On Horizontal Vs Vertical Prayer
Helen Hegener
I've been just lurking along on digest, trying to catch up with all
my lists, but I thought this piece - by one of my favorite writers -
was particularly relevant to the current discussion:
http://www.suntimes.com/output/eb-feature/cst-edt-ebert05.html
On Horizontal Vs Vertical Prayer
March 5, 2003
BY ROGER EBERT
The Bush administration has been dealt a setback in its campaign to allow
prayer in our public schools. The full 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals
has voted 15-9 to back the 2-1 vote by its earlier panel finding the
Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional because of the words ''under God.''
The pledge, written in 1892, had those words added to it in 1954, during
the Eisenhower administration, and I remember a nun in our Catholic
school telling us we had to say it because it was the law--but it was
wrong, because it violated the principle of separating church and state.
We started every day with classroom prayer at St. Mary's School, of
course, but Sister Rosanne said there was a difference between voluntary
prayer in a private religious school and prayer in a school paid for by
every taxpayer--a distinction so obvious that Bush and Attorney General
John Ashcroft are forced to willfully ignore it.
Ashcroft said after the ruling that his Justice Department will ''spare
no effort to preserve the rights of all our citizens to pledge allegiance
to the American flag''--a misrepresentation so blatant that it functions
as a lie. The pledge remains intact and unchallenged. The court said
nothing about pledging allegiance to the flag. It spoke only of the words
''under God''--which amounted, the court said, to an endorsement of
religion.
This is really an argument between two kinds of prayer--vertical and
horizontal. I don't have the slightest problem with vertical prayer. It
is horizontal prayer that frightens me. Vertical prayer is private,
directed upward toward heaven. It need not be spoken aloud, because God
is a spirit and has no ears. Horizontal prayer must always be audible,
because its purpose is not to be heard by God, but to be heard by fellow
men standing within earshot.
To choose an example from football, when my team needs a field goal to
win and I think, ''Please, dear God, let them make it!''--that is
vertical prayer. When, before the game, a group of fans joins hands and
''voluntarily'' recites the Lord's Prayer--that is horizontal prayer. It
serves one of two purposes: to encourage me to join them, or to make me
feel excluded.
Although some of the horizontal devout are sincere, others use this
prayer as a device of recruitment or intimidation. If you are conspicuous
in your refusal to go along, they may even turn and pray while holding
you directly in their sights.
This simple insight about two kinds of prayer, which is beyond
theological question, should bring a dead halt to the obsession with
prayer in public places. It doesn't, because the purpose of its
supporters is political, not spiritual. Their faith is like Dial soap:
Now that they use it, they wish everyone would. I grew up in an America
where people of good breeding did not impose their religious convictions
upon those they did not know very well. Now those manners have been
discarded.
Our attorney general, John Ashcroft, is theoretically responsible for
enforcing the separation of church and state. He violates his oath of
office daily by getting down on his knees in his government office every
morning and welcoming federal employees to join him in ''voluntary''
prayer on carpets paid for by the taxpayers.
His brand of religion is specifically fundamentalist evangelical. As his
eyes lift from beneath lowered lids to take informal attendance, would he
be gladdened to see a Muslim, a Catholic, a Jew, a Hindu, a Buddhist, a
Baha'i, a Unitarian, a Scientologist, all accompanied by the chants of
Hare Krishnas?
Under Bush we have had a great deal of horizontal prayer, in which we
evoke the deity at political events to send the sideways message that our
enemies had better look out, because God is on our side. This week's
Newsweek cover story reports that the Bush presidency ''is the most
resolutely 'faith-based' in modern times.''
Because our enemies are for the most part more enthusiastic about
horizontal prayer than we are, and see absolutely no difference between
church and state--indeed, want to make them the same--it is alarming to
reflect that they may be having more success bringing us around to their
point of view than we are at sticking to our own traditional American
beliefs about freedom of religion. When Ashcroft and his enemies both
begin their days with displays of their godliness, do we feel safer after
they rise from their devotions?
