Mehta, a self-identified atheist, wrote in his blog post  that praying to God was a waste of time because it didn’t do anything:

Why bother with the prayer in the first place? What purpose did it serve other than to let a bunch of people who feel helpless pretend like they’re doing something that’s making a difference?

     Elsewhere in his post he repeats this theme by criticizing the footballers’ actions as a “moment of silence” rather than a forceful vocal objection to child abuse:  We have too much silence about child abuse, he argues.  This was not a “moment of silence,”  either figuratively or literally.  The football players prayed out loud.  Maybe Mr. Mehta was making a rhetorical point to contrast the “silence” of those who knew about the child abuse with the need to voice vociferious opposition to it.  Good point, but don’t distort the facts to do so.

And I think the event showed people ”shouting” against child abuse.  It is highly unusual for the players of the competing teams at a major college football game to gather for any reason at midfield before the game starts.  That act alone, even if they had all merely stood there silently, sends a loud message that we collectively shattered and brokenhearted over this great evil, and do not want it to happen again.  There was nothing silent about it, and Mr. Mehta creates a phoney “either pray to God or actually speak out against child abuse” dichotomy.

The reason the football players prayed collectivley was because people strive to give meaning to evil events.  Before they can work to make something redemptive come out of a great tragedy, they need hope that it is even possible.  That is why they seek God for answers. Many people believe what the Bible teaches that God works evil events to result in good outcomes. Even if Mr. Mehta disagrees and believes prayer is a vain act because there is no God, he comes across insensitive to the people trying to work through their emotions as they are shaken by this horrible series of revelations of what happened at Penn State’s football program.

These kinds of events why people have public prayer and shows why I doubt the Founding Fathers intended to prohibit it with the Establishment Clause. What happened at Penn State’s game last Saturday reminds us that many people  turn collectively for help from God when they face a common tragedy or a great challenge.   President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, on the first day of the Normany invasion on D-Day in 1944, went on the radio to lead the nation in prayer, asking God’s help as allied military forces “set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity.”

It is important that the government vigiliant protect the rights of people who don’t want to pray in these events.  Government coercion to participate in prayer or in other activities that violate their conscience, violates the Constitution.  However, I have seen no coercion forcing the football players to pray.

It would be an extreme and warped application of the Establishment Clause if the village atheist of Happy Valley or a group of  strict separationists would have been able to convince a federal court and stop the prayer time by the players and coaches of the Nittany Lions and the Cornhuskers simply because they were offended.  And to all the young boys who suffered at Penn State, we grieve for you and pray that we can find effective ways to not allow it to happen to others.

See You At The Pole (SYATP) is an annual, global, student-organized and student-led event where public school students gather around the flagpole at their schools to pray for their schools, friends, teachers, government, and nation.  SYATP will occur this year on September 28.  The constitutionality of the event, and of student promotional efforts related to the event, are well-settled, as set out in an Alliance Defense Fund letter about SYATP.

And there can be no doubt that our schools, and especially the students who attend them, are in need of prayer.  The far left increasingly views public schools as their ideological playgrounds, where they promote their anti-family, anti-biblical agenda to our nation’s children.   Take the ACLU, whose “Don’t Filter Me” Initiative, couched as an effort to ensure student access to the websites of homosexual activist groups, in actuality will allow students access to myriad pornographic and sexually explicit websites.  In fact, as ADF Senior Counsel David Cortman highlights in a recent op-ed, many of the homosexual activist group websites that the ACLU claims are “G-rated” recommend books to students that contain sexually explicit content that is completely inappropriate for minors.   (If you want to read about a few of these books you can do so here, but be warned that this link contains inappropriate sexual material).  The ACLU’s “Don’t Filter Me” Initiative is further evidence of how the ACLU is pushing its radical sexual agenda to schoolchildren.

As if the ACLU were not enough, the federal government is piling on too.  Earlier this year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention awarded a $285,000 grant to GSA Network to support its “Safe & Healthy LGBT Youth Project” in public schools.  (That’s right, your hard earned tax dollars going to advance the homosexual agenda in schools.  Please consider writing your congressman and senators to object).   The GSA Network operates one of the many websites that recommend books for youths that contain sexual content that children simply should not be reading.  “Safe & Healthy”?  I think not.

The above examples only scratch the surface of the unrelenting advancement of the leftist agenda in our nation’s public schools.  It is high time we pray, unceasingly, for our schools and the children that attend them.  On September 28, 2011, students across the globe will do just that through SYATP events.  And it seems to me that prayer is a perfect antidote to the radical liberal and sexual agenda that so many groups, and even the federal government, are pushing in our nation’s schools.

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Over the past several years, ADF has litigated many student activity fee cases against the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  Student activity fees are usually mandatory fees that students must pay in addition to tuition.  Most universities collect these fees and allocate a portion of them back to student groups for various types of activities and events.  (For a primmer on student activity fees, see my prior posts.)

Well, you might be asking:  What do student groups do with the money?  Recently, ADF represented the Badger Catholic student group at UW-Madison.  Badger Catholic used student fees for leadership training, speakers, large group events, and retreats.  But UW-Madison told Badger Catholic it could not use fees to fund any activity that included prayer, worship, or religious advocacy.  Eventually, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit told UW-Madison to knock it off.  (After all, it was violating Badger Catholic’s First Amendment rights.)

Interestingly, at the same time that UW-Madison was telling Badger Catholic that prayer is forbidden, it was allocating nearly $100,000 a year to a student group named Sex Out Loud.  That group used mandatory student activity fees to purchase a variety of “equipment” that I can only classify as downright vulgar.  (***Warning: the link describes obscene sex products.***)  Among the objects Sex Out Loud purchased to fill its “Pleasure Boxes,” were pamphlets from Planned Parenthood.  I guess the group’s message was clear:  Engage in your licentiousness and then murder the result.

This is just one example of many.  But it is emblematic of what students face on public university campuses today.  Perversion is in, but prayer is out.

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       The unfolding devastation of the massive earthquake and tsunami in northern Japan shows us how fragile our lives are and reminds us how much the entire human family depends on God for all things – “in Him we live and move and have our being,”  Acts 17:28.  The videos and pictures from Japan remind me to pray for God’s grace and mercy to be poured out on the people of Japan.

       John Hinderaker at Powerlineblog makes the excellent point that Japanese skill and innovation in designing earthquake-resistant buildings have probably saved many lives and buildings from the tremendous force of the earthquake.  The earthquake that killed 210,000 recently in Haiti registered 7.0 on the Richter scale.  The death toll in Japan has been much less, even though the earthquake’s power there was more intense at 8.9  If I understand the exponential nature of the Richter scale correctly, that means that the Haitian earthquake packed approximately 1% of the power of the earthquake that struck Japan on Friday.  Japanese technological skill has kept down the loss of life and property.  I hope other nations can learn from the Japanese expertise.

     And the people of Libya continue to fight against the oppressive dictator Muammar Quaddafi.  Let us continue to pray for them. May the Lord grant peace and freedom to the people of Libya, and freedom from the oppressive yoke of Colonel Quaddafi. It helps us to die to self and to turn from our obsessive self- focus and personal  drama when we remember those who are suffering  around the world and pray for them.