Deep Divisions Are Evident at Senate Hearing on School Prayer

Is bland prayer better than no prayer?

On the first day of Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on President Reagan’s proposed constitutional amendment on school prayer, it was sometimes hard to tell the supporters from the opponents.

Some who spoke for the legislation echoed those who spoke against it in saying that school prayer should not violate students’ consciences, that states should not get into the prayer-writing business, and that “watered-down prayer” serves no useful purpose.

Opponents, on the other hand, criticized the frequently hostile attitude of public schools toward religion. The opponents criticized what Sen. Mark Hatfield (R-Oreg.) called “ridiculous barriers” to voluntary school prayer, which actually has the Supreme Court’s blessing.

The hearings also revealed confusion and disagreement over how the President’s amendment would be implemented if passed by Congress and ratified by the states.

The amendment says: “Nothing in this Constitution shall be construed to prohibit individual or group prayer in public schools or other public institutions. No person shall be required by the United States or by any state to participate in prayer.”

While there was some discussion of constitutional theory at the hearings, most discussion focused on the religious and social aspects of school prayer. Amendment supporters—including Senators Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.) and Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), and Gary Jarmin of Project Prayer, a coalition of conservative groups—argued that the existing Supreme Court decisions on school prayer restrict students’ right to the free exercise of religion.

Opponents—including representatives of the National Council of Churches, Southern Baptist Convention, Lutheran Council in the USA, and the Synagogue Council of America—argued that the proposed amendment would lead to the state establishment of religion.

Critics agreed that a White House background paper made it clear that if the President’s amendment was approved, state and local governments would be able to choose sectarian prayers or write prayers for public school use. “If groups of people are to be permitted to pray,” the paper said, “someone must have the power to determine the content of such prayers.”

Bob Dugan, head of the National Association of Evangelicals’ Washington office, asked that the amendment be changed to include language allowing religious instruction during “released time” on public school grounds and barring the state from influencing “the form or content of any prayer or religious activity.”

John Murphy, deputy supreme knight of the Knights of Columbus, a million-member Catholic fraternal organization, and Ed McAteer of the Religious Roundtable, a Christian Right group, opposed the state writing of prayer. Jarmin and Rabbi Seymour Siegel, a theologian representing the conservative Jewish Forum, supported the states’ right to write or choose school prayer.

Senator Jeremiah Denton (R-Ala.) asked for reaction to a prayer suggested in a new Alabama law. That prayer says: “We acknowledge you as the Creator and Supreme Judge of the world. May your justice, your truth, and your peace abound this day in the hearts of our countrymen, in the counsels of our government, in the sanctity of our homes, and in the classrooms of our schools. In the name of our Lord, Amen.”

Siegel said the phrase “in the name of our Lord” was a standard Christian formula with the words “Jesus Christ” implied even though not stated. But if that phrase were dropped, he said, he would find the prayer acceptable. Dugan and Murphy both described the prayer as “watered down” and recommended that school prayer consist of prayers offered in rotation from authentic religious traditions. “You’d have a Jewish student praying to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; you’d have a Roman Catholic student praying in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; you’d have an evangelical student praying to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”

Nathan Dershowitz, representing the Synagogue Council of America and 11 Jewish community organizations, took exception to a claim in the White House background paper that “the Lord’s Prayer and the Ten Commandments are reflections of our Judeo-Christian heritage that cannot fairly be described as instruments for the imposition of narrow sectarian dogma on school children.”

“The Ten Commandments are expressed and even numbered differently by various sects,” and the Lord’s Prayer is unacceptable to Jews because it comes from the New Testament, Dershowitz said. At the same time, he said, “Christians will be unhappy if those [state] formulations omit Jesus as the Messiah and thus violate the very essence of Christianity.”

Referring to the supporters’ argument that students objecting to a particular prayer may be excused, Dershowitz said, “The delusion of voluntariness is belied by history and recognized as a fiction by countless educators and other persons who know how children think and act. To a child in a classroom, no part of the school routine is voluntary. It cannot be made so by the cruel device of telling them that they are allowed to brand themselves as pariahs by leaving the classroom or by staying there and remaining conspicuously silent during a religious ceremony that reflects the faith of a majority in their classrooms.”

In opposing the amendment, Charles Bergstrom of the Lutheran Council attacked “indifference or antagonism” toward religion in the schools and noted that “the Supreme Court has not ruled out the study of religion in public schools.” Bergstrom called this “a positive challenge … to develop programs which acknowledge the religious and moral dimensions of life while also respecting the larger religious neutrality mandated by the Constitution.”

Jimmy Allen, representing the Southern Baptist Convention, said, “While there may be some voices arguing against the proposed amendment out of indifference to the prayer experience, I am not one of them. I argue against it out of that very concern for authentic and genuine expression of prayer. I think it is bad law which would produce either bland or bad results for genuine spiritual awakening in our land.”

Allen noted that he was free to oppose the amendment despite the Southern Baptists’ support for it at its June convention, because conventions speak only for themselves, not for all Baptists, and because the convention has opposed school prayer frequently in the past.

Dean Kelley, representing the National Council of Churches, called the amendment “unjust, unwise, and unnecessary.” Kelley also offered a biblical defense of the council’s position, citing Matthew 6:5–6, from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, in which he urged his followers not to pray on street corners like “hypocrites,” but to “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.”

“It surprises us,” he said, “to see those who claim to be Bible-believing Christians disregarding this central admonition on how Christians should pray and pressing for a constitutional amendment which would allow what the Lord of the church does not.”

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