I thoroughly enjoyed reading the first issue of THE WEEKLY STANDARD. In particular, the article by Marshall Wittmann struck a receptive chord (” Coalition Man,” Sept. 18).
I am the product of a public elementary school education in Atlanta, GA, where every morning there was a Christian devotional prayer or reading over the loudspeaker followed by another class devotional. While I can certainly agree that such things did not seriously harm the degree of religiosity of this particular rabbi, I will admit to feeling extremely uncomfortable hearing the name of Jesus every single day, sometimes twice a day. Jesus is not my God, and I wondered then — and now — what good there was having the majority culture always dictate the terms and dimensions of those prayers we heard each morning. Perhaps that is why I attended a Jewish Day School in high school. Of course, there too, we had similar problems with our prayer services since there were Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, and non-religious students enrolled. But at least we were the majority and we shared a universe of discourse.
Yes, we are all torn between allowing public school prayers (whether before math tests or not!), private moments of silence (how many 6-year-olds do you know who will pray quietly during that moment? None!), and nothing. The problem seems to be that a) this country which has been raised on prayer, albeit in churches, synagogues, and mosques, seems to be no better off for all of the words we have directed to God; and b) prayer, in school or out, does not by itself have the power to alleviate crime in the streets, homelessness in our communities, or hopelessness in our hearts.
In my own opinion, it is prayer together with active membership in a religious community and constant and continuing study of one’s religious tradition which will ultimately heal our country, and ourselves.
Now the question is: Can a nice Jewish boy like Wittmann help the Christian Coalition understand and advocate all this without giving up their fundamentalist Christian vision of America?
MELVIN J. GLAZER, FAIRFAX, VA
