One of the most influential people in a young person’s life is their coach. It’s an awesome role, an awesome responsibility. An abusive coach can do damage it takes a lifetime to heal. A mentoring coach can shift a kid’s trajectory through life from destructive to productive. Self-centered kids learn teamwork and fair play. A coach’s very way of being can inspire, can shape character that goes way beyond the context of sports. And when a coach is a person of faith, that faith shows up, and has influence, through all their actions.
In recent weeks, a coach of one of our community’s high school football teams has chosen to practice what he considers to be a mandate of his faith, by leading a prayer at the football game, in the context of his role as coach and employee of the public school system. By all accounts, he’s a good coach, a mentoring model, a person of integrity. I respect him. I respect his choice to pray. And I hope he changes his mind about leading prayer as part of his coaching role.
The law has some things to say about mixing church and state. So does our church.
It’s in the United States Constitution, the very first part of the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” That is, government is prohibited from having an officially favored religion. It’s a violation of the US constitution, and the constitution of the State of Washington, for any of our governments to require or pressure people to adopt a particular religious faith or practice.
To care for those who are especially impressionable, Washington state law explicitly protects students in our public schools: “No officer, employee, agent, or contractor of a school district may impose his or her religious beliefs on any student in class work, homework, evaluations or tests, extracurricular activities, or other activities under the auspices of the school district.” (RCW 28A.600.025)
As a Christian pastor, I want to take seriously what my church has to say about it, too.
In our scriptures, we find several relevant instructions, but they don’t all lead us in the same direction.
- We are to testify to our faith publicly (Acts 1:8), but we are not to make a public display of prayer (Matthew 6:5-6)
- We are to obey the government (Romans 13:1-6), but our faith-models in scripture and history include those who opposed governing authorities even if the consequence is imprisonment, torture or death (Acts 5:29).
It’s a similarly mixed testimony down through the years of Christian history. Let’s move straight to the social teaching of our own United Methodist Church today.
The Social Principles of the United Methodist Church support our current law. “The state should not use its authority to promote particular religious beliefs (including atheism), nor should it require prayer or worship in the public schools, but it should leave students free to practice their own religious convictions.” (Book of Discipline 2012, Par. 164C: Church and State Relations)
On the other hand, these same Social Principles support the right of individuals acting in good conscience to disobey laws they find unjust, under certain conditions: “We recognize the right of individuals to dissent when acting under the constraint of conscience and, after having exhausted all legal recourse, to resist or disobey laws that they deem to be unjust or that are discriminately enforced. Even then, respect for law should be shown by refraining from violence and by being willing to accept the costs of disobedience.” (Par. 164F, Civil Obedience and Civil Disobedience)
According to our church’s teachings, even though we affirm the current laws protecting students from the imposition of religious faith & practice by their teachers, we also respect and recognize the coach’s right to disobey this law if he is constrained by conscience to consider it unjust, and we would expect that he would be willing to accept the cost of this disobedience, even if the cost might include his position as coach.
As I mentioned at the beginning of this extra-wordy article, I hope the coach changes his mind about public prayer as a part of his coaching role. Actions always speak louder than words. A life of integrity witnesses more powerfully than a show of piety. I expect that his influence through coaching and mentoring with integrity would be more fruitful, for more years, than his current witness through losing that opportunity.
In the meantime, I pray that people on all sides of the conversation treat one another with great respect. THAT’s a witness to faith, too.
In peace,
Wes
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