Trump supports school prayer. The Bible Illustrates Its Dangers – The Forward

A person holds a Jesus Saves sign outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, DC, on June 27, 2022. STEFANI REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images Photo by Stefani Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images

The recent expression of support from newly elected President Donald Trump set prayer in schools across the country is clearly alarming. Floating this idea is a blatant threat to the separation of church and state, which has been an essential principle of this country since its founding. It would take us back to outdated historical eras of the past.

It may be that Trump was simply preaching to the choir of his evangelical supporters, without offering any serious policy proposal. And if such an initiative were introduced, it would obviously quickly end up in court. But the threat is nevertheless serious – as the context in which the Hebrew Bible itself was written shows us.

In the ancient Near East, the setting from which the Hebrew Bible emerged, it was a common assumption that everyone living in a particular kingdom would adhere to the cult of that kingdom’s chief deity. If you lived in Moab, you worshiped Cemosh. If you lived in the kingdom of Judah, you worshiped Yahweh.

Then Ruth in the Bible vows to Naomi that she will follow her steadfastly, and that Naomi’s god will be her god, she does not contemplate “conversion,” as the rabbis later imagined. She clearly assumes that if she ended up in Bethlehem with Naomi, she would be worshiping the most important deity of that place and country. This common practice follows the logic of polytheism: if each country had its own dominant god, formal devotion to that god was a natural part of belonging to that country.

The advent of monotheism gave a new twist to this practice. If the god to whom a particular region was dedicated was seen as the exclusive God of the entire world, alternatives could not be accepted. Polytheism, on the other hand, had a certain built-in tolerance.

There are countless examples throughout history of the intolerance promoted by monotheism. Catholics, who came under repeated suspicion after the reign of England’s King Henry VIII, were subject to a series of legal restrictions, could not serve in parliament until 1829, and were not freed from all restrictions until the 20th century. Jews, who were readmitted to England by Oliver Cromwell in 1656 after being expelled in 1290, long remained a tolerated minority without full legal rights. It wasn’t until 1846 that a law requiring them to wear special clothing was repealed.

These kinds of practices suggest the sinister horizon that Trump and his followers are conjuring up in their efforts to make this happen to ‘restore’ the United States as a Christian nation – the institution of prayer in schools is a clear part of that effort.

The first question the idea raises: who would lead those prayers? Even in the deepest red states, not all teachers are Christians, and certainly not all Christians are of the same stripe. Their numbers include liberal Protestants, fervent fundamentalists, Jews, Muslims and staunch secularists – just for starters.

A clue to this problem is provided by evangelicals themselves. When the state of Oklahoma tried to mandate a Bible and Bible teaching in every classroom, there were strong objections from the evangelical community. The reason was clear: they did not trust teachers to provide the kind of Bible teaching they could approve of, and they argued that church was the appropriate setting for teaching the Bible. The objections to Bible teaching in the classroom certainly also apply to prayer in the classroom.

This would be especially true if such prayers were carefully phrased in comprehensive, undogmatic language. Devout Christians would surely protest that this is a distortion of authentic prayer – a risk for Trump, who does not want to lose the support of his Christian base.

But of course the biggest problem with this blending of the devotional with the educational is its likely effect on students who do not belong to the Christian majority. As we begin to transition into a more decisively Christian nation—something closer to a monotheistic, not polytheistic, nation—will non-Christian students be forced to feel that they are somehow not fully American?

More than decades ago, when I was growing up in Albany, New York, we regularly sang Christmas carols in class in the weeks leading up to December 25th. The music for many of the carols was beautiful, and I think I enjoyed it. . The words were slightly different. As a ten-year-old, I obviously didn’t think about theology, but when I came across statements like “Remember that Christ our Savior was born on Christmas Day,” I hesitated. I knew that Christ was their Savior and not mine, and like many Jewish children in my class, I spoke the words instead of singing them.

If religion wants to become part of public education, this will give many children the feeling that they have to behave like contemporary people Marranosgoing through the motions but secretly practicing a different faith, or no faith at all, in the United Christian States of America. This is an abhorrent prospect that we must oppose legally, politically and morally. Unfortunately, it is one of many areas where American democracy could now be in jeopardy.