Public Prayer Research Articles

Renewal in the Antiochian Orthodox Church in Lebanon

The young man finished giving his testimony and after a quarter of an hour of song and prayer, the public prayer meeting of the People of God community was ended. The Bishop left the meeting happy with the spiritual atmosphere, but in referring to the testimony, he told me in Arabic Hatha la youjad minhu indana, which means ‘such a practice (testimony) is not part of our Orthodox heritage. We are founded more in reticence. We (the Orthodox) do not speak openly of our relationship with God.’ I looked chidingly at him but inquisitively, and I said, ‘If I show you evidence of that from our heritage, would you be ready to change the ideas you have?’ He said ‘Yes’. The next week the Bishop was flooded with references from the Orthodox saints like St. Symeon the New Theologian, from St. Paul the Apostle and from Jesus himself. They all gave a testimony at one time or another. A few weeks later, as the Bishop was giving a talk in our parish, he said ‘ . . . and I would give, if I may say, a testimony . . . ’ and he shared something from his own religious spiritual experience with the others. Renewal had taken place. Or maybe it was on the way. Testimony as such was characteristic of renewal movements like the Charismatic or the Focolare in the Catholic Church. A staunch Orthodox is supposed to oppose that for the sake of affirming his or her Orthodoxy over against what he or she thinks Orthodoxy is not. Well, that was true until Bishop George Khodr changed his mind: a man who has been a pioneer in renewal.

Spiritual Weapons: The Cold War and the Forging of an American National Religion (review)

Reviewed by: Spiritual Weapons: The Cold War and the Forging of an American National Religion Mark Hulsether Spiritual Weapons: The Cold War and the Forging of an American National Religion. By T. Jeremy Gunn. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 2009. When I first picked up this excellent book, I was unsure whether it had anything new to teach me. Gunn's subject—the crystallization in the late 1940s and early 1950s of an alliance between (1) religious discourses about God and country (2) a permanent war economy linked to a policy of global military supremacy, and (3) extravagant pro-capitalism and anti-socialism in most non-military sectors of the economy—seems on first impression to be old hat for American Studies scholars, and Gunn tends to presuppose a consensus approach to US culture that has long been out of favor. Moreover, Gunn is not a conventional scholar of US history and religion; although he holds a Religious Studies Ph.D from Harvard, recently he has worked as a lawyer associated with the American Civil Liberties Union. Although he cites a solid mix of scholars, readers of this journal may sometimes find him thin on pre-1940s historical contexts and traditions of critiquing US empire. He does little to clarify how his stress on change in the 1940s intersects with a wider historiography, nor how his account of the role of religion within these changes differs from other scholarly treatments. Thus I initially wondered if Gunn had set out to reinvent the wheel. I am happy to report that, in fact, the results are far more impressive. By approaching from a different angle than most scholars and concentrating on a new interpretation of primary sources (mainly journalistic coverage and government documents, some recently declassified), Gunn achieves a fresh and dynamic new interpretation of this crucial topic—an important intervention into ongoing debates. After an introductory section, Gunn offers three strong chapters documenting the surging importance of civil religion, militarism, and capitalism in the decade after 1945. Using vivid examples, he dramatizes changes from an earlier historical baseline and the effects of these changes on cultural discourse and political-economic policy. For example, he shows how expectations of rapid military demobilization after 1945 (as happened after World War I) gave way to a permanent war economy, and how earlier religious voices promoting peace and moderate socialism (including a 1940s commission chaired by John Foster Dulles and a chapter in The Fundamentals) became marginalized in a frenzy of flag-waving, ostentatious public prayers, and Christian capitalism. Importantly, Gunn offers two rich case studies to document the consequences of his themes. One chapter treats the 1954 overthrow of Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala and another the rise and fall of Ngo Dinh Diem in Vietnam. The Guatemala chapter brilliantly demonstrates how Gunn's themes intersect, and is written with a concreteness and rhetorical skill that would make it a fine introduction for students into critical thinking about news media. The Vietnam chapter is especially noteworthy for shining a light on the religious dimensions of Diem's rise to power. Diem was a protégé of Cardinal Spellman with a base among Vietnamese Catholics, and there was a strong Christian vs. Buddhist aspect to his government's failure. Meanwhile, religion was central to the discourse about the war inside the US—dramatized by such things as the lionization of Thomas Dooley as [End Page 182] the public face of US intervention and the way that the self-immolation of the Buddhist monk, Thich Quang Duc, galvanized antiwar protest. Gunn makes it clear that religious aspects of anti-Communism in Vietnam—and also, by extension, in related places like Korea—deserve greater attention than most scholars have given them. Tradeoffs are implicit in Gunn's method, as in any scholarly approach. His stress on the forging of a hegemonic coalition in the world of elite politics, economics, and media takes the focus off ongoing disagreements—before, during, and after the period in focus—as well as precedents on which his emerging coalition built. Some scholars will desire more attention to labor and working class history, compared to the usable past that Gunn highlights, as well as to...

