Watch out, America, there may be a lot of unseemly mixing of religion and government this weekend, if the sponsors of the "Cry Out America" campaign have their way.
A group called the Awakening America Alliance is trying to organize "Cry Out America" rallies in every county on September 11, many of them taking place on public property or featuring public officials. The mission of the alliance is to "pursue a new Christ awakening in our nation . . . to impact the nation's non-Christian population," especially "discipling new generations of American youth."
"We really wish we could 'awaken America' and public officials to the dangers of public officials mixing religion and government," said Annie Laurie Gaylor. Gaylor, with Dan Barker, directs the Madison-Wis.-based Freedom From Religion Foundation, the nation's largest association of freethinkers (atheists/agnostics), which works to keep state and church separate.
"Many of the people who were killed on 9-11 were not Christian," notes Barker. Yet, he said, the Awakening America Alliance is overtly Christian in emphasis. The group lists as "qualifications" that coordinators be "a born again disciple of Jesus Christ . . . commended by a pastor or Christian leader."
"What is also unseemly is the call for Christian prayer not only for the victims, but the first responders, and men and women in the military, who come in all religious stripes and none at all!" said Barker.
An example of the First Amendment violations being inspired by this evangelical campaign is found in Cleveland, Tenn. The Foundation has sent a letter of complaint to Bradley County Schools, Tenn., asking it to cancel the official participation of the Bradley Central High School ROTC Color Guard as part of the group's local prayer service Saturday in Cleveland, Tenn. Cleveland Mayor Tom Rowland "will proclaim the city to be of holy people based on Isaiah Chapter 62." Two state representatives will participate, and one will read from the bible.
"Under the dictates of our secular constitution, a public school/ ROTC-sponsored color guard may not formally participate in the purely religious, overtly sectarian 'Cry out America' prayer service," Gaylor wrote Johnny McDaniel, director of Bradley County Schools. The event is openly focused on proselytizing youths, which makes the public school connection all the more inappropriate.
The Foundation said that private religious groups are entirely free to organize prayer events, "but public officials, especially public school officials, ought to have the sense to leave such events to the churches," Gaylor said.
Added Barker, a former evangelical minister and author of the books Losing Faith in Faith and Godless: "Our skeptical membership believes that nothing fails like prayer. The lesson we should take home from 9-11, the ultimate 'faith-based initiative,' is the danger of religious fanaticism and division."
