Prayer should not be controversial, no matter where it takes place

A recent social media post by The Wyoming Tribune Eagle, reporting on the opening of a new charter school in Laramie County became the center of a firestorm of comments, many of them angry. 

The kerfuffle centered around the image of a little boy used for the post. The photo of the boy with his hands clasped together in prayer was apparently taken during the ribbon-cutting ceremony. 

The image was eventually taken down after the child’s father posted his concerns with the picture in the comments. The editor, while supportive of the photographer’s decision to take the photo, honored the parents’ request and made the right decision to remove the image of a minor child. And there the case was closed. 

Except, something about the general ugly tone of the comments and the push to have the image taken down by many perhaps well-meaning Christians was concerning. Many of the commenters on the post weren’t focused on the issue of parental consent for a photograph of a minor. Instead, many seemed to believe that the photo was used in bad faith to demean a classically based public charter school or, that the picture was proof of some nefarious religious purpose the school intended to pursue. 

While I understand prayer in school remains an issue some want to make controversial, I would offer first that prayer in general, and prayer by a child in school, simply isn’t controversial. Second, I would offer that regardless of the motivation of the editor (and we do not know his motivation) to use that particular image, people of faith should not demand the removal of images of prayer, as this is counterproductive to their own faith. People expressing their faith — whether Christian, Jewish, Muslim or any other — is a normal experience, and the editor should have been thanked for running the image, no matter the motivation for doing so. 

Any person, child or adult, who wishes to pray has the right and freedom in this country to do so. Whether in a public school as a voluntary act, in the halls of government, at their place of work, or in a shopping mall, restaurant, hospital, or city park, seeing our fellow citizens pray is not something to be upset about. And folks who said the boy was on his way to wearing a Ku Klux Klan hat probably need to check their own ugly prejudices. 

Prayer is not controversial. Prayer is an expression of religious faith and no one but the most hardened cynic (see above), or atheist, is mistakenly concerned with people praying anywhere. 

But sadly, many of the comments weren’t from cynics or atheists. They were from people who I know acknowledge a belief in faith or conservatism or both. That’s why I was so astounded by the anger surrounding the post. Because I can’t for the life of me understand why some Christians should be acting as if a photo of a child praying is wrong, regardless of the motivation. Especially a child praying for the opening of a school that uses the moral traditions of the Western world as its foundation for learning — something I believe as a conservative we need more of, not less. 

Cheyenne Classical Academy was created as a classically based school using the Hillsdale Classical Schools model which believes, “the Western tradition is central in the study of history, literature, philosophy, and the fine arts,” and promotes “study of the American literary, moral, philosophical, political, and historical traditions,” as well as, “an approach to instruction that acknowledges objective standards of truth, goodness, and beauty,” and finally, “a school culture of moral virtue, decorum, respect, discipline, and studiousness among both students and faculty.” To which I say, bravo!

Christians have no reason to be ashamed of their faith or to become part of today’s “victim” mentality in politics. Demanding a perfectly lovely picture of a little boy praying at an event be taken down is doing just that — playing the victim. But Christians are not victims. We are the benefactors and ambassadors of a God-created order that brings hope and salvation to those who believe. Even the most secular of organizations mark time using the Christian calendar and partake of a larger Christian inheritance often without knowing it. 

Jewish conservative political writer Jonah Goldberg said it far better than I in a recent piece. “Christianity reshaped the Western mind in such a way that even people who consciously despise Christianity, or religion generally, nonetheless are captives of its categories and imperatives. The secular humanist who insists on the primacy of human rights, the cosmopolitan globalist who adores the U.N., the Marxist who wants the workers of the world to unite, the radicals who want to remake the world anew, the scientists who believe that there are universal laws to the universe that are discoverable through reason, the conscientious objectors to this, the protestors of that, the feminist champions of sex workers, the billionaires who try to expiate their consciences with philanthropy, heck even the Muslims and Hindus who use our system of dating: They all—all—are standing on a foundation created by Christianity in ways large and small,” Goldberg wrote. “Even the concepts of the ‘secular’ and the ‘religious,’ ‘theology’ and ‘pagan,’ are largely Christian inventions, or are at least suffused with Christian innovation. In a way, even the people trying to beat the house of Christianity, are nonetheless playing with its chips.”

Indeed, and Goldberg’s points perfectly explain why Christians decrying some victimhood over a photo of a child’s act of faith makes no sense whatsoever. 

A child praying is a lovely thing. There should never be anything upsetting about it, even if you believe the image was intended for wrong. As Joseph said in Genesis 50:20, “But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive.”