These thoughts are more about being careful with what we hitch our “belief” wagons to, and not really the Supreme Court case I’m about to reference – why do I make this distinction?
Never forget, there are many political groups cloaked as “Christians” leveraging churches to fill their coffers and build support for their (less than transparent) political agendas – Christ told us to do our research… well, what He really said was, “Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. Therefore be wise as serpents and harmless as doves.”
Here we go… The Supreme Court announced 14 Jan 2022 it will hear oral arguments in the case Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, in which former football coach, Joe Kennedy, is seeking to reverse a lower court decision – Kennedy is asking for: “…relief in an action brought by a high school coach who alleged that his school district retaliated against him for exercising his First Amendment rights when it suspended him for kneeling and praying on the football field’s fifty-yard line in view of students and parents immediately after high school football games.”
What is this case really about? On the surface it doesn’t seem controversial – many conservative political organizations and news agencies are ginning up awareness for this case under the facade that this is a 1st Amendment and freedom of prayer case – please consider (for yourself) the facts and details from the (easy to read) lower court ruling in the *pdf link provided below.
The world already sees many white Christians as dumb hypocritical narrow minded racists knuckle heads – mostly because (honestly) sometimes we act that way – so being clear about facts is important – facts in real life are just like facts in the Bible – the better we know them and study them, the less likely we are to be hoodwinked by the “wolves” of the world – why does it matter?
Every time we visibly hitch our “belief” wagons to one of these “wolves” and their agendas, we illustrate to the world that WE ARE EXACTLY WHO THEY THOUGHT WE WERE – our affiliation with the “wolves,” means the world can no longer see that we are believers in Christ trying to share He message with the world – think of it as a potential compromise to our ability to witness – seriously, (read this next line slowly) are our politics so important to us, that we’re willing to compromise our witness for our politics? Of course not! Are we sure?
Kennedy (in the SCOTUS case) is probably a God fearing, praying, Christ centered person – I don’t have any ill will for him or his desire to pray – but reading and researching his case left me with more questions than clarity – his case is being framed as an open and shut case for SCOTUS – well, if it’s so open and shut, why was Kennedy ruled against multiple times on the way to SCOTUS? So, I started to do some digging – this is a good place for you to stop reading, and open the link to quickly review the lower case ruling for yourself – I do not want to taint your view of the case with my blah blah blah…
Welcome back – as you saw (from your reading the lower case ruling) there are a lot of ways the circumstances and conditions surrounding Kennedy’s desire to pray could have been handled better – ways that did not require any violations of documented school board or human resource policies – remember, the coaches and team had already been praying together before and after each game, and many team events for years without fuss from parents, school board, or left leaning organizations – perhaps, the chest pounding, attention grabbing, religion baiting, stirring up misinformation media hype, and plunging political platforms actually hurt Kennedy’s existing prayer practices with his team.
Somehow, we took an existing positive, Spiritually solid, well established routine prayer time and reframed it as a political agenda item – then we got a guy fired – then we made our desire to pray look like one of clown cars on the right wing crazy train – and now we find our cause for prayer embedded on ultra-right wing platforms along with racist hate agendas – remember, the world does not see us as we see ourselves – perhaps this is not our best witness opportunity.
How does this course of action help outreach?
How does this help the cause of Christ?
How does this encourage the lost to trust and listen to us when we share Christ’s message?
Finally, let’s think about what may be next – play it out in your head – if SCOTUS rules in favor of Kennedy… which religious prayers will the ruling allow (on the 50-yard line after games) – who will pray those prayers? Seriously, if this lower court ruling is overturned, do we really think the ruling will only apply to Christian prayers? Do we really think other religions (real or false) are going to just sit back and let Christian have that platform without spinning up even more chaos?
Quick Fun Fact Check – one of the foundations of the United States of America is freedom of religion – which religion? All religions – I make this point because the world is already considering this point ahead of us.
What does the world really see in all of this… they see a political agenda chess pieces on a political posturing chessboard – you can bet your “perfect attendance Sunday school tie clip, the world does not see a Christ centered prayer ministry in any of this.
Remember, these thoughts have nothing to do with the case – these thoughts have everything to do with what we (as Christians) visibly hitch our “belief” wagons to.
Lower Court Ruling:
Kevin's Thoughts 