School-prayer advocates compartmentalize away that Jesus opposed public prayer
Evidence
American Highs have been mightily offended by the Supreme Court ruling against prayer in public schools. In Canada children used to recite the Lord’s Prayer routinely at the beginning of the school day, until it was challenged in the courts. The case aroused the fury of those who believe in school prayer. These people probably have read the Bible a great deal, but they seem to have missed that Jesus himself was against public prayer, saying we should go into a closet and shut the door when we say the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:5-13)— the very prayer Highs wanted said aloud in public schools. — Bob Altemeyer, The Authoritarian Specter, 1214
Categorization
Category: Contrarian or Surprising Claims
- XREF: The compartmentalization of religious contradiction parallels the civil-religion case in my ‘Grafting & Growth’ adjacent notes on belief systems, and connects to the immodesty moral-panics material about how moral crusades selectively read texts.
- CANDY: A quick, gleeful point: the very prayer school-prayer advocates wanted aloud is one Jesus commanded be said privately.