Praying in Public

Once in a while I meet people critical of public prayer claiming it contradicts Jesus' teaching that praying to the Father should be in secret (Matthew 6:6). Christians do need personal time with the Lord. Still Jesus often prayed in public like when He multiplied the loaves and fishes (Luke 9:16) and when little children were brought to Him (Matthew 19:13). The reason Jesus rebuked the Pharisees' public prayers was because their motive was to be seen by men. 

Consider what has happened with U. S. public schools since prayer was removed from classrooms over 50 years ago. Darrell Scott, father of slain Columbine student Rachel Scott, wrote the following poem that he read before Congress... 

Your laws ignore our deepest needs, 

Your words are empty air. 

You've stripped away our heritage, 

You've outlawed simple prayer. 

Now gunshots fill our classrooms,

And precious children die.

You seek for answers everywhere,
And ask the question "Why?" 

You regulate restrictive laws, through legislative creed.
And yet you fail to understand, that God is what we need!

Do you feel uneasy when praying in restaurants before eating? You shouldn’t. If homosexuals are unashamed to “come out of the closet” and flaunt their ungodly lifestyles, then Christians should come out of their prayer closets and pray in public. 

The National Day of Prayer is this Thursday. Let’s all join our Christian brothers and sisters in praying publicly and boldly for the United States of America. Our prayers will have a greater impact when God’s people from all denominations are unified.

“How should one chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight, except their Rock had sold them, and the Lord had shut them up?” -  Deuteronomy 32:30

The Anti-Christian Liberties Union

Certain activists have campaigned to have the Ten Commandments and other religious materials removed from government and public properties in America because of “separation of church and state.” Contrary to popular belief, that phrase does not appear anywhere in the Constitution. It originated in 1802 from an obscure letter then-president Thomas Jefferson wrote to a group of Baptists in Connecticut. He assured them a state religion would not be enforced upon all citizens.

Nevertheless, numerous legal cases have come up to undermine the Christian values this country was founded upon. One organization responsible for this is the American Civil Liberties Union. While the ACLU has defended religious people in a few cases, many of them were groups expressing views contrary to biblical Christianity such as Jehovah’s Witnesses and Westboro Baptist Church. 

If anything, the American Civil Liberties Union is known more for their anti-Christian stances. Their lobbying resulted in the Supreme Court removing prayer and Bible reading from public schools in the early 1960s. Current positions of the ACLU include supporting abortion rights, same-sex marriage and the right of homosexuals to adopt children while opposing the death penalty and government preference for particular faiths over others. With the latter, the ACLU doesn’t practice what they preach. They threaten Christians who pray and display crosses in public but have defended Muslims for practicing their beliefs.

In response to President Trump’s executive order to temporarily bar refugees and citizens of Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States, a few companies have spoken out against that. One of them is Bandcamp, a website musicians use to sell downloads of their music. This past Friday, the California-based company raised roughly $120,000 in donations for the ACLU. That prompted me to close my Bandcamp account.

Christians should never let the American Civil Liberties Union and other secular activists stop us from proclaiming our faith openly. It’s part of the Great Commission. Even if you find yourself in court for that, don’t forget we have an Advocate in heaven who will defend us.

“Therefore settle it in your hearts not to meditate beforehand on what you will answer; for I will give you a mouth and wisdom which all your adversaries will not be able to contradict or resist.” - Luke 21:14-15