The Lords Prayer and communal recitation

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Sorry, I just have to point out the irony of Evangelicals continuing to lament the Lords Prayer not being said at the start of each school day in the public schools. Vain repetition is fine at school but not at church? 🤔🤔🤔
 
I’ve never heard that Evangelical Protestants are lamenting the Lord’s Prayer not being said at the start of the school day in public schools. Never heard specifically "the Lord’s Prayer).

They (and I was one for 47 years) protest the lack of a “moment of silence” at the beginning of the day so that students can pray, meditate, or simply have one minute of silence.

The rabbi whose life was saved when a woman in church (someone that he had known for years) jumped between him and the gunman, said in a speech at the National Prayer Breakfast that he hoped the horrible shooting in his church would bring about the return of the “moment of silence” in public schools. So it’s not just “Evangelical Protestants” who think this is a good idea.

I’ve also heard of New Agers who think a moment of silence for students is a good idea for their mental and spiritual health.

Frankly, with all the noise in our daily lives here in the U.S., I think a moment of silence sounds like a “wellness” thing–we could all use more silence in our lives.
 
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Darryl_B said:
On the surface that seems very judgmental.

And thank God I am not like those Catholics kind of thing.
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Well, to be clear, I have said the Lord’s Prayer in Unison in a Southern Baptist church. It is just not part of our tradition to do it every week. My southern baptist mom had the Lord’s Prayer hanging on a plaque in our home and I can never remember not having the Lord’s Prayer memorized. So it is not like the Southern Baptist are anti-Lord’s Prayer.

The big difference is our tradition isn’t liturgical. We don’t have a set order of worship that each church must follow, we do not have a book of prayer and written prayers are rarely, if ever, said as a prayer.

Instead the local church leadership decides the order of worship, what songs will be sung, who will say a prayer, when the offering is taken, what scripture will be taught, how often we will meet, how often the Lord’s supper will be taken, what the sermon will be about, what missions work will be carried out, the local church budget and spending items and so on and so forth.

That is why if you go in one Southern Baptist church is may have a worship band sing modern songs, responsive readings, take communion monthly or even weekly, take up the offering at the end of the service and not have an alter call. But if you go into another Southern Baptist church they may have an orchestra with a choir decked out in robes, never or rarely do responsive readings, sing classic hymns, take up the offering in the middle of the service, have a long drawn out alter call every week, and take communion every three months.

To us the church is the people of God and the church service is the gathering of God’s people to worship, learn, and equip us to live the life and do the work He has called us to do.
 
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lanman87 said:
Instead the local church leadership decides the order of worship, what songs will be sung, who will say a prayer, when the offering is taken, what scripture will be taught, how often we will meet, how often the Lord’s supper will be taken, what the sermon will be about, what missions work will be carried out, the local church budget and spending items and so on and so forth.
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I was raised mostly non denominational. What you described is what I experienced at the churches I went to. One of the things I love about the Catholic Church is the liturgical calendar. We follow the life of Christ throughout the year in liturgy. Christmas just isn’t a single day it’s a season. The same with Lent, Easter and Advent. All the readings from the Bible are centered around the time of year in which we are reflecting in Christ’s life. The decorations and colors and other activities also reflect the time of year. So to me it’s just a deeper, richer, almost mystical experience of Christian living.
 
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There is an old joke that Evangelicals have better memories than Catholics because Catholics do and say the same things every Sunday from a book, while Evangelicals also do and say the same things every Sunday, but don’t need the book to remind them what to do next.
 
I’m not sure where all the animosity to the Lord’s Prayer is coming from or maybe I’m not talking to the same evangelicals. I’ve been to southern funerals where the prayer was sung or said collectively (one of these was a historic Baptist church), and I had to memorize the prayer in Sunday school. We set the prayer to music and use it as worship songs. So again, I’m not seeing the same animosity.
 
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It’s what happens when everyone interprets scripture on their own without a Magisterium. You end up with countless differences even within the same denomination.
 
Perhaps it was a southern thing? I lived in Florida at the time and even had a very uncomfortable experience with a teacher forcing me to recite it in front of the class. The famous Madeline Murray O Hair (sp) filed a challenge in court that removed it. There was uproar and protests all over parts of the US. I can still recite it by heart to this day…a Jew that knows the Lords Prayer?

Yes, Evangelicals were very upset and settled for the moment of silence but that isn’t what they wanted and I still see it being discussed on occasion by that community.

I never objected to a moment of silence but I think there was still issues with a few schools not following the intent of the law.
 
Evangelicals (at least the denominational ones) have a “bulletin” that has the “order of service”. They also use the bulletin to take sermon notes (often Evangelical church bulletins will set aside a page of their bulletin for sermon notes).
 
Makes sense. Now the prayer and the moment of silence is gone from pretty much all public schools. But interestingly, I have heard of public schools doing “centering” activities, meditation, yoga, daily affirmations, etc.
 
Yes, cultural Christianity played a large role in education. The first public schools were created to assimilate immigrants, and part of that included teaching generic Protestant values. There was actually a lot of tension over Catholics in Northern cities being taught Protestantism in school. Now, you can’t even pray generic prayers at football games, which a lot of people in the south still resent.
 
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Appreciate what you are trying to say. The question is one of mode rather than one of content. The vehicle if you will rather than the passenger.
 
We had a few Catholics in my classes that also had a problem with the prayer as it was the Protestant version, slightly different from yours. They, too, were discriminated against…probably why my best friend was Catholic. We shared a common discriminatory treatment.

Several things were common to the start of a school day…the Pledge, the prayer and singing Dixie! Every day. That song became an ear worm!😩
 
Does everything have to be specific?

Remember that the Church has the power of binding and loosing “whatever” - that is a whole lot of stuff, right?
 
How do they reconcile “vain repetition” with Jesus’ instruction to pray the Our Father
11 One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.”
2 He said to them, “When you pray, say:
“‘Father, hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come.
3 Give us each day our daily bread.
4 Forgive us our sins,
for we also forgive everyone who sins against us
Luke 11:1-4 (NIV)
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It’s a “pattern” of how we should pray, not a prayer to be repeated word for word… I’m pretty sure that’s what my Plymouth Brethren raised grandma used to say. Even recitation of the Lord’s Prayer approached the evils of liturgy…
 
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