The Coach’s Pre-Game Prayer: Probably Wrong But Feels Right

An analysis of the constitutionality of a public school coach's pre-game prayer under the First Amendment. Though coach's routinely lead pre- and post-game prayers with their teams, this action would appear in direct violation of the First Amendment. The author analyzes the relevant Constitutional tests and case law and includes recent media articles concerning the subject.

“Can You Hear the Army?”: Exploring Evangelical Discourse in Scottish Youth Prayer Meetings

This article explores how public prayer events can serve as a space for evangelical youth to perform and construct a public discourse related to their personal and corporate faith. Claims are based on a detailed content analysis of 14 youth-led prayer meetings held across Scotland over a two-year period. This study uncovers some dominant themes related to how evangelical youth create and present their religious identity in order to create community ownership in certain beliefs and understandings. Analysing transcripts from the meetings demonstrates that public prayer is not just an act of devotion, but a tool for evangelical identity construction. It is argued that the prayer meetings function as cultural spaces in which young people negotiate the challenges of maintaining a sense of connection to a longer tradition of theological discourses, while also making innovative use of these discourses to construct meaning and identity in relation to their social and geographical context.

:Millennial Dreams and Apocalyptic Nightmares: The Cold War Origins of Political Evangelicalism

Angela M. Lahr makes a compelling case in this book for the Cold War as the crucial venue in the forging of the contemporary U.S. Christian Right. In her well-documented account, Christian anticommunism is the principal means by which the evangelicals negotiated their way out of their decades-long separatism after the Scopes trial and back into the national conversation mainstream. In particular, she emphasizes their success in constructing and disseminating a widely appealing apocalyptic interpretation of the Cold War that was rooted in their premillennialist eschatology yet generic enough to meet the existential questing of many secularists as well. As she cogently summarizes, the atomic bomb provided the “exigency” for the evangelicals' rejoining of the American mainstream, with anticommunism the “tool” and premillennialism the “interpretive framework” (p. 44). These claims are fleshed out in a series of case studies on evangelical and fundamentalist responses to the atomic bomb, the Cuban missile crisis, the war in Vietnam, and the Cold War tribulations of the state of Israel. In addition, Lahr has written an insightful chapter on religious missions as Cold War agencies and another on the Presidential Prayer Breakfast and the grass-roots prayer circles that proliferated in the 1950s. She argues that these prayer circles helped evangelicals to reconnect with and further shape American civil religion. Public prayer and missionary work offered usable templates for the Cold War state's propaganda war against the Soviet Union, with evangelicals becoming “deputized” (p. 16) by the state in the process. The result was an “ultrapatriotic evangelicalism” (p. 16) that remained in creative tension with the valuations of the secular state but often did sacralize the “American Way”. Politically inactive and culturally separatist it was no more.

The Cana in Galilee phenomenon: influences on biblical literalism among rural Anglicans today

This study examines the level of belief among rural Anglican churchgoers (N=1,083) that Jesus really turned water into wine, together with the personal and religious characteristics associated with that belief. The data demonstrated that over half of these churchgoers (52%) accepted the account literally, and over a third (35%) were agnostic about it, while only one in eight (13%) clearly rejected the literal account. While biblical literalism was only weakly associated with sex and age, it was strongly associated with frequency of public church attendance and personal prayer. These findings suggest that personal piety and churchgoing may support and be supported by biblical literalism. As a consequence, non-literalists and liberal believers may find themselves in a minority and ill at ease in many rural congregations.

