The Politics of Prayer

Clergy debates the President's constitutional amendment

The clergy ought to be the last group to argue about prayer. Instead, it is among the foremost. Last week religious leaders of many major denominations gathered before the Senate Judiciary Committee to testify loudly for and against President Reagan's proposed constitutional amendment legalizing prayer in the public schools.

Support for the Reagan amendment was the prime topic at a Washington "profamily" strategy session of the religious right. Meanwhile, opponents unveiled a new coalition of 72 organizations at, naturally, a prayer breakfast. Buddhists and American Indians turned out in full regalia, joined by Jews, Muslims and Christians. The group charges that school devotionals create "the very interreligious tensions and conflict that the First Amendment was designed to prevent."

The dispute results from U.S. Supreme Court decisions. In 1962 and 1963 the court said that the Constitution's ban on "establishment of religion" ruled out New York State's recommended nonsectarian prayer and Pennsylvania's Bible readings and Lord's Prayer recitations. Just last January the court threw out a Louisiana law allowing students or teachers to offer their own prayers. Eight months ago, the Justices also refused to review a decision forbidding students to form in-school prayer meetings on their own before classes. Some states allow a "moment of silence" for students to pray if they wish; the Supreme Court has not ruled on that.

The Reagan amendment reads:

"Nothing in this Constitution shall be construed to prohibit individual or group prayer in public schools or other public institutions. No person shall be required by the United States or by any state to participate in prayer." The President and proponents like Jerry Falwell of Moral Majority demand the change in the name of religious freedom, the same cry raised by the other side.

The largest U.S. Protestant denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention, is particularly divided. It opposed school prayers until the annual meeting last June, where conservatives engineered a reversal. But Southern Baptist Minister James Dunn, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs (and thus Washington spokesman for the Southern Baptists along with other groups) is undeterred: "We're opposed to this theologically, because it trivializes prayer into a civil religion." As Dunn sees it, "Kids trapped in a captive audience by compulsory-attendance laws can hardly be considered to be doing anything voluntarily."

Organizations from all branches of Judaism, the Lutheran Council and old-line Protestants in the National Council of Churches agree. The U.S. Catholic Conference welcomes such legislation but is especially interested in overturning a 1948 Supreme Court decision and restoring voluntary "released time" religion classes on public school premises. The Greek Orthodox and many Evangelical Protestants also support the amendment.

Though congressional action this year is unlikely, polls show that two-thirds or more of the public favor a school prayer amendment, and advocates are certain that if a proposal ever gets to the floor, few legislators will want to go on record against invoking the Almighty.

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