Response to Ms. Baye’s piece on teaching the Bible in taxpayer-funded schools.

Ms. Baye has some good points in her March 4 piece disagreeing with teaching the Bible in taxpayer-funded schools, but I would approach the subject a different way. I think it’s unfortunate that a Christian taking her side of such an issue feels compelled to devote more words to her bona fides as a Christian than to the issue at hand. This is evangelical correctness at its worst.

The Supreme Court’s school prayer decision has been misunderstood by many evangelicals. It did not outlaw or prohibit prayer or Bible reading in public schools. Rather, it prohibited state-mandated prayers. I don’t think the state should mandate or dictate our prayers either, so I’m in agreement with the central premise of the decision.

Granted, some of the prayer cases since have been difficult to reconcile, such as justifying student-directed prayers at school graduations, but forbidding invocations at school sports events. Not all those cases have reached the Supreme Court, however; so that fact explains some of the inconsistencies.

Much of evangelical reaction to the original decision has not been edifying. The court is not a bunch of raving liberals trying to implement atheism in our country. And efforts to get around the decision by a one-minute prayer or moment of silence have been tokenism at its worst.

If we had state-mandated prayers in schools, then it would be legal for the majority religion in any community to impose its prayers, such as in Mormon or Muslim communities. I would not want my children exposed to that.

We evangelicals should be focused on showing the redemptive gospel of Jesus Christ is relevant to all of life, not merely limited to one-minute tokens in taxpayer-funded settings. We should live our lives displaying the application of the 10-commandments, not trying to get tax money spent on stone monuments to them on state property — another example of inappropriate tokenism, in my view.

D. W. Haigler, Jr.
blog: http://haiglaw.xanga.com

(Mr. Haigler is a licensed Texas lawyer, former home-school defender, a current administrative law judge for a federal agency in Louisiana, and a ruling elder in a PCA church in Shreveport.)