Copyright © Chicago Sun-Times Inc.
my lists, but I thought this piece - by one of my favorite writers -
was particularly relevant to the current discussion:
http://www.suntimes.com/output/eb-feature/cst-edt-ebert05.html
On Horizontal Vs Vertical Prayer
March 5, 2003
BY ROGER EBERT
The Bush administration has been dealt a setback in its campaign to allow
prayer in our public schools. The full 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals
has voted 15-9 to back the 2-1 vote by its earlier panel finding the
Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional because of the words ''under God.''
The pledge, written in 1892, had those words added to it in 1954, during
the Eisenhower administration, and I remember a nun in our Catholic
school telling us we had to say it because it was the law--but it was
wrong, because it violated the principle of separating church and state.
We started every day with classroom prayer at St. Mary's School, of
course, but Sister Rosanne said there was a difference between voluntary
prayer in a private religious school and prayer in a school paid for by
every taxpayer--a distinction so obvious that Bush and Attorney General
John Ashcroft are forced to willfully ignore it.
Ashcroft said after the ruling that his Justice Department will ''spare
no effort to preserve the rights of all our citizens to pledge allegiance
to the American flag''--a misrepresentation so blatant that it functions
as a lie. The pledge remains intact and unchallenged. The court said
nothing about pledging allegiance to the flag. It spoke only of the words
''under God''--which amounted, the court said, to an endorsement of
religion.
This is really an argument between two kinds of prayer--vertical and
horizontal. I don't have the slightest problem with vertical prayer. It
is horizontal prayer that frightens me. Vertical prayer is private,
directed upward toward heaven. It need not be spoken aloud, because God
is a spirit and has no ears. Horizontal prayer must always be audible,
because its purpose is not to be heard by God, but to be heard by fellow
men standing within earshot.
To choose an example from football, when my team needs a field goal to
win and I think, ''Please, dear God, let them make it!''--that is
vertical prayer. When, before the game, a group of fans joins hands and
''voluntarily'' recites the Lord's Prayer--that is horizontal prayer. It
serves one of two purposes: to encourage me to join them, or to make me
feel excluded.
Although some of the horizontal devout are sincere, others use this
prayer as a device of recruitment or intimidation. If you are conspicuous
in your refusal to go along, they may even turn and pray while holding
you directly in their sights.
This simple insight about two kinds of prayer, which is beyond
theological question, should bring a dead halt to the obsession with
prayer in public places. It doesn't, because the purpose of its
supporters is political, not spiritual. Their faith is like Dial soap:
Now that they use it, they wish everyone would. I grew up in an America
where people of good breeding did not impose their religious convictions
upon those they did not know very well. Now those manners have been
discarded.
Our attorney general, John Ashcroft, is theoretically responsible for
enforcing the separation of church and state. He violates his oath of
office daily by getting down on his knees in his government office every
morning and welcoming federal employees to join him in ''voluntary''
prayer on carpets paid for by the taxpayers.
His brand of religion is specifically fundamentalist evangelical. As his
eyes lift from beneath lowered lids to take informal attendance, would he
be gladdened to see a Muslim, a Catholic, a Jew, a Hindu, a Buddhist, a
Baha'i, a Unitarian, a Scientologist, all accompanied by the chants of
Hare Krishnas?
Under Bush we have had a great deal of horizontal prayer, in which we
evoke the deity at political events to send the sideways message that our
enemies had better look out, because God is on our side. This week's
Newsweek cover story reports that the Bush presidency ''is the most
resolutely 'faith-based' in modern times.''
Because our enemies are for the most part more enthusiastic about
horizontal prayer than we are, and see absolutely no difference between
church and state--indeed, want to make them the same--it is alarming to
reflect that they may be having more success bringing us around to their
point of view than we are at sticking to our own traditional American
beliefs about freedom of religion. When Ashcroft and his enemies both
begin their days with displays of their godliness, do we feel safer after
they rise from their devotions?
Copyright © Chicago Sun-Times Inc.
Christina Morrissey
Excellent article....Thanks for posting it!!
>On Horizontal Vs Vertical Prayer
>March 5, 2003
>BY ROGER EBERT