Introduction to Special Issue: Performing Islamic Revival in Africa

Introduction to Special Issue:Performing Islamic Revival in Africa Chanfi Ahmed (bio) This special issue offers different case studies that pursue a set of common propositions in the analysis of the Islamic revival in Africa. Topics covered include activities of Muslim Bible preachers in public spaces in East Africa (Ahmed), performances of collective prayer in West African towns (Schulz), narratives of (re-)conversion to Islam in Northern Nigerian video films (Krings), and demonstrative conversion to Islam as an instrument of struggle for gang leaders in Southern Nigeria (Montclos). First, these studies transcend the widely used distinction between instrumentalist and essentialist interpretations of religious performance by looking at their topics as means for African Muslims to internalize Islamic revivalist ideas developed in Arabic countries. At the same time, they internalize other important features: the habitus of competition and performance particular to many African cultural practices, and the conversion methods and strategies of African Pentecostal churches. Secondly, these studies ask how these performative practices of Islam in sub-Saharan Africa have been perceived by other religious actors, Muslims as well as Christians, who are all engaged in the African "market of religious conversion." From the beginning of the era of independence to the end of the 1980s, the public sphere in Africa has been dominated almost entirely by the state and its propaganda. The end of the Cold War, symbolically marked by the fall of the Berlin Wall, saw processes of liberalization and democratization everywhere in the world, including sub-Saharan Africa. Since then, non-governmental groups—associations, foundations, NGOs, political parties, and religious organizations—have started to take over the public sphere. In particular, Islam and Christianity have established strong new public movements. Both religions had been present in the public sphere before, with public ceremonies such as Christian masses and processions and the Islamic Mawlud. Celebrations for the two main Islamic holidays, 'Id al-Fitr and 'Id al-Adha, had always been an important part of the religious tradition, but in the 1980s, religious public presence began to change substantially. Currently, it is the Pentecostal churches and the Salafiyya that show the strongest public presence. [End Page vii] These extremes of religious activism have not completely superseded other religious groups, but they are by far the most active in the public sphere. The articles in this volume look at a plethora of Islamic agents active in the public sphere, ranging from extremist Salafism to moderate forms of Islam.1 Mass, Enactment of Power, and Conversion The current increase of groups promoting the expansion of Islam in sub Saharan Africa must be contextualized within the historical framework of religious activism in the region: it has to be considered in relation to the degree of concurrence these groups face in a genuine market of religious conversion. Another point that merits closer attention is the efficient organization of these groups in networks. Modern means of communication not only render fundraising easier, but also help propagate the religious message and thus gain new adherents. Newspapers, books, propaganda leaflets, and audio-and videotapes containing sermons are sold in bookshops, at markets, and in streets throughout Africa. The religious message is transmitted to a wider public through radio and television broadcasts and the Internet. As if this was not enough, huge public events are organized, including mass prayers or sermons or a mixture of the two, as in the case of the famous Pentecostal "crusades."2 The latter gained a certain notoriety with the controversial stagings of the German missionary Reinhard Bonnke (Heuser 2006; Kürschner Pelkmann 2002). Despite their Christian origin, these methods of appropriating the public sphere have been imitated and adapted by Muslims. Since the 1980s, these forms of performance have become an important manifestation of Islamic revivalism in sub-Saharan Africa. In fact, one of their aims is to take over the public sphere, emphasizing the power of the group and attracting new converts. These hopes are shared by both Muslim and Christian activists, who engage in new forms of religious performance. However, there are certain differences between Muslims and Christians in the field of public performance. In seminaries and public prayer assemblies, Christian Pentecostalists and Charismatics focus on techniques of healing...

L'invention rhétorique dans la <i>Rhetorique françoise faicte particulierement pour le roy Henri III</i> de Germain Forget

This article examines the place given to the part of rhetoric known as "invention" in the Rhetorique françoise faicte particulierement pour le roy Henry III, a treatise which has been attributed to the jurist Germain Forget. First, this study underlines the relative importance, in Forget's treatise, of this category which traditionally occupies the first place in the ordered disposition of ancient rhetorical treatises. In comparison, reference is made to two other contemporary treatises. Then, second, the analysis shows that the author favours a general idea of invention setting it apart from the technical considerations pertaining to specific theories of "causes". Finally, the third part of the study proposes the hypothesis that this general idea of invention, inspired by Quintilian, bears the stamp of contemporary Humanism, in particular that of the adherents, in the tradition of Erasmus and Politian, to the theory commonly known as "innutrition". At a time when the last of the Valois kings ardently wished to become a father, even commanding that public prayers be recited to this effect, the theory of rhetorical invention rests, perhaps appropriately, on humanist ideas concerning pedagogy.

