If You Don't Pray in My School, I Won't Think in Your Church!

You have to admit, that is quite a statement. My first reaction when I saw this bumper sticker recently was anger. But then I thought, why be angry at the pitiful person who came up with this statement? After all, logic and truth are obviously not this guy's strong points.

This statement is illogical on several counts. The most obvious way in which it is illogical is the idea that the public schools, which I assume the writer is referring to, are not "my schools," that is the schools do not belong to those who are not religious in general and who specifically are not Christians. If the schools are really public schools, then do they not belong to everyone? Why should they reflect only the religion of the unbeliever? Unbelievers do have a religion, after all. Any system that makes a statement about God, about Jesus Christ, about the Bible, about prayer (as this one does) is a religious statement stemming from a religious viewpoint. If the schools are public, than why should they not reflect the views of Christians as well as the views of those who view prayer as a meaningless exercise?

Christians pay for public schools, too. The taxes are not discriminating. If you own property, you pay taxes to support public schools. I happen to rent the home in which I live. But the owner of the property has to pay taxes to support public schools, and he gets the money to pay for those taxes from me. Therefore, I am supporting the public schools through the rent I pay. Would I be wrong in claiming the public schools are my schools, too? The assumption that the schools belong to the person who wrote this remark is simply preposterous. Until he is willing to write a check to provide the entire expenses of the public schools, the schools are not his. And if he did write such a check, assuming it did not bounce, they would no longer be public schools, but private schools. Since I help support the public schools, I will pray in them any time I want too! I have that right, since I help support them, just as someone else has the right not to pray in school because he supports the schools, too.

Another problem with the logic of this statement is that it assumes citizens of the United States do not have the right to pray anywhere they please. This right is guaranteed by the Constitution, after all. Of course, those who pray cannot be disruptive, and should not be. But I don't have to disrupt anything to pray. Indeed, when I was a student in a state supported university many years ago, I often prayed when I was taking a test! My praying disrupted no one. Yes, I know I should have studied more, and yes, I know my grades reflected my study habits, not my prayer habits. But I prayed anyway.

However, the most illogical assumption made by the writer of this statement is that a person can not be both a prayer and a thinker, or that a person has to suspend intellect when he enters the door of a church. This is a naive assumption often made by persons who do not understand faith or intellect. The writer states that he is offended when someone prays in "his" school, so he will make a deal. If I won't pray in "his" school, then he won't offend me by thinking in my church. Go ahead. Come to my church and think all you want to. Thinking is not offensive to me. I am a man who thinks. I have intellect. I use intellect. But I am also a man who prays. I have faith. I use faith. One does not exclude the other.

I have a counter proposal to make to the writer of this statement. I promise I won't pray in what you erroneously think is your school if you will come to my church and think. Think about how much God loves you. Think about what Jesus did for you on the cross. Think about what will happen to you after you die. Think about how you need help solving some of the most basic, and serious, questions of life. If you will come and think in my church, you will come to put your faith in Jesus Christ because it is the only logical thing to do. And then you and I can go pray in our school together. Deal?

I think I need to pray for the poor, lost soul who wrote this statement, and for all those who, like him, have accepted a lie and called it the truth. That is something to think, and pray, about.