Prayer Ruling Anti-Christian?

We note the Supreme Court's ruling on public prayer. The case involved a football coach who prayed aloud on the 50-yard line after each game. After his supervisors told him to take it off school property, he refused to comply and his contract was not renewed for the next year.

The court ruled the school board was wrong in firing him for disobeying orders because what he did was an protected exercise of his First Amendment rights.

Regardless of what one may feel about the merits of the case, we are struck that every time we read one of these public prayer cases that it usually seems to be a Christian demanding the right to public prayer. The coach won the battle, but he might ask his Sunday school teacher what Jesus taught us about praying aloud on the 50-yard line.

"And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you." (Matthew 6:5-6,NIV)

The coach may have won the fight for his rights but for Christians, he won nothing.