SUN HERALD
By Charlie Mitchell, Editor Vicksburg Post
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
EAVES' PRAYER PROPOSAL SKIPS SOME DEVILISH DETAILS
John Eaves is superficial, at best, in the pledge he's making to "restore school prayer" in Mississippi if he's elected governor.
His approach is to use those three words because he knows they appeal to the sense and sensibilities of voters who link increases in youth crime and perceptions of a lack of morality among young people with a 1963 U.S. Supreme Court decision. That decision and many since have affirmed that public school teachers, as representatives of the government, are prohibited from administering or encouraging religious practices, including something as innocent as leading students in a morning invocation of God's blessing on their school day.
Prayerful people - and they are legion - have full faith that a return to required periods of prayer and perhaps a full-fledged return to religious instruction in public schools would help young people grow up with a better sense of direction in their lives. A quick, simple fix. They are for school prayer, period. No need to ask more. No need to know more. Prayer works. Eaves is for prayer. Leave it at that.
There is, however, more to tell. Eaves' specific pledge has two components. The first, he says, is a return to "voluntary, student-led school prayer." The second is an academic class, probably in high school, called "Bible literacy."
While Eaves indicates action is needed, the truth is that voluntary, student-led prayer is already 100 percent constitutional, 100 percent legal in every public school in America. No court anywhere has ever said students can't gather before school, after school, on breaks or in the lunchroom for prayer.
The problem arises in that Eaves says he wants the state to encourage this activity. That's simply not allowed. If the state, through a principal or teacher or other school employee, encourages students to have organized prayer, then it's not voluntary anymore. And that flies in the face of the 1963 decision.
It's a conundrum - some might call it a devilish conundrum - but Eaves is leading people to think he can make something legal that is already legal, unless the state promotes it.
Bible literacy courses present different issues.
The Christian Bible can be read many ways. One is as a work of history and literature, documenting the culture and experiences of civilizations that lived on the Mediterranean Rim from about 5000 B.C. to 80 A.D. In that way, it's no different from any other book written a long time ago.
Another approach is to accept it as a divinely inspired guidebook for life, an explanation of why humanity exists and how our Creator expects us to live. Not only that, it contains the recipe for our personal, individual salvation.
A Bible literacy course is not a new idea. Texts exist and a curriculum has been written to teach Bible literacy. In order to avoid legal challenges, however, the materials present God as an object, not as a being.
... the fact is that from a strictly academic perspective, knowledge about the Bible and its contents is essential to understanding America's founders and founding documents, the motivation of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and virtually everything that has occurred in the Western World for the past 2,000 years.
Even to understand Shakespeare requires knowledge of the Bible. The Bard's works contain hundreds of references to biblical themes and events. And if a president says, "I feel like Daniel in the lion's den," for example, a member of the godless media would have to know something about the Bible and something about the story of Daniel to understand what the president meant.
But, again, Eaves proposes this course as part of his desire to provide "a moral framework" to young people, "to teach right from wrong."
If taught from that perspective, however, it stops being informational and starts being more like a Sunday school lesson. Like it or not, the ACLU and the U.S. Supreme Court ... is not going to let that happen.
The point that young people need moral grounding, need to know right from wrong, is well taken. That's what they're supposed to get from their parents, other adults and even their school teachers. But many religious leaders now accept that forcing or coercing people to become faithful believers should not be part of the public school day.
Details of his plan reveal that Eaves, an attorney, is fully aware of what established law will and won't allow. So he sticks with "restore school prayer." It offers hope. It appeals to voters. But it's superficial.
For the full story, visit the Sun Herald website: http://www.sunherald.com/189/story/160110-p2.html