Prayer is fine...but it will take more than that to solve our ills

Among the two-dozen recommendations to be pondered by the new MPS board in the coming months is a provision to reintroduce prayer in the schools.

I don’t have a problem with the premise, but I don’t think unorganized prayer by itself will reverse what is at best a total societal collapse that is manifested in record drop-out rates, dysfunctional Black families and unprecedented violence.

Simply having children murmuring words they don’t understand or appreciate, or "praying" to a God they don’t relate to, much less fear, is akin to crossing your fingers as you run across a heavily trafficked intersection, blindfolded.

That’s not to say I don’t believe in God, embrace Christianity as my secondary path (my first being my personal link to Him), or respect the power of prayer as our primary "spiritual" connection to our Creator.

But in truth, I don’t think a teacher standing in front of spiritually challenged students, reciting a prayer to someone with no concept of faith or religion is going to make much of an impact.

Moreover, expecting a teacher, who is already overburdened with the tasks of disciplinarian and social worker to now take on the role of minister, is asking a lot, not to mention opening a Pandora’s Box of constitutional and theological concerns.

Maybe I’m wrong. There’s always the faint hope that immersing wayward children in prayer will spark connectiveness, even if they’ve never been exposed to religion or spirituality. But life experience and four decades of experimentation and involvement in a half dozen religions--from Islam, Deism to African Spiritualism--has left me enriched, but realistic.

The two most significant concepts I’ve learned to accept from my sojourn for divine enlightenment are that there is much more to spirituality than most of us are willing to comprehend. And secondly, if we take the Bible, Koran and Taoism literally, heaven is not a very crowded place.

Of a less significant note, I have long accepted the fact that there are actually few true Christians in our midst. A recent national research project revealed that 85% of Black Americans describe themselves as Christians, yet less than 20% attend church regularly, only 12% have ever read the Bible, and I would guess that same percentage consistently practice the basic tenets of the religion. (Interestingly, the percentage of practicing Muslims is much higher.)

Imagine what society would be like if we truly practiced what our pastors’ preached, if we followed the Word and obeyed the basic tenets of the Christian faith:

Crime would be almost extinct. Two parents would head eight of ten households; we wouldn’t have a teen pregnancy problem, or worry about AIDS, STDs, DUIs, or a half dozen other acronyms.

Instead, most people who call themselves Christians generally fall in the categories of quasi, casual or convenient Christians. They either selectively adhere to commandments and scripture that don’t inconvenience their lifestyles or subcultures, are comfortably ignorant of the tenets they say they follow, or are so myopic in their vision that they can’t see the forest for the trees.

And then there are the extremists at both ends of the religions spectrum; at one end you have radicals who kill abortionists to supposedly save the unborn, and at the other fanatics who kneel before a God that tolerates every conceivable sin under the sun; that the Bible is a comic book written by Peter, Paul and Mary (the folk singers, not the Biblical figures).

Thus, there’s a danger in novices leading prayer in the schools, since research reveals that most Christians can’t distinguish between religion and Hebrew culture, don’t realize Jesus was a Jew, and can’t explain the difference between religion and spirituality.

I’ve all but given up debating myopic zealots who use the Bible to justify prejudice and hatred, along with those folks whose misinterpretation of the Word reinforces a culture of hypocrisy.

There was a time when I would expose their double standards, undermine their limited knowledge of scripture in general and theology in particular. Nowadays, I restrict those debates to open-minded intellectuals whose pursuit of knowledge is expressly rooted in their quest to move closer to the Source. Debating with those of a closed mind generally leads to frustration, name calling and needless aggravation.

My last sojourn down that path came a couple weeks ago after I mentioned in a column that Jesus was a man of color. My suggestion was called blasphemous, as was my statement that Christ is not Jesus’ last name, but instead his title. Ironically, the rebuttal came from a Black cleric that I assume has a picture of Jeffrey Hunter adorning his altar and preaches that Jews were the only group worthy of a personal relationship with God.

And therein lies a basic error in our understanding of Christianity. If you don’t know whom you’re worshipping and what he laments, your life’s journey is premised on misconceptions and myths.

(I was tempted to send the minister documents about ancient African antiquity, and enlighten him on how our ancestors were the first to embrace monotheism, introduced the 42 negative confessions, and the trinity, and promoted a universal order through the concept of Maat that was ordained by the Creator.

But truth is generally wasted on the closed minded, who are unwilling to even entertain a thought that strays from entrenched beliefs.

(But I digress).

The call for a return to prayer in the public schools coincides with a public debate about the effectiveness of prayer to stem the tide of violence overwhelming our community. Most recently, the subject came up following the murder of four-year-old Jasmine Owens, who was gunned down while jumping rope outside her home. There was an immediate call for a prayer vigil, and collective prayer to stop the violence. A dozen Black churches also heeded the call from Mayor Tom Barrett this past weekend, and lifted up in prayer to stop the senseless murders.

