NLT Matthew 6: 5-6
Doesn’t that about sum up the well-publicized issue with prayer in public schools? What am I missing?
Daybreak
With a little common sense you can see that the meaning here is to pray from the need which is hidden and personal in us regardless whether another is around as opposed to praying empty to impress.
Largely we’ve lost the ability to pray and if it could be remembered it would be a boon to education. Its lack is one of the great obstacles for education worthy of the name “Man”
All commentary; verbal, written or digitally transmitted; by this poster is expressly a matter of personal opinion, individual belief, personal experience, and is not intended to purport necessity of change(s), implied/perceived, to other posters; physical, mental or emotional. Any attempt to treat this post in a manner contradictory to what has been thusly stated, is erroneous, and is the fault, entirely, of the reader of said post.
I’ll have to agree with Nick_A here. The verse is more pointed at genuine versus hollow prayer.
Personally, the issue holds no water in the public realm. One is free to do what one chooses, and there is no reason to allow others to define for you what you “should or should not do” based upon the weak minded, social comfort levels.
Someone bothered by another’s prayer, needs to be alone and engage in some introspection to find out why another person’s desire to elevate themselves from within, causes them conflict.
What you’re missing, Daybreak, is that if Christians can’t cite the Bible to pass laws, then neither can the atheists- the issue of whether or not a could Christian should pray publicly is altogether different than whether or not they should be allowed to. I mean, that’s the ‘highly publicized’ aspect of the issue, the legality.
What Daybreak is implying, I think, is that by foisting spirituality upon infants within institutionalised enclosures, whoever does this strips the activity aforementioned of any spiritual amplitude. I tend to agree with him, this shouldn’t be done.
Praying should be, as stated, intimate. Intimate in the way that the proper act of praying, although physically demanding, acquires meaning only if it transcends the physical gesticulation and resonates at an internal, inward level.
Because school, and any institution for that matter, works by definition with the general and not the particular (it would be absurd to ask the minister of education to elaborate a programme for every pupil), it will naturally contrive forms and matrices by which to mold and define. This is called education (religious, ethical, whatever) and being a form, is deprived of content. Its declared purpose is, after all, to adjust whatever content it receives to the predefined form. Hence education only scrapes the surface in matters of spiritual development. This may work with society, which is, after all, just another system of formal gestures, but it is wholly irrelevant with religion.
The idea is that every authentic religious manifestation is one-way: from the internal to the external. Any beneficial effect that may occur within communities at the level of societal intercourse is a result of the inner conversion and benevolence of every member. Once you change lanes and pluck religion from the outside to the inside you devaluate its meaning and render it yet another shallow convention.
How it gets inside in the first place (the religious conversion, I mean), it is still a mystery for me.
Mucius - couldn’t your argument be re-applied to make the point that people shouldn’t go to Church? It seems to me that whatever skeptics and philosophers may think about how religion should be practiced, there’s very little precedent for it being a universally quiet, personal thing.
Also, we have two issues here- school sacntioned prayer, and school permissed prayer.
I think Mastriani sensed what I was driving at.
M S wrote:
But this is the problem. We no longer know the primary purpose of prayer. All prayer in the school system should be is centering through attention and the acknowledgment of something higher than ourselves. Plato described it as the unchanging forms. The student begins the morning with an exercise in centering that begins at the top as pondering unchanging forms and works down into the diversity of the body.
Prayer at this level is open attention allowing the student the experience of himself. non labeled spirituality is natural when the psych is open. Yet it is battled over by all the agendas and the result is that the essential nutrition contained is such prayer for the growing inner being is denied in favor of some nonsensical secular clap trap as a worthless compromise.
Look what happens here over the concept of attention. Agendas make it impossible to discuss as a universal good and yet it would be a thousand times harder bringing sense to beauracracy.
Yes I am agreeing with Plato. I know that egos could never surrender their agendas long enough to see the value of becoming open to the experience of presence and wonder Such is life and the effect of experts. But why must so many kids suffer over our stupidity and petty disputes. Of course I know that since we are as we are, life is as it is but I don’t have to be happy about it.
Education is so uptight for many reasons including the increasing need of the young to hide in images and all the natural tensions from the comparisons of these images, joy is rare. I am convinced that the attitude change natural for prayer would bring joy into learning assuming the teacher understands teaching.
Thank goodness for private education. At least it doesn’t have to fall victim to the spirit killing effects of secular bureaucracy.
The opening that prayer produces allows one to experience for a moment how silly it is. It makes an impression. sometimes these impression support the courage to at some point experience beyond the dictates of the governing image. But sadly I think the influence of the experts are too strong and only private education will remain sensible as to the value of attention and as it relates to prayer.
All commentary; verbal, written or digitally transmitted; by this poster is expressly a matter of personal opinion, individual belief, personal experience, and is not intended to purport necessity of change(s), implied/perceived, to other posters; physical, mental or emotional. Any attempt to treat this post in a manner contradictory to what has been thusly stated, is erroneous, and is the fault, entirely, of the reader of said post.
LOL, surely you jest Nick … public school system couldn’t possibly be more about making comformist, tax paying drones than real educated and enlightened individual entities??? 
Secular bureaucracy? 
LOL, well done Nick, we definitely agree. That prayer is viewed as an “issue for political agenda” shows just how far we have fallen. The small ones are under enough stress, and allowing a few moments in a day to center or recenter themselves, isn’t anyone’s stinking business … least of all a politicians.
Let them decide for themselves, and the adults need to just stfu … a child is still a free entity … directed for necessity of safety, but otherwise left to experience their own path.
I might be in favor of restricting school prayer to the age of consent, this is the age when young people start to challenge the values of their parents and the adults around them. Also, I would allow other religions besides Christianity to pray as well… this would expose young kids to every spectrum of religious belief. You would see the Religious Right quickly drop this issue.
In short, I don’t think it’s about the freedom of young people at all. It’s about getting them while they’re young and impressionable and possibly “winning a few souls” on the sly. This is, in every respect, a political issue, an attempt to maximize Christianity’s status as a majority religion in the USA. In places where Christians are a minority, I guarantee you they would be against school prayer.
Mas, I hate to appear depressing but from what I read, I think it is hopeless. Just like the natural distinction between Christianity and Christendom will never be recognized by the majority, the normal value of separating vertical spirituality from the linear state will become impossible. The relaince on agendas is too powerful. So the result of debating experts will be many unnecessarily psycho/spiritually deformed children from suffering the lawful results of this madness.
How’s that for a “wonderful” thought?
All commentary; verbal, written or digitally transmitted; by this poster is expressly a matter of personal opinion, individual belief, personal experience, and is not intended to purport necessity of change(s), implied/perceived, to other posters; physical, mental or emotional. Any attempt to treat this post in a manner contradictory to what has been thusly stated, is erroneous, and is the fault, entirely, of the reader of said post.
Huh? Couldn’t hear you over the sounds of me stabbing the flesh on my wrists … LOL.
No, I agree. The problem lies within that phrase you like to use, “vertical spirituality”. This creates for the conformist, far to many frightening images of the unknown, where there is no certain anchor, and it will overtly be rejected, it goes against the certainty of the known grain.
You’re right, this is very destructive to the free entity that a child is, and unlike some, and as a father, I don’t believe it has anything to do with academic knowledge of divinity or a divine state. A child is already there, so adult books and symbols have no meaning for them in this manner. So yes, we will rob them of what they know from instance of life, and replace it with the judgemental, prejudiced, agendised cynicism of adult worldly knowing … and ruin generation after generation. As you say, it is as it is … but we both know it “shouldn’t” be so.
The other problem is that people are still more worried about labeling things “religious” and asserting their own anti-religion agendas, which are just as wrong. Not to mention the fact that “prayer” is not linked to a religious agenda, it is an internal conversation … good luck sellling that point to anyone though.
Hey, Square One, nice to see you again.
i don’t think anyone really has a problem with your own personal prayers in school (or lack thereof). the prayer-in-school issue centers around a school-wide prayer time, or praying over the intercom and asking others to join in. this impedes on others’ beliefs if they don’t believe in God or don’t pray, so it’s a problem. if you choose to pray by yourself, however, there is no law that says you can’t.
C I
I feel what you describe as very cold. The whole substance of prayer that is above politics is lacking from it. It isn’t welcomed as would be a cold glass of milk.
Mas, there is a school not far from me called the Blue Rock School:
bluerockschool.org/philosophy.htm
The idea of centering in the morning and aligning the higher and lower within ones presence is a natural activity increasing the capacity for attention. These ideas are not denied by the essence of any teaching but only denied by those that wish to control under the name of a teaching.
These kids are lucky in that they will not be psych/spiritually killed.
I can only feel sorry for those young that will never experience such things and be psychologically forced to substitute the enchantment of video games for these life giving experiences.
Another not so “wonderful” thought.
Uccisore, what I’m tring to highlight is that attending church is, gramatically, active voice. This implies an action performed by the subject, and preferably at the goad of will. Free will, if you may.
That is, any outward action (either going to church or singing a hymn or donating for the poor) is psychologically valid only if it is the effect and not the cause of a driving, inner conviction. Formal conventions are always hollow and do not guarantee performance in any area.
You can’t go to someone’s birthday party if you don’t even know them.
Well, maybe you can, but it’s not the same. The shared joy of seeing the person off to a new year is potentiated only if you share a certain past with them, or share common memories.
One goes to church because he is already a Christian and, hopefully, not the other way around.
Ok. When I say this shouldn’t be done, I mean praying shouldn’t be foisted upon children, but rather they ought to be given the freedom to assess their own interest.
I realise that social pressure is, generally, immense, especially among children, who tend to follow a prominent majority. Such a liberal measure would probably lead to either the bankruptcy of any religious urge whatsoever or, more unlikely, to a forced acceptancy by most of them.
What, then ? Just leave things as they are, promoting a general ataraxia towards conventions, in the firm belief that who’s got eyes to see, shall see ? Back to square one, indeed.
Hi Mucius Scevola,
About forty years ago I attended an “experimental school†where I was privileged to have an alternative tuition. English language was enhanced with dramaturgy, history was enhanced by practical experience, technical drawing and artistic expression were combined, music and mathematics were shown to have their common ground etc. I’m not sure, but I don’t think that my free will was consulted beforehand – but it didn’t need to be once we got started.
Unfortunately, my father left the army and I had to move away. In my new school I had great difficulties with conventional tuition and used to shirk school and go off into quiet corners where I wrote reams of paper, describing the reality I had experienced and how it was different to what I had come to know in the new surroundings. I was sent to a school psychiatrist to find out what was wrong with me, who told my parents that I was bored.
It took some time for me to adapt to the conventional world. I actually caught up on my schooling in Germany some ten years later, where I passed all exams with A’s. It was here that I also rediscovered religion, something I had originally come to know in school assemblies – as well as the far more pleasing poem about “Timothy Winters†- and sunday school. Whereas my free will hadn’t been consulted then, it was clearly a seed that had borne fruit at a later time. However, I was never conventional about religion, and shocked the stock conservative parish with theatrical examples, or presented them with sermons that presented a non-conventional perspective.
Therefore, you will never know where events in your life can lead you – especially if you prevent them. I think that we should be far more relaxed about religion and consider the fact that it is an inherent part of our psychological make-up. I would even go so far as to say, we were “meant†to be religious – although not in the sense of conventional piety. Unless something is clearly dangerous, and even there I would differentiate, you shouldn’t prevent things like communal prayer just because it might have adverse effects.
Shalom
Wonderful contributions from all.
Is the issue whether school prayer should be allowed, whether it should be encouraged, or whether it should be forced? Having read this thread I have no idea. Please clarify. What is the issue?
thezeus18,
All of the above. When I began the thread, I did so only subsequent to reading the passage in question and thinking it had some application to the issue of school prayer; I gave no specific guidelines as to how the discussion ought develop. In turn, the ‘topic’ seems to have simply become the nature of prayer, public perception of prayer, the necessity of prayer, the ‘inwardness’ vs. ‘outwardness’ of spirituality, etc.
I am rather liberal when it comes to thread-development. I tend to imagine a group of folks sitting around a room, chatting. Anything that comes to mind once a given topic is mentioned is fair game and worth listening to.
I believe that pray should be allowed in schools, just not required. If someone doesn’t want to pray they don’t have to. So if student want to pray, why the hell not? Why should that be a problem?
Student should have the right to pray in school if they want.
I was thinking about this very subject just the other day. It seems that this is an amazingly clear set of directions about how to pray. Why anyone who accepts the divinity and perfection of Jesus would ever think it necessary to deviate from this method simply boggles my mind.
Prayer ought to be conducted in private. What makes that so difficult to accept?
What is so valuable about an ostentatious display of piety?