Disaster preparedness training for tribal leaders

It was with considerable irony that tribal leaders began a collaboration with the University of Arizona and the Arizona Department of Health Services for training in public health preparedness, as the tribes had an extended prior history of responding to a host of hazards caused by the dominant culture. The objective of the training was to ensure that Native American communities were adequately informed and trained to implement coordinated response plans for a range of potential public health emergencies on tribal lands and in surrounding communities. This commentary outlines how cultural competency (including public prayer by an elder during the training), respect for tribal sovereignity, solicitation of historical examples of indigenous preparedness, and incorporation of tribal community networks were essential to the success of this program.Tribal Public Health Preparedness and Response: Homeland Security Since 1492

A Working Theology of the New

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes Such as pedagogy; see for example, P. Garrigan et al., “Change in Two Academic Cultures,” in The Management of Independent Learning, eds. J. Taut and P. Knight (London: Cogan Page, 1996). This example is very close to our “Sung Morning Prayer: Songs and Hymns from the Americas” version, arranged by Patrick Evans. Many synopses of this basic pattern exist; this particular one is taken from The Book of Common Worship (PCUSA) (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1993). Such is the basic message of eco-feminist theologies; for a recent and thoroughgoing presentation of the sort of doctrine of creation I am relying upon, see J. Morales, El ministerial de la creation (Pamplona: Ediciones Universidad de Navarra, 1994). See, for example, John L. Bell, The Singing Thing: A Case for Congregational Song (Glasgow: Wild Goose Publications, 2000). See, for example, Acts 5:20 or Romans 6:4. See, for example, Don Saliers, Worship as Theology: Foretaste of Glory Divine (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1994); L. A. Hoffman, The Art of Public Prayer: Not for Clergy Only (Washington, D.C.: Pastoral Press, 1988); The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy (Sacrosanctum concilium) of the Second Vatican Council (promulgated December 4, 1963), re: participation, from Protestant, Jewish, and R.C. points of view respectively. I developed these ideas in “Worship as the Life of God—and Why Participation Matters,” the keynote address for Andover Newton's 2006 Institute of Worship and the Arts (June 2006. Newton Centre, Massachusetts: Andover Newton Theological School). For more on intersubjectivity see Siobhán Garrigan, Beyond Ritual: Sacramental Theology after Habermas (Abingdon: Ashgate Press, 2004). For a recent and broad-ranging discussion of language-formation and worship, see Graham Hughes, Worship as Meaning: A Liturgical Theology for Late Modernity (Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003). See, for example, Leanne McCall Tigert and Maren C. Tirabasi, Transgendering Faith: Identity, Sexuality and Spirituality (Cleveland: The Pilgrim Press, 2004). One study that proposes such fluidity as the new norm for some is Susan Ross's description of Roman Catholic women and their various ritual outlets. Susan Ross, Extravagant Affections: A Feminist Sacramental Theology (New York: Continuum, 1998). See, for example, Ronald L. Grimes, Reading, Writing, and Ritualizing: Ritual in Fictive, Liturgical and Public Places (Washington, D.C.: The Pastoral Press, 1993), throughout, but especially p. 53. See for example, Brian McLaren, A Generous Orthodoxy (London: Zondervan, 2006), 214: “I believe that we must always be reforming, not because we've got it wrong and we're closer and closer to finally getting it right, but because our mission is ongoing and our context is dynamic.”

Holy pleather: materializing authority in contemporary orthodox jewish publishing

ABSTRACTArtScroll—a major contemporary Orthodox Jewish publishing house based in Brooklyn, New York—offers a compelling case for studying the role of materiality in religious print culture. This essay draws upon actor-network theory to examine the “material agency” of key ArtScroll publications, such as prayer books, Bibles, and cookbooks, showing how these artifacts play an active role within various arenas of Jewish social life, from public prayer to domestic display to kitchen labor. By focusing on the role of book covers, binding materials, and graphic icons in the constitution of ArtScroll's material agency, this essay explores how these devices help to define patterns of ritual performance and consumer lifestyles and how they contribute to struggles over institutional identity and the politics of Jewish authenticity. By examining the actual processes of distribution of actions among people and their books, this analysis complicates the stereotypical image of Jews as a “people of the book” and challenges sweeping claims about Jewish text-centrism.

Keeping and Sharing: Confidentiality in Ministry

What ethical norms regarding confidentiality are applied by ministers in their professional practice? In this essay conventional ethical assumptions about confidentiality in ministry, taken from the work of Gaylord Noyce, are compared with the experiences, attitudes, and expectations of ordered and lay members of the Anglican Church of Canada and the United Church of Canada in two Canadian regions. The similarities and differences are then compared and contrasted with more contemporary theories. The study concludes that most people in the two denominations studied borrowed their ethical norms from the counseling context. Most subjects thought of confidentiality in terms of the beneficial therapeutic effects of keeping the secrets but they also articulated alternative theological grounds for maintaining confidences. Different expectations about how information is to be handled also reveal deeper theological and ecclesiological conflicts over the appropriateness of debriefing with members of the congregation. Differences between rural and urban congregations were revealed in the example of public prayer as an occasion for the breaking of a confidence.

