The following are statements that have been made by Christian leaders over the past week:
"I think God would say to us, 'Hey, I'll be glad to protect your children, but you've got to invite me back into your world first. I'm not going to go where I'm not wanted. I am a gentleman.'" – Bryan Fisher
"We ask why there is violence in our schools, but we have systematically removed God from our schools. Should we be so surprised that schools would become a place of carnage?" – Mike Huckabee
In the midst of grief and tragedy, it never fails. We always look to who we can blame for such an event. For these people, they blame our culture for “removing God” from the classroom as the reasoning for such an atrocity. Of course, that doesn’t explain why in 1927, before public prayer was banned from most schools, a man in Michigan beat his wife to death, lit his farm on fire, then proceeded to blow up the school and himself with explosives. To date, it is still the deadliest school killing on record in the United States – 38 children, 2 teachers, and 4 other adults.
So really, is the lack of school prayer then to blame for school tragedies? Or is it yet another part of our sinful human existence and our natural propensity to perpetrate violence upon ourselves? A problem that dates back to Cain and Abel and is a running theme throughout the entire Old Testament.
But we like to try and blame. If we can't blame God's absence in our schools, then maybe we should we blame the NRA and those who are against gun control legislation. Or should we blame the American culture as a whole that perpetuates and glorifies this kind of violence in our games and movies? Should we blame the schools for not having better security? Shall we blame the man who killed his mother, stole her guns, and then went on this murderous rampage? Shall we blame the kids and people of Newtown who apparently didn’t give Mr. Lanza the attention and consideration he felt he deserved? Should we blame our lack of adequate mental health care in this nation? Should we blame the parents for how they raised their children?
There seem to be a lot of targets for our anger and attempts to make sense of the senseless.
The blame game is one we are fond of. It started in the Garden of Eden. Adam blames Eve: “She told me to.” No, wait, says Eve, “the serpent told ME to, so it’s his fault.”
Some blame might be legitimate. Indeed, there are many things as a society we could change to help prevent this kind of atrocity from happening again. (Of course, the thing that needs changing the most is the human heart... and I hear God's still working on that one)
But stating that we’ve “removed God” from our schools is one of the more problematic places to lay blame for me. All I can ever think is “My, what powerful beings we’ve become when we accomplish the ability to remove God from our schools.”
Because last time I checked, we didn’t have a lot of control over where God decides to show up. How his Spirit moves or where it blows.
You can remove prayer from a public school, but lack of public prayer does not negate God’s ability to still be at work in those places. I grew up never praying publicly in school. I did grow up praying at home and in church. Funny thing – I still tended to pray a lot while at school. (Probably not for the things I should have been praying for – helping me ace a test I hadn’t studied for probably wasn’t big on God’s “to do” list. But, nevertheless, I prayed. A lot.)
So the idea that God “doesn’t go where he is not wanted” to me is preposterous. If God didn’t venture into those places he wasn’t overly welcome, God wouldn’t go anywhere. Because at our core – we don’t really want God that close to us, no matter who we are or where we are. Distancing ourselves from God is kind of what we do as humans. It’s a part of our problem with our relationship with God – there’s this huge gulf between Him and us caused by sin. Christ came to redeem and reconcile humanity and the world back to Himself. Yet, standing in his immediate presence is a future reality that fills us with both hope and trepidation. Hope, because we know that is where we ultimately belong and where God desires us. Trepidation, because we still continue to fear the presence of this God that we shove away whenever He gets too close. Because God doesn’t act like us. God doesn’t think like us. God doesn’t operate like us.
In fact, Christmas is all about God breaking in on a world that did not want Him. Because Christ came not so that our world could continue on as before, but He came to actually change things - things we don't necessarily, even in this country, want changed. He came to change how we operate as societies and cultures. Christ came to raise up the humble, the poor, the sick and the destitute, and bring down the rich and the powerful.
Christianity survived not because prayer was forced upon them in public school, and not because people demanded certain language and terminology surrounding a holiday that has come to celebrate consumerism, greed and material gain. (All the things Christ was fighting against.)
It survived because the message was counter-cultural, and because Jesus represented something different than what the rest of the world had to offer. Something that was welcomed by the slaves, the poor and the destitute. Not something that was embraced, at least initially, by the powerful and mighty.
When I look at scripture, I don’t see God getting angry at a nation because its public schools have opted not to publicly honor that God in a nation that is growing ever-more diverse in its beliefs.
