December 6, 2003 - George Bush means to make a concerted effort in the 2004 re-election campaign to appeal to the religious right suggesting, as he did in 2000, that the Republican party has a monopoly on religious values. Republican strategists are tooling up to again make opposition to abortion, school prayer and, after the recent decision of the Massachusetts Supreme Court, faith-based gay bashing central themes in the coming campaign. The appeal to fundamentalist church-goers has had an effect that has reached beyond the religious right and into the pews of mainstream protestant denominations. It is neither opposition to abortion nor opposition to equal treatment for homosexual Americans that have done so. The issue that has moved observant Christians to see the Republicans as the Party of Faith has been school prayer.

All the reasoned arguments based on the principle of separation of Church and State have little impact on the political spectrum. These are arguments for the courtroom not for the pulpit or for the podium. However sound, however well reasoned, however grounded in Constitutional principle, they fall on deaf ears. But opposition to prescribed public prayer is not just unconstitutional, it is also un-Christian.

Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven. Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, they have their reward. But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth: That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly. And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, they have their reward. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him Matthew 6:1-8

Here, in words ascribed to Jesus Christ himself, is a clear prohibition of the practice of prescribed public prayer. It is clear, it is concise and it is direct. When Jerry Farwell, Pat Robertson and the so-called Christian Coalition advocate the inclusion of prescribed prayer in public life they call upon their flocks to engage in the very practice that Christ himself proscribed. Prescribed public prayer does not just violate the Constitutional principles embodied in the First Amendment; it violates the commandment of Christ himself.