This week, Sports Illustrated called a public school football coach praying on the field “an erosion of a bedrock of American democracy.”
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SCOTUS will soon rule on the case of a public school football coach who wants to pray on-field after games.@GregBishopSI on Joe Kennedy, the machine backing him and the expected result: a win for Kennedy and an erosion of a bedrock of American democracy: https://t.co/H8tEoQauZh pic.twitter.com/XCmjK0qQsO
— Sports Illustrated (@SInow) June 13, 2022
The Supreme Court is expected to rule imminently on whether that coach has a right to pray in front of players.
Regardless of the legal outcome, calling prayer an “erosion of democracy” seems pretty extreme. Even if it’s illegal, a man communicating with G-d is not a threat to democracy.
Prayer is a very good thing. Why are the left and the media threatened by a devout person who kneels and publicly prays?
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Reason 1: Religion is Irrational
Leftists tend to view people of faith as cavemen. Academic elites consider religion unsophisticated and boorish.
Faith is what uneducated science-deniers do based on ignorance, not realizing that secularists have discarded it as an “opiate”. What rational person believes in an invisible Creator, made up by primitive civilizations thousands of years ago?
But the aversion by the left to religion runs deeper.
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Reason 2: Worshiping Humans
At the core of leftist ideology is the belief that PEOPLE control the planet. The solution to crises like famine, climate change, disease, racism, and poverty–is human beings.
Liberals believe in big government, because the state is equipped to solve all problems.
When a person prays to Hashem, he submits to a higher power, and admits that humans are inferior and fallible. He surrenders to Hashem’s will, and recognizes that humans are weak and inferior. The notion that man is a mere pawn, is a colossal threat to liberalism, a contradiction to man’s omnipotence.
Prayer and religion are the ultimate admission that Hashem, not humans, decides the fate of the world.
Reason 3: They define morality based on whims
The left does not like the idea of an inherent moral code. “Logic” dictates that women can abort a fetus and gender can be chosen at will. How dare a rabbi or priest dictate that they know better.
Essentially, humans can do anything they feel like, and if religion restricts us, then it is the enemy.
Here is an excerpt from an article in The Week entitled “Why do so many liberals despise Christianity?”
“The idea that someone, somewhere might devote her life to an alternative vision of the good — one that clashes in some respects with liberalism’s moral creed — is increasingly intolerable. That is a betrayal of what’s best in the liberal tradition.”
As Jews, we know better. Prayer is not only something we have the right to do. It is the ultimate expression that Hashem is in control. I feel sorry for those who believe that humans are supreme.
These days, it is clear beyond doubt that humans are not the solution. Humans are fallible, weak, and sometimes evil. They create far more problems than they solve.
For religious Jews, our knowledge and faith that Hashem is in control, that our destiny is in His hands, is our only solace, that no matter how chaotic things become, Hashem will bring about the redemption, and the darkness we currently live in will finally be over.
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Yaakov M is a senior columnist for VIN News and former Op-Ed columnist for Newsmax. He has hosted a conservative podcast for 15 years. He studied in Kollel for 14 years, was a Bais Medrash Rebbi for over a decade, and obtained semicha from a top Rosh Yeshiva.
Teaching CRT and mishgav zachor is allowed and mandated. Prayer to God is offensive. Oh, I see the logic.
Jewish kids in public schools will lose out when Christian prayers are done by teachers . There will be peer pressure or other type of pressure to conform.
Say there is a non-religious Jew on the team who gets the clear message that if he wants more playing time and to be considered part of the community, he’ll need to join this coach, on the fifty yard line with tv cameras all around, in Christian prayer. And, since he isn’t religious already, he succumbs to the pressure and joins in.
We should be ok with that? Feels like that’s something we wouldn’t want to happen.
The problem isn’t the prayer – chalilah – it’s the coercion.
If “Leftists tend to view people of faith as cavemen,” the laughably simplistic rhetoric of this essay will only serve to reinforce that.
The issue in this case is not that the coach prayed, but that he went to the fifty yard line in order to do so.
It wasn’t for the sake of his communicating with his gd that he went to the fifty yard line, but in order to make a visible statement, one that can rightfully be called coercive.
I
Yaakov M. has tried to prove this is about religion.
And I agree.
It IS about religion — and that’s why what he did was wrong.
Given his position of authority as to who gets to play and who does not, with marginal players all trying to “get on his good side,” the coach’s behavior was coercive.
And it was coercive towards their joining him in a specifically religious act, which is both unconstitutional and against the interests of frum yidden that live in a xtian environment.
Democrats hate religion except for islam.
How does the same person get it wrong every time?
It’s so kids don’t feel pressured to join in. This often applies to Jewish Kids in a Christian environment. Ask any Jew that went to school in the 50’s (also 60’s?) and they’ll tell you they sang Christmas songs in December.
In NYC some places were mostly Jewish with a few Italians. They would sing “Silent Night” a super religious song. When they got to “Ch*ist the Savior is born” the Jews would hum the tune and skip the words. At home the Italian kids would also hum that part. When asked why they said that’s how they thought the song went.
Bottom line kids who aren’t part of the group shouldn’t be made to feel uncomfortable.
An erosion of a “bedrock of American Democracy” not an erosion of “American Democracy”. SI is clearly referring to the first amendment establishment clause. The link that you posted states that explicitly. Separation of church and state is not anti religion. The moetzes of Agudah opposed school prayer.
There is no comparison whatsoever (as some have tried to make) between what this Xtian coach is doing and a frum teacher making a brachah before eating or going off to a side room to daven Minchah. This coach, as an employee and representative of a public tax payer supported institution, is standing out in the middle of the field in front of the gathered crowd of thousands, with the players effectively coerced to join in, and he is declaring Xtianity to be the official state religion. That is unacceptable, illegal, unconstitutional, and it should really frighten frum Jews.
The appropriate comment came from Red tsunami coming . This is a question of consistency, and in fact (when asked) the lawyers for the school told the Supreme Court during the hearing that the school would fire a coach even for waiving the Ukrainian flag (whether or not the school “really” would fire the coach is another matter, but clearly, consistency required the school to make at least make that claim).