Social phobia in ultra-orthodox Jewish males: culture-bound syndrome or virtue?

Social difficulties of the performing variety are reported by ultra-orthodox male referrals to a psychiatrist in Jerusalem and confirmed by key communal informants. Three cases of social phobia are presented, and the content concerns performing, either speaking on religious matters publicly, a role associated with status and authority, or leading prayers and ceremonies, a role of sanctity and duty. The absence of women sufferers may be understood as a consequence of the value placed on modesty in women and there being no expectation of women to participate in study and public prayer, while the absence of complaints of interactional social phobia may be a consequence of the general discouragement of social intercourse not related to religious study. Aymat zibur, literally meaning fear of the community, is a term used by ultra-orthodox Jews to describe these fears of performance, although in its original meaning the term expresses the respect that the leader of prayers is expected to have for his awesome role. The cases described, however, were motivated by personal shame, similar to social phobia of the performance variety found in other cultures, rather than fear and respect. The values of ultra-orthodox religious life are presented that invest a person who avoids interactional social behaviors with the status of zaddik (a righteous person) while one who avoids the performance behaviors of speaking publicly on religious matters or leading prayers suffers from an idiom of distress in this particular society. Religious law and societal mores appear to be critical factors in deciding whether symptoms of social phobia are perceived and experienced as idioms of distress.

Women of the Wall: Claiming Sacred Ground at Judaism's Holy Site (review)

Women of the Wall (WoW), a group formed to hold women-only public prayer services at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, is one of the more controversial outgrowths of the twentieth-century collision of Jewish traditions with the women's movement. The collection of essays and reminiscences under review, edited by two of the group's American members, presents a continuum of insider viewpoints on the decades-long gender conflict sparked by WoW's activities at the Wall. In a concise, helpful introduction, the editors explain that WoW had its genesis in December 1988, when approximately seventy women attending the first International Congress for the Empowerment of Jewish Women went together to worship and read aloud from the Torah in the women's section of the Western Wall plaza. According to Bonna Haberman, who was among those who went to the Wall that day, their action was partly a response to a proposal she had put forward at the conference for a regular Rosh Hodesh (New Moon) women's prayer group meeting at the Wall. The tremendous impact that service had on those who participated in it sparked off a local initiative to follow through on Haberman's proposal. Women of the Wall came into being. After considerable deliberation, WoW embraced the practices of women donning tallitot (prayer shawls), praying aloud in public, and reading from the Torah scroll, all prohibited to women according to conventional Orthodox interpretations of Jewish law. In keeping with the Orthodox religious commitments of several founders, the group refrained from reciting devarim shebikedushah, prayers that traditionally may be recited only in the presence

A Survey of Christian Religious Education in the United States

Prior to the landmark Supreme Court decision of June 1963, which banned public prayer from the public schools, Christian religious education was often a routine part of the overt instruction provided by the American public school system. However, in the wake of that legal milestone, even though instruction in the Judeo-Christian interpretation of religious history continued to be taught covertly, American churches began relying more heavily on providing Christian religious education. This article briefly presents Christianity’s contemporary status in the United States and reviews such religious education methods as Sunday school, vacation Bible school, Christian youth groups, catechism, private Christian schools, Youth Sunday, and children’s sermons. The survey concludes with a look at the growing interface between such education and the lessons of psychology as well as training and certifying Christian religious educators.

A Survey of Christian Religious Education in the United States

Prior to the landmark Supreme Court decision of June 1963, which banned public prayer from the public schools, Christian religious education was often a routine part of the overt instruction provided by the American public school system. However, in the wake of that legal milestone, even though instruction in the Judeo-Christian interpretation of religious history continued to be taught covertly, American churches began relying more heavily on providing Christian religious education. This article briefly presents Christianity’s contemporary status in the United States and reviews such religious education methods as Sunday school, vacation Bible school, Christian youth groups, catechism, private Christian schools, Youth Sunday, and children’s sermons. The survey concludes with a look at the growing interface between such education and the lessons of psychology as well as training and certifying Christian religious educators.

A Christian Response to Buddhist Reflections on Prayer

In his essay, Kenneth K. Tanaka considers two important elements of Christian prayer when he presents young Megan praying. First is the petitionary element of her prayer, and second is the relational element. Saint John Damascene expresses these same two dimensions in his classical definition of Christian prayer: is the raising of one's mind and to God, or the requesting of good things from God. This movement of the mind and to God makes Christian prayer a living relationship that is itself a gift of God through Christ. The heart of a person is that hidden center in which Christ resides and from where his spirit moves both and mind toward God in a relation of love and devotion. As Saint Therese of Lisieux puts it, For me, prayer is a of the ... it is a cry of recognition and of love, embracing both trial and joy.2 One responds to trials, one's own or those of others, with prayers of petition or intercession; and to joys or blessings with prayers of adoration, praise and thanksgiving. In all cases, the prayers are the dynamics of a person's relationship with God, where God is both ultimate source and object of the prayers. Tanaka also makes two comments about Christian prayer in its public forms. First, he questions the appropriateness of public prayers for civic leaders or for teams at athletic events. Does God choose to aid only some political leaders or nations, or choose sides in athletic games? Though I may feel that God must prefer my son's Little League team, or at least Notre Dame football for heaven's sake, certainly God loves and cares for everyone. Perhaps Tanaka's final characterization of Christian prayer is helpful here: conversational, personal and hopeful. In a public event, one expresses in prayer one's hope, while understanding that God's providence embraces everyone in ways that are larger than one can comprehend. In the essay by Taitetsu Unno on the Jesus Prayer and Nembutsu, the question of dualism and both the initiative and the consequence of prayer is addressed. Unno points out that according to the Jesus Prayer tradition in Eastern Orthodoxy, the initiative of the prayer is from God, much like the intoning of Nembutsu arising from the Vow of Great Compassion. Here, as in Saint Therese's surge of the heart, the ultimate subject and object of prayer are the same. Unno points out that the conse-

In Search of an Establishment Principle: The Original Understanding, Pre-Game Prayers, and Aid to Religious Schools

Two cases decided during the 1999-2000 term of the United States Supreme Court addressed a question that has perplexed the Court for more than 50 years: what constitutes an establishment of religion? In Santa Fe v. Doe,1 the Court ruled that student-led prayers at high school football games violated the Establishment Clause. Mitchell v. Helms2 held that a federal program placing computers and other instructional equipment in parochial school classrooms did not violate the clause. The decisions in both of these cases were accompanied by dissenting opinions that presented alternative interpretations of the Establishment Clause.3 In Santa Fe, the majority of the Court reasons that even if the decision to have a pre-game prayer is made by students, the prayer has the effect of coercing those attending the game to participate in an act of religious worship. In his dissent, Chief Justice Rehnquist, joined by Justices Scalia and Thomas, characterizes the Court’s opinion as hostile to religion. Rehnquist recalls that George Washington proclaimed a day of “‘public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God,’” thereby setting a precedent for the support of religion.4 In addition to straying from the original understanding of establishment, the dissenters also believe that because the policy in question has not yet been implemented, the decision is beyond the proper reach of the Court. In addition to Washington’s proclamation of a day of thanksgiving and prayer, other statements from that era support the view that at the time of the founding, religion was regarded as an important aspect of the nation’s political life. In his Farewell Address, Washington stated: “‘Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.’”5 Thomas Jefferson made this statement in his writings: “‘I consider . . . religion a supplement to law in the government of man.’”6 Both of these statements recognize the

The No Religion Zone: Constitutional Limitations on Religious Association in the Public Sphere

The last decade has witnessed an explosion of religious activity in the public sphere. Political candidates of both parties loudly pronounce their individual faith and link. that faith directly to their political values. Candidates use religious gatherings as political podiums and confidently assert that their God and His teachings define the country's very nature. Meanwhile, activities conducted by religious groups in public schools have become both more numerous and more prominent in the last decade. These activities include public prayer sessions at graduation ceremonies and extracurricular events, meetings by religious organizations on public school properly, prayer sessions around flagpoles outside public school buildings, and religious assemblies on school property, sometimes during the school day. Religious activities by groups of adults in public spaces other than schools have also multiplied. Religious groups conduct large-scale religious ceremonies in public parks, erect religious displays inside and outside public buildings, and even build permanent religious structures on public land.

Book Review: The Art of Public Prayer: Not for Clergy Only

Book Review: The Art of Public Prayer: Not for Clergy Only