Rather, what I see when I read scripture is a God who gets angry over violence and injustice, the wealthy taking advantage of the poor, the strong and mighty trampling the weak. When the little known prophet of Habakkuk wants to know why God is allowing Judah to be destroyed by the Babylonians, God’s response is not, “You removed me from your schools, so I’m destroying you.” Instead He said the following:
If God is actually “punishing America,” I have a feeling it has less to do with prayer in our public school systems, and more with how our society and culture functions as a whole. Given the mantra these days is America is a “Christian nation,” it makes me then wonder why do we continue to have the problems we do if that entire 75% of self-proclaimed Christians actually lived their lives according to “Christian principles”? If we truly lived as God wanted us to, poverty, greed, injustice – all these things would not exist - or at least would be on a smaller scale than they are.
Yet we are sinful people, therefore – these problems continue to exist. The meek and the lowly are not being lifted up. The powerful and mighty have yet to be torn down. (See Luke 1, the Magnificat reading for this weekend) If we want to claim we are a Christian nation, those are the signs of a truly Christian nation. Not whether or not we have prayer in public schools. Because God is not interested in empty platitudes that are done just for the sake of religiosity.
So, before we get upset about not having prayer in school and pointing to that as the cause of our violence and problems, perhaps we need to take a closer look at our so-called “Christian nation” and see the plethora of planks in our eyes before we start pointing fingers at why something like this happened and presuming to speak for God.
Because bottom line is – God doesn’t need an invitation. He never has. He was not invited into this world, and in fact we killed Him precisely because we did not invite or want Him here. God does not give us the ability to “kick him out” of anything or anywhere. He shows up despite us and works His will even in the midst of our messed up and sinful world. When we attempt to kick him out, kill him, string him up on a cross - he resurrects and finds new ways to break into our world and our lives.
"I think God would say to us, 'Hey, I'll be glad to protect your children, but you've got to invite me back into your world first. I'm not going to go where I'm not wanted. I am a gentleman.'" – Bryan Fisher
"We ask why there is violence in our schools, but we have systematically removed God from our schools. Should we be so surprised that schools would become a place of carnage?" – Mike Huckabee
In the midst of grief and tragedy, it never fails. We always look to who we can blame for such an event. For these people, they blame our culture for “removing God” from the classroom as the reasoning for such an atrocity. Of course, that doesn’t explain why in 1927, before public prayer was banned from most schools, a man in Michigan beat his wife to death, lit his farm on fire, then proceeded to blow up the school and himself with explosives. To date, it is still the deadliest school killing on record in the United States – 38 children, 2 teachers, and 4 other adults.
So really, is the lack of school prayer then to blame for school tragedies? Or is it yet another part of our sinful human existence and our natural propensity to perpetrate violence upon ourselves? A problem that dates back to Cain and Abel and is a running theme throughout the entire Old Testament.
But we like to try and blame. If we can't blame God's absence in our schools, then maybe we should we blame the NRA and those who are against gun control legislation. Or should we blame the American culture as a whole that perpetuates and glorifies this kind of violence in our games and movies? Should we blame the schools for not having better security? Shall we blame the man who killed his mother, stole her guns, and then went on this murderous rampage? Shall we blame the kids and people of Newtown who apparently didn’t give Mr. Lanza the attention and consideration he felt he deserved? Should we blame our lack of adequate mental health care in this nation? Should we blame the parents for how they raised their children?
There seem to be a lot of targets for our anger and attempts to make sense of the senseless.
The blame game is one we are fond of. It started in the Garden of Eden. Adam blames Eve: “She told me to.” No, wait, says Eve, “the serpent told ME to, so it’s his fault.”
Some blame might be legitimate. Indeed, there are many things as a society we could change to help prevent this kind of atrocity from happening again. (Of course, the thing that needs changing the most is the human heart... and I hear God's still working on that one)
But stating that we’ve “removed God” from our schools is one of the more problematic places to lay blame for me. All I can ever think is “My, what powerful beings we’ve become when we accomplish the ability to remove God from our schools.”
Because last time I checked, we didn’t have a lot of control over where God decides to show up. How his Spirit moves or where it blows.
You can remove prayer from a public school, but lack of public prayer does not negate God’s ability to still be at work in those places. I grew up never praying publicly in school. I did grow up praying at home and in church. Funny thing – I still tended to pray a lot while at school. (Probably not for the things I should have been praying for – helping me ace a test I hadn’t studied for probably wasn’t big on God’s “to do” list. But, nevertheless, I prayed. A lot.)
