Records of the Continental Congress in the Constitutional Convention, July 27, 1787
Posted on 11/07/2013 3:43:21 PM PST by daniel1212
A Minneapolis, Minnesota-based Christian pastor and school bus driver was terminated last week after he violated two warnings issued by the school district and the subcontractor company that he worked for in which he was asked to refrain from leading students in prayer.
George Nathaniel, who pastors the Elite Church of the First Born and Grace Missionary Baptist Church, received separate complaint letters from the Burnsville-Eagan-Savage district and Durham School Services, a school bus operating company, in addition to his reassignment for different bus routes. However, Nathaniel dismissed their reprimands and continued his daily prayers during the children's school ride.
"I let them know I am a pastor and I am going to pray," Nathaniel said, according to StarTribune.com. "To fire a bus driver for praying for the safety of the children is not right."
The termination letter that Nathaniel received from Durham School Services addressed the increase of complaints regarding "religious material" on the bus as well as complaints about his performance. In their last warning to him, they also forewarned him of possible termination if he did not comply.
Although Durham does not have a specific policy regarding prayer, the company's contract with the school district states that an employee can be let go if they are deemed "unsuitable" for their job.
Nathaniel was in his second year as a bus driver for the district and during his tenure, he initiated prayer during the entire ride to school which would begin with a song each day as his way of giving students "something constructive and positive to go to school with." He also said he did not force students to pray but he welcomed anyone that was open to the idea.
According to Teresa Nelson, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota, school bus drivers are indistinguishable from any other school district employee when it comes to their responsibility to avoid endorsement of religion since busses are operated by the school district, either directly or indirectly through a contract with a private company.
"His conduct was particularly troubling because students on a school bus are a captive audience. Students who did not wish to participate in the prayer would undoubtedly feel pressure to participate in that setting," Nelson said to The Christian Post.
She added, "The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment prohibits school officials from endorsing or promoting religion. This includes school officials leading students in prayers on school grounds or during school-related activities."
However, according to Nathaniel, his prayer sessions were of no "harm" because he said he spoke with a few parents who were in agreement with him about praying while transporting their children. He also said he has led prayer while being employed as a bus driver in Wisconsin and Georgia in previous years.
"We got to get Christians to be able to be Christians and not have to be closet Christians," said Nathaniel. "You have something good, you are going to share it with somebody."
What this driver was doing would not have been an issue at least in the South before the 60's, but today the kids can be taught Islamic prayers and indoctrinated in homosexual propaganda, and taught to protest by their liberal teachers. etc.
All under the premise that the first amendment forbids state sanction of any expression of (Christian) religion, but state sanction of secularism and its ever-morphing (im)morality and political religion is welcome.
If he bowed toward Mecca in prayer, bet he wouldn’t have been fired...
I’ll bet Obama’s old pastor would have gotten away with it.
The pressure keeps on.
However. At least for now. If a STUDENT chose to initiate such a prayer, there couldn’t be anything brought down on the driver. The devil can’t out fox God, but we have to be flexible and work the way God has provided.
And... especially if the prayer included an audible request for God to bless everybody who wasn’t praying! That would be very biblical and it would be very hard to criticize such class.
As a Christian, I know I am to pray for those that persecute me but sometimes I find it hard to do.
My school district, growing up. My, how things have changed.
Records of the Continental Congress in the Constitutional Convention, July 27, 1787
Well, part of it is in being flexible according to the Lord’s plan. To the crooked, God shows Himself astute. He gets around the problem and doesn’t always mow the (human) agent directly down.
Yup, today’s judicial take on it is quite tortured.
Well, God lets the choker of evil ratchet down for good reason. He wants us to get the idea that the world, however rich in its own senses, cannot compare to Him. Once we earnestly embrace Him again and praise His name from a heart like a child (and yes I am being serious in my tagline) we see the victory from the powerfully loving heart of God.
That thought crossed my mind.
Basically that’s asking you to evangelize even those who are so far in unbelief that they attack you. God sets out lots of ways to do this. It is really a corollary from the essential fact that our enemy is not flesh and blood, but Satan.
basically as said.
Not yet. Prayerfully never.
It is amazing how our governments Christian roots are being hidden. This document and others would surprise many people.
The Lord DOES work in mysterious ways. Sometimes it's hard to see His hand in this mess but as sure as I breath,I know it is there.
I hate to say it, but as a Christian I really don’t want my kid’s bus driver doing this kind of thing, it’s not the time and place for it. He’s a bus driver not my church pastor. Imagine if it was someone from another religion doing this? I doubt anyone would appreciate Muslim prayers on the bus 5 times a day.
So they want to do montages in schools? Include things like this. The positive influences of faith in history. God can get around things with enough class that even the unbelieving find it hard to criticize.
This is INCORRECT! No where in the 1st Amendment does it talk about separation of church and state nor does it talk about endorsing or promoting religion. It does however talk about the free exercise of religion.
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