God in our schools

Popular sentiments floating around the web and Facebook lament that we have systematically removed God from the classrooms and schools and that is somehow related to the horrible tragedies we as a nation have faced, most recently in Newtown, CT.  As a pastor I beg to differ with these sentiments.  First we must realize that “we” cannot remove God from our schools, workplaces and homes, we can only pretend that God is not present in our lives and in the lives of others. The intimated solution to our nation’s propensity toward violence is the reintroduction of prayer and scripture into our schools.   Perhaps it is our understanding about the nature of God inherent in these intimated solutions that is itself a part of the problem.  The simple logistics behind the introduction of pray and scripture reading in the schools opens the preverbal can of worms.  We live in a pluralistic society and our faith and non-faith is expressed in a multitude of ways.  The simple choices of what scripture, what prayer, what time of day, what body posture, which direction faced all carry a faith tradition preference that includes some and excludes many others.  The very solution points to the theological understanding that is at the basis of our problem, we fail to see the presence of God in the other.  Every major religion in the world has as one of its basic teachings some form of the “Golden Rule,” we are to treat and respect others as we wish to be treated and respected.  In my faith tradition, Western Christianity, there has been a theological shift from understanding God’s presence within the community to a personal relationship with God.  That theological shift has allowed us to entertain the notion that God is present in “Me but not Thee.”  And if God is not present in thee, then this “Golden Rule” understanding can go out the window.  When we learn to accept others, no matter what faith tradition they may or may not practice, as our brothers and sisters in this family of God, then we can start to move away from seeing these, our brothers and sisters, as the other.  There is no single or simple solution to the violence in our nation, but perhaps, this shift back toward a “Golden Rule” theology will begin to allow us to move us back in the right direction.