So the idea that God “doesn’t go where he is not wanted” to me is preposterous. If God didn’t venture into those places he wasn’t overly welcome, God wouldn’t go anywhere. Because at our core – we don’t really want God that close to us, no matter who we are or where we are. Distancing ourselves from God is kind of what we do as humans. It’s a part of our problem with our relationship with God – there’s this huge gulf between Him and us caused by sin. Christ came to redeem and reconcile humanity and the world back to Himself. Yet, standing in his immediate presence is a future reality that fills us with both hope and trepidation. Hope, because we know that is where we ultimately belong and where God desires us. Trepidation, because we still continue to fear the presence of this God that we shove away whenever He gets too close. Because God doesn’t act like us. God doesn’t think like us. God doesn’t operate like us.
In fact, Christmas is all about God breaking in on a world that did not want Him. Because Christ came not so that our world could continue on as before, but He came to actually change things - things we don't necessarily, even in this country, want changed. He came to change how we operate as societies and cultures. Christ came to raise up the humble, the poor, the sick and the destitute, and bring down the rich and the powerful.
Christianity survived not because prayer was forced upon them in public school, and not because people demanded certain language and terminology surrounding a holiday that has come to celebrate consumerism, greed and material gain. (All the things Christ was fighting against.)
It survived because the message was counter-cultural, and because Jesus represented something different than what the rest of the world had to offer. Something that was welcomed by the slaves, the poor and the destitute. Not something that was embraced, at least initially, by the powerful and mighty.
When I look at scripture, I don’t see God getting angry at a nation because its public schools have opted not to publicly honor that God in a nation that is growing ever-more diverse in its beliefs.
Rather, what I see when I read scripture is a God who gets angry over violence and injustice, the wealthy taking advantage of the poor, the strong and mighty trampling the weak. When the little known prophet of Habakkuk wants to know why God is allowing Judah to be destroyed by the Babylonians, God’s response is not, “You removed me from your schools, so I’m destroying you.” Instead He said the following:
“Woe to him who piles up stolen goods and makes himself wealthy by extortion! How long must this go on? Will not your creditors suddenly arise? Will they not wake up and make you tremble? Then you will become their prey. Because you have plundered many nations, the peoples who are left will plunder you. For you have shed human blood; you have destroyed lands and cities and everyone in them. “Woe to him who builds his house by unjust gain, setting his nest on high to escape the clutches of ruin! You have plotted the ruin of many peoples, shaming your own house and forfeiting your life. The stones of the wall will cry out, and the beams of the woodwork will echo it.“Woe to him who builds a city with bloodshed and establishes a town by injustice!” – Habakkuk 2:6-12
If God is actually “punishing America,” I have a feeling it has less to do with prayer in our public school systems, and more with how our society and culture functions as a whole. Given the mantra these days is America is a “Christian nation,” it makes me then wonder why do we continue to have the problems we do if that entire 75% of self-proclaimed Christians actually lived their lives according to “Christian principles”? If we truly lived as God wanted us to, poverty, greed, injustice – all these things would not exist - or at least would be on a smaller scale than they are.
Yet we are sinful people, therefore – these problems continue to exist. The meek and the lowly are not being lifted up. The powerful and mighty have yet to be torn down. (See Luke 1, the Magnificat reading for this weekend) If we want to claim we are a Christian nation, those are the signs of a truly Christian nation. Not whether or not we have prayer in public schools. Because God is not interested in empty platitudes that are done just for the sake of religiosity.
“I hate, I despise your religious festivals; your assemblies are a stench to me. Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Though you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them. Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps. But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!” – Amos 5:21-24God’s not interested in having “prayer” for the sake of “prayer.” If you’re going to have it – it must be heartfelt and meaningful. And above all, it must then reflect the values of the God that we pray to.
So, before we get upset about not having prayer in school and pointing to that as the cause of our violence and problems, perhaps we need to take a closer look at our so-called “Christian nation” and see the plethora of planks in our eyes before we start pointing fingers at why something like this happened and presuming to speak for God.
Because bottom line is – God doesn’t need an invitation. He never has. He was not invited into this world, and in fact we killed Him precisely because we did not invite or want Him here. God does not give us the ability to “kick him out” of anything or anywhere. He shows up despite us and works His will even in the midst of our messed up and sinful world. When we attempt to kick him out, kill him, string him up on a cross - he resurrects and finds new ways to break into our world and our lives.
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