The puzzles presented by public prayer warriors

Some years ago, when same-sex marriage was a hotter topic of conversation in Iowa than it is now, I came out of an office on the square where I'd been volunteering and realized that the route to my car involved passing a group gathered for prayer --- against gay folks like me --- around the flag pole at the southeast corner of the courthouse lawn. It had been organized, I believe, by the then-pastor of First Baptist Church.

At some point after that, a small group of Sacred Heart Catholic "prayer warriors" gathered on the northeast corner of the courthouse lawn for something similar.

Interesting times, those.

Since both gatherings had been publicized, I was able to give the former gathering wide berth with a detour after I remembered what was going on and to avoid the latter by just not going uptown that day.

This came to mind this week when Bremerton, Washington, football coach Joseph Kennedy's (above) case involving public prayer landed before the U.S. Supreme Court. Kennedy lost his job with that city's public school district after declining to halt his practice of gathering students around him on the 50-yard line after games for Christian prayer.

The instances aren't that similar in some ways. Both Baptists and Catholics in Chariton were within their rights to gather for public (or private) prayer on the courthouse lawn so long as government agencies or agents hadn't organized the events. But when you're dealing with public schools, very careful for many years to maintain neutrality when prayer or other religious practices are involved, you've entered another territory.

I'm still puzzled, however, by the willingness of all these soldiers of the cross to ignore the directive to his followers given by the gentleman after whom Christianity is named in Matthew 6:5-6:

“And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you."

Oh well.

The other thing that occurred to me at the time prayer groups were gathering on the courthouse lawn: Scratch a hard-shell Baptist and you'll discover that he or she is convinced Catholics are going to hell; scratch a hard-shell Catholic and you'll discover that he or she is convinced Baptists are going to hell.

So actually, they cancel each other out.