Gut-punched by God

Matthew 6:5 

“And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others.” 

Matthew 6:1 

“Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.”

On Monday the Supreme Court will hear arguments in a case, Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, that is likely to further narrow the already slender separation between church and state.   

Joseph Kennedy was offered a position as assistant football coach for Bremerton High School.   As he considered the offer, he found inspiration in the movie “Facing the Giants.”

“God came down and just gut-punched me and answered the question of whether I should coach,”  Kennedy said. The answer: “Absolutely.”

For some time he led the team in locker room prayers, a practice the school says has been discontinued.   Kennedy, however, began the practice of kneeling in prayer on the 50-yard line immediately following each game.  He claims that this “solitary” prayer fulfills a promise he made to God when he became a coach.  “I will give you the glory after every game, win or lose,” he said, adding that the setting mattered: “It just made sense to do it on the field of battle.”

Before long he was joined by students, players and coaches, including from opposing teams.  “No pressure,” he and supporters insist.  As the New York times reported, “When athletes asked to participate, he said he told them that America was a free country.”

Though I don’t doubt Kennedy’s sincere religious beliefs, I have never understood this kind of insistence on highly conspicuous religious expression.  His apparent compulsion to thank his God, win or lose, could be satisfied in any private setting.  In fact the bible verses cited above suggest that his blatantly public display might not please the God he wishes to thank.  

I similarly question the motives of such prayers in any public space or the insistence on placing religious symbols, like the Ten Commandments, in public parks and buildings.  There can be only one purpose: to establish an atmosphere that tacitly subsumes all those present under subtle Christian authority.  “This is our place,” they say.  Or, in the case of proceedings like Congressional sessions, graduations, or sports events, “This activity is convened under the auspices of our faith.”   It is inferred, unless explicitly stated otherwise by a participant, that all present are willingly complicit.

I believe that this is the absolute intent of those who insert religious speech or symbolism in public spaces.  The argument that prohibiting such things violates an individual’s right to religious practice is ludicrous.  Unless, of course, the right being protected is the right to utilize public, secular spaces or resources to “establish” religion by implication; that is to imply that the religious expression is in fact condoned or ordained by the government entity in which or on which the expression takes place.

As an atheist, I have tolerated a level of discomfort for a lifetime.  Every form I completed in school asked my religion.  Parents of new friends would ask what church my family attended.  As I wrote previously, I was expected to recite the Pledge, “Under God” and all, every morning in public school.  At literally thousands of events I’ve been asked to stand for “God Bless America” or bow my head in silence for an invocation or benediction.  It cannot be argued that such standing or bowing does not implicate each person in the religious intent. 

At private events or - obviously - religious services, I passively and graciously comply so as to honor the people  I’ve chosen to join.  I attended many sermons given by my dear friend, the late Reverend William Sloane Coffin, Jr., and admired his progressive theology while not sharing his particular beliefs.  When he and his wife dined at our house I would invite him to say grace, because I knew it was important to him, and he’d partly secularize his words as an unspoken accommodation.

But anyone who thinks prayers led by authority figures, or even “solitary” prayers conspicuously “performed” on the 50-yard line,  are not coercive, is dishonest.  As a young boy, I was sufficiently cowed by the overhanging religion in our small town that I learned to write “Protestant” in the space provided, hoping the generalization would prevent further scrutiny.  When asked what church we attended, I’d mumble and try to flee.

The residents of Bremerton and most communities in America are majority Christian.  That makes public prayer more problematic, not more palatable.  A major premise in our constitutional republic is the protection of the minority against the tyranny of the majority.

Given the composition and predilection of the current Supreme Court, the outcome is nearly certain. 

“We know that this is a tough hill to climb,” Rachel Laser, the president of Americans United for Separation of Church and State said, adding that a decision in Kennedy’s favor in the case, “would give a license to coaches and teachers across the nation to engage in coercive prayer.”

The Court will begin this session - all sessions - with an invocation: “God save the United States and this honorable court.”  

The Bremerton School District doesn’t have a prayer of winning.