Within hours of their services, however, there were four new shootings that rocked our city.

A few weeks ago, CYD Director Jeannetta Robinson raised a stir when she declared on WMCS radio that we don’t need more police or social workers to deal with the epidemic of violence in our community, we can solve the problems of our schools and community through prayer.

No one questioned Jeannetta’s sincerity, but the general sentiment was that for whatever reason, those turning to that methodology keep getting a busy signal when we call God’s number.

In truth, I don’t have an answer to this dilemma. I can cite scripture--"faith without works is dead (2nd James," or God’s response to Solomon, 2nd Chronicles)--as reasons why prayer in this case is not enough.

In fact, I raised this question to my mother, a minister and one of the few true Christians I know, who shrugged when asked why our vigils have not led to an end to the senseless violence. She ministered for me to turn to Isaiah for a possible answer, albeit adding that "God may not respond when you want, but he’s always on time," and there is obviously a rationale beyond our comprehension for this dichotomous situation.

"It may also be that the Lord’s line is not busy, but instead that His ‘righteous people’ are not the ones doing the dialing," she theorized. Moreover, she added, "too many people view prayer as a one-way conversation, instead of a dialogue. We ask, but we don’t listen to Him."

Interesting theories, but as Speech said, "I was still thirty." So I sought out other explanations from people of goodwill, leading to three possible theories also worthy of consideration.

The first surmises that not enough of us embrace prayer as the most viable option, and without our collective voices in unison, God doesn’t hear us.

A similar theory concludes that our prayers are ineffective because those who we wish to influence are in fact outside the realm of our influence (controlled by Satan), or that their purpose on this planet provides the yang to our yin. In other words, the universal order is premised on balance: for every good, there is a bad; evil is necessary to prompt the righteous to do good.

Then there is the basic tenet of Deism, which advances the belief that God does not intervene in the day-to-day goings on of mankind. Deism is a religion-based on logic, and includes the "revelation" that God gave mankind freewill, and allows us to navigate as we see fit, even if we steer into an iceberg. Thus, poverty, war, despair and pestilence can be explained away by suggesting that God observes, but does not intervene.

The third suggestion, which is among the most intriguing, suggests we are being punished for a century of betrayal of God’s word.

This theory holds that we are the chosen, the original man, and like the followers of the Prophet Moses have rejected most of God’s laws and as a result have been sentenced to a 40-year sojourn in the wilderness of indifference and self-destruction.

Instead of wandering in the wilderness, we are roving the streets of urban America, thoughtless, disobedient Gentiles looking for a promised land that was under our feet all along--cast down your bucket where you are. In a nutshell, we are being punished for our transgressions against God and each other.

If you subscribe to that latter theory, God has turned His back on His promised people in response to our turning our back on Him. We have squandered His love, rejected his sovereignty, and put other gods before him.

You don’t have to be a conservative to acknowledge that immorality--self-destructive behavior and disobedience--define our community. Milwaukee--urban America--has become Sodom, and apparently when God sent out the call for a few good men, we fell abysmally short.

So, like the Jews, we have been cast on a 40-year sojourn, with our only saving grace being the hope that the next generation will be allowed to benefit from a new beginning.

Of course, that theory also suggests that we have learned from our mistakes, and that we will teach our children righteousness. That’s debatable, particularly given the epidemic of teen pregnancy, idolatry, and wanton self-degradation exhibited by a large percentage of our children.

Of course a strong case can be made that fruit doesn’t fall far from the tree, so you can’t rightfully blame the children, particularly those who are merely manifesting the behavior and culture provided by their parent(s). What type of sculpture can be expected from clay molded by parents with few pottery skills?

What can you expect from children who are being led down a path paved by parent(s) still walking under the shadow of slavery? Can you really expect children who sit alongside their parents watching cartoons on Sunday morning instead of attending church or a Mosque to have a rudimentary understanding of God’s words and vision for them?

Can you expect a child raised without a father in their lives to understand how to be a man in the image of prophets? Can you expect an impressionable child who is bombarded with rap played by their parent, or who observes their mother emerging from the bedroom with yet another "uncle" to understand that when Jesus spoke of loving your neighbor he wasn’t talking about sex?

In most cases, children are a reflection of their parents. Children brought up in homes where God rules, who are raised in the church or otherwise grounded in strong morals and values, do not shoot indiscriminately during drive-bys and kill four-year-old babies. Simply put, too many of our children are being raised to prey, instead of pray.

As I said, I’m not opposed to offering prayer in the school. Who knows, it may touch a child, or spark a question that could lead to an awakening that can save a child, but the odds suggest that won’t happen.

The public schools are not the pulpit for providing a religious or moral foundation. It should happen in the home. But if the parent(s) aren’t providing a religious or spiritual foundation for them to stand on, why should we be surprised if they fall through the concrete cracks.
Hotep.