Can A High School Coach Pray At 50-Yard Line? 5 Key Takeaways From High Court Arguments
Weekend Plug-in 🔌
Editor’s note: Every Friday, “Weekend Plug-in” features analysis, fact checking and top headlines from the world of faith. Subscribe now to get this newsletter delivered straight to your inbox. Got feedback or ideas? Email Bobby Ross Jr. at therossnews@gmail.com.
(ANALYSIS) The case of Joseph Kennedy, a Bremerton, Washington, high school football coach who wants to kneel and pray at the 50-yard line, made it to the U.S. Supreme Court this week.
Arguments took nearly two hours, double the time scheduled.
Here are five key takeaways:
1. The issue: “The case pits the rights of government workers to free speech and the free exercise of their faith against the Constitution’s prohibition of government endorsement of religion and Supreme Court precedents that forbid pressuring students to participate in religious activities,” the New York Times’ Adam Liptak explains.
2. The significance: It’s “one of its most significant cases on prayer in decades … in a clear test for how the court's new conservative majority may rule on prayer in public schools,” Newsweek’s Julia Duin reports.
Duin adds:
The case focused on whether a high school coach could openly pray after the end of a football game. Arguments included examples from elsewhere in the sports world, with mentions of former Denver Broncos football player Tim Tebow, known for kneeling on the field in prayer, and Egyptian soccer player Mohamed Salah, who kneels in a thanksgiving prayer to Allah after he scores a goal.
Read Plug-in’s past coverage of Tebow’s controversial prayers.
3. The hypotheticals: “The U.S. Supreme Court justices spun more than a dozen hypothetical prayer scenarios during oral arguments,” Christianity Today’s Daniel Silliman notes.
The Associated Press’ Jessica Gresko highlights some of those scenarios:
A coach who crosses himself before a game. A teacher who reads the Bible aloud before the bell rings. A coach who hosts an after-school Christian youth group in his home.
Supreme Court justices discussed all those hypothetical scenarios.
See more on the hypotheticals from the Deseret News’ Kelsey Dallas, whose advance coverage on what’s at stake I recommended last week.
4. The coercion question: “Joseph A. Kennedy’s lawyer said the assistant coach was asking only for a private moment to take a knee and express gratitude to God on the gridiron after a game,” the Washington Post’s Robert Barnes points out. “But lawyer Paul D. Clement acknowledged that Kennedy’s actions at Bremerton High School near Seattle had at times gone far beyond that, including leading players and others in prayer.
5. The precedents: USA Today’s John Fritze outlines the history:
The court has looked favorably on religious freedom claims in recent disputes over the First Amendment's establishment clause, which prohibits the government from becoming entangled with religion, and the amendment's free exercise clause, which guarantees the right to practice religion free of government interference.
In 2014, the court upheld a centuries-old tradition of offering prayers to open government meetings, even if those prayers are overwhelmingly Christian. In 2019, the court ruled that a Latin cross on government land outside Washington, D.C., did not have to be moved or altered in the name of church-state separation. This term, the Supreme Court is considering a case about a religious group that wants to raise a flag outside Boston's City Hall just as some secular groups do.
Look for a ruling in Kennedy v. Bremerton this summer.
Power Up: The Week’s Best Reads
1. Activist’s self-immolation stirs questions on faith, protest: “Wynn Bruce, a 50-year-old climate activist and Buddhist, set himself on fire in front of the U.S. Supreme Court last week, prompting a national conversation about his motivation and whether he may have been inspired by Buddhist monks who self-immolated in the past to protest government atrocities,” The Associated Press’ Deepa Bharath and Colleen Slevin report.
At Religion News Service, Ira Rifkin explains that “Buddhism does not categorically reject suicide, though its approval is very limited.”
See additional coverage from the Washington Post’s Ellie Silverman and Ian Shapira and the New York Times’ Chris Cameron.
2. Lawsuit contends Maine’s right-to-food amendment allows for Sunday hunting: “The suit seeks to overturn the state's ban on Sunday hunting because of ‘the unalienable constitutional right to harvest food,’” according to the Portland Press Herald’s Deirdre Fleming.
As the story explains, “Maine and Massachusetts are the only states that ban hunting on Sundays.”
This court case is a new twist on the Sunday blue laws that Plug-in referenced earlier this year.
3. Interfaith Trolley offers inspiration and a whirlwind tour of religion in America: Does any religion writer have more fun than Religion News Service’s Bob Smietana?
Besides his interfaith trolley story from Chicago (a topic that the Deseret News’ Mya Jaradat advