Posted on 11/18/2001 4:35:27 PM PST by victim soul
ARVEY, Ill., Nov. 17 — Jason Clark, 17, a junior at Thornton Township High School, stood at the chalkboard in Room 202, thumbing through his Bible as about 30 students stood silently, eyes closed and heads bowed.
"Father, we thank you for being the God that you are, the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords," Mr. Clark said. "We ask you to forgive us for all of our sins, cleanse our minds, cleanse our hearts, cleanse our spirit. We thank you and we praise you and give you all honor and all glory."
"Amen," the students said. Mr. Clark then began his regular Tuesday after-class sermon. The theme was "Self Check," he told the group, because "basically, it's time to get real in our walk with Christ."
Mr. Clark and most of the teenagers who pray with him in this public school in a suburb south of Chicago call themselves Prayer Warriors for Christ. The metaphor is spiritual, but it fits on a political level, too, for the residents here who see the battlefield as the wall between church and state.
They include Harvey's mayor, Nickolas Graves, and City Council members who recently have called for voluntary prayer in the public schools in this city of 33,000, where community and church leaders have asked Harvey officials to petition the state for the right to pray openly in school.
Mr. Graves and Harvey's aldermen have pressed their case in light of the Sept. 11 attacks, and the subsequent national embrace of public prayer. The Harvey City Council, in fact, unanimously passed a resolution calling for the restoration of prayer in schools two weeks after the attacks, and Harvey political leaders held a town hall meeting two weeks ago to discuss the topic.
Mr. Clark and two of his Prayer Warrior friends, Devlin Scott, 17, and David Anderson, 16, were among scores of people who testified at that meeting, which city officials called a first step in restoring school prayer.
While school-prayer initiatives have been fiercely challenged in other suburbs, the mayor's call has been welcomed in Harvey, known to some as "Little Chicago" because of the urban-style ills that have swelled in recent years with the migration of poor city residents. Gangs, drugs and violent crime have added to the roster of suffering in a city already plagued by poverty.
While politicians here concede that constitutional hurdles and potentially years of legal battles lie ahead, they say the need for prayer has never been clearer.
"It's on everybody's mind and on their hearts," Mr. Graves said at the town meeting. "It's about our children."
Illinois is among the dozen states that allow voluntary moments of silence in schools. But Harvey officials pushing for prayer contend that the law, which permits a moment of silence in class at a teacher's discretion, does not go far enough.
"What we want is actual prayer," said Alderman Ronald J. Waters. "I happened to have been around on Sept. 11. The next day at some of those schools, there was open prayer all through the schools. Even the president is asking for prayer. But the very institutions that we need to have prayer the most, it has been outlawed. So why not where it is needed the most and where it can have a lasting effect?"
Mr. Anderson, one of the Prayer Warriors, agreed.
"We have a lot of young people in school that are troubled and hurting," he said in an interview after the meeting. "And the first thing they want to turn to is the gangs, they turn to the drugs. But they are not turning to prayer. Why can't we pray in the school and let peers know that you have somebody to turn to?"
The Harvey meeting on Oct. 30 took on the air of a church service, and it was clear that the speakers were preaching to the converted. Among those in attendance were pastors and ministers, as well as business and civic leaders and residents from across the Chicago area.
The meeting fell on the day after the United States Supreme Court refused to hear a Virginia case that challenged that state's law, which mandates a daily moment of silence in public schools.
At Thornton, prayer at least a couple of days a week has become the norm for the Prayer Warriors. There is also a teachers' prayer group that meets on Thursdays before school. The student group, which has started a step dance troupe called Everlasting Faith, meets for an hour after classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Members as well as nonmembers attend the prayer and Bible study sessions that sometimes include singing and preaching. Otherwise, the group functions the same as any other school-based group at Thornton, said William O'Neal, the school's principal.
"We follow the same guidelines as the science club, the math club and the English club," said Mr. O'Neal, who has been principal for nine years. "The only stipulation that I put there is, I don't want them coercing anybody to come."
"They take some criticism for it," he said of the Prayer Warriors. "I always let kids know that it's O.K. to be different."
Inside Room 202 this week, Mr. Clark was praying again after his sermon. He paced back and forth.
"Father God, only you know the things that they are going through," Mr. Clark prayed. "I ask Father that as they confess with their mouth and believe in their heart that Jesus Christ is Lord, I ask that you cleanse them."
The teenagers stood, some crying, calling upon God.
Daniel 6
(7) The royal administrators, prefects, satraps, advisers and governors have all agreed that the king should issue an edict and enforce the decree that anyone who prays to any god or man during the next thirty days, except to you, O king, shall be thrown into the lions' den.
(8) Now, O king, issue the decree and put it in writing so that it cannot be altered--in accordance with the laws of the Medes and Persians, which cannot be repealed."
(9) So King Darius put the decree in writing.
(10) Now when Daniel learned that the decree had been published, he went home to his upstairs room where the windows opened toward Jerusalem.[this would be in plain view of anyone passing by his home]. Three times a day he got down on his knees and prayed, giving thanks to his God, just as he had done before.
(11) Then these men went as a group and found Daniel praying and asking God for help.
Jesus did not command his followers to pray in closets. He taught them how to pray (do not chant) and the spirit in which to pray (humility):
Luke 18
1 Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up.
(10) [In a parable, Jesus said] two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. (11) The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: `God, I thank you that I am not like other men--robbers, evildoers, adulterers--or even like this tax collector. (12) I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.' (13) "But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, `God, have mercy on me, a sinner.' (14) "I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."
Acts 1
13 When they arrived, they went upstairs to the room where they were staying. Those present were Peter, John, James and Andrew; Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew; James son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James. (14) They all joined together constantly in prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers.
It is not a commandment to pray alone, in a room. Rather, a reminder that God looks at our intent and heart when we pray. If our intention was as the Pharisees (to gain attention, esteem, status, etc.) then our prayer is worthless, meaningless, and putrid to God. In fact, He turns His face from that type of “prayer.” However, if our spirit comes before God in humility, and is not self-seeking and self-serving, it is a pleasant aroma to Him and He will hear our prayers.
I am prepared. My point is that the freedom OF religion has become freedom FROM religion. As far as other religions being able to pray I remember reading a story where Elijah not only allowed others to pray but he actually encouraged them to. All this happened on Mt. Carmel. (See 1 Kings 18:20-39)
I am not advocating religion being taught in secular school. I am saying that if children wish to meet after school in a group, during the school day (say at lunch) in a group, before school in a group, and pray or study the Bible, then this should not be infringed against by the government. I also am saying if a teacher is approached by a student and asked Biblical questions, the teacher has a right to answer the questions without fear of punishment by the school district or threats by the ACLU. If, for example, a student asks a teacher about evolution, if this is really true, the teacher should feel free to state it is a theory but s/he does not believe it is true, that s/he believes in creation. The teacher does not have to proselytise to answer a question honestly.
I also believe a student/teacher has a Constitutional right to display, at their own desk, symbols of their belief (i.e., cross, Star of David, etc.), if they so choose.
The Constitution does not say there shall be a separation between church and state. It does say that there shall be no religion established by the government and that the government cannot infringe upon the right of individuals to exercise their beliefs.
Our Nation was founded on the Judeo/Christian belief. We have seen what our country has become since the Supreme Court ruled in 1964 that our country would do better without God.
Not more than a month ago, there was a thread on FR about a school where Muslim children were allowed the use of an empty room in the public school to say their afternoon prayers, the room was available to any group who wished to use it. There was also a mention in the article about a regularly scheduled meeting of a Christian Athlete's group after school, in a classroom.
I seem to recall a few years ago, when a neighbor's daughter was attending High School, that she belonged to a Christian group who met regularly on school grounds.
Granted, I am not immersed in the topic, but I don't see where things have changed that much in the last 20 years or so.
1) The ACLU has been demanding that the Ten Commandmants be taken down or threatens suit, all across the country.
2) The Pledge of Allegiance is being "disallowed" because the name of God is in it.
3) "God Bless America" has somehow been equated with "offensiveness" because the name of God is in it.
4) Graduating classes are being prohibited from having a prayer at their graduations.
5) School athletes are being told it is against the law to pray before they run out onto the field and play the game because it "offends" ONE student.
These are only some examples of groups and the government (i.e., school districts and judges) infringing upon the rights of individuals to express themselves. However, there are individuals and groups which the ACLU protects: For one: the National Endowment of the Arts (NEA), is allowed to display obscene acts of Mary, the mother of Jesus, or portray Jesus in a vile manner, claiming they have the "freedom to express themselves." The NEA receives government funding and uses my money to fund the "artists" who "create" these offensive and disgusting works of "art."
Disgusting works of "art" get protected. Saying God Bless America gets condemned. I think something definitely is wrong with the liberals in our society who seek to defend trash and tear down what is healthy and good.
If you point is the one relating to those who do so in order to be seen by others, then you have a point. The spirit in which things are done is important. I don't see how a group of people in an afterschool classroom praying together equates with shouting from the mountaintops about how good they are.
Of course we don't agree. Racial inequality was rampant, but we were working our way out of that BY MIXING RELIGION AND GOVERNMENT in the civil rights movement, which was led by a Christian Reverend.
Your deceptive stat about married women and suicide rates does not apply- more women are living with a "domestic partner' now. THese are the ones more prone to suicide. Back in the 50s these would have had the advantage of marriage. So it is the TOTAL suicide rate that must be looked at.
As far as teen pregnancy goes, its absurd to suggest that it is not much higher today, unless you count teens that are married- more deceptive use of stats.
What are you trying to hide from? The God who loves you?
They sure are trying........
We have freedom of speech, privacy, and religion, but we also have the right to happiness...and we cannot infringe on other's right to happiness by screaming the book of revelations while they are trying to eat their lunch.
You keep using these extreme scenarios to bolster your argument. Nobody is saying these things.
It seems to me that some would like to ignore certain parts of particular amendments; something that has been done to the Second Amendment as well as others.
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