Christianity Is Under Trial With the “Praying Coach” Case
This week, the trial of football coach Joseph Kennedy will be heard at the U.S. Supreme Court. Kennedy was fired after he repeatedly prayed at the 50-yard line after football games. According to Kennedy, he was saying a prayer of thanks for his team’s performance: “That’s where I made my commitment to God before I even took the coaching job. There on the field of battle.”
The case against Kennedy is that his public prayer was violating the first amendment’s disestablishment clause—otherwise known as the “separation between church and state.” In his capacity as a public-school football coach, he used his platform and authority to endorse the Christian religion.
This is the argument made by Episcopal priest Randall Balmer in a recent op-ed at the Los Angeles Times. Balmer claims, “Any time prayer is compulsory or coercive in a public context, it can violate the establishment clause of the First Amendment, which forbids the state from favoring one faith over another (or no faith at all).”
For Balmer, Coach Kennedy’s praying on the football field is “compulsory and coercive” because the school board said so. By their account, onlookers and players felt compelled to join him in prayer and become Christians themselves.
Balmer takes his argument even further and states that even Jesus would disapprove of Kennedy’s public prayer: “[Kennedy’s praying] also violates the spirit of prayer itself.” This is because Jesus once told the people to “pray in secret” and not be like the Pharisees praying in public and making a show of their faith.
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