There’s a big battle over prayer in Lumberton, North Carolina.
The school board on Robeson County always opens their meetings with a word of prayer.
As I write in my new book, “Twilight’s Last Gleaming: Can America Be Saved?”, prayer in school is always a good thing. We need more prayer in our nation’s godless education system.
But it was a prayer delivered by board member Henry Brewer that triggered some local atheists.
Mr. Brewer asked the Almighty and wise God to help board members make great decisions. And to give the superintendent strength. And he concluded his prayer as any good Christian would – in the name of Jesus.
Let us pray. Almighty and wise God, creator of the universe, we thank You, Lord, for allowing us this day to see. We thank You, Lord, tonight, God, for the invitation to be able to come, Lord, tonight and to pray with these men and women to make great decisions for the Public Schools of Robeson County. We ask you, Lord, tonight, to strengthen the superintendent from day to day as he makes decisions for the Public Schools of Robeson County. We pray tonight, Father, for each board member as they make their decisions, Lord, as they make their decisions concerning the Public Schools of Robeson County. … Father, we thank You again for this day, that you allowed us to see. … In Jesus’ name we do pray, amen.
FFRF
Faster than you could say Madelyn Murray OHare, the Freedom From Religion Foundation filed a complaint.
They say school boards are not allowed to invoke the Almighty – and in doing so – they broke the law. They said such prayers are also insensitive, intimidating and coercive.
“The Supreme Court has consistently struck down prayers offered at school-sponsored events,” FFRF attorney Chris Line writes to Robeson County Board of Education Chair Randy Lawson. “In each of these cases, the Supreme Court struck down school-sponsored prayer because it constitutes government favoritism towards religion, which violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.”
For the record, it was a prayer, not a Billy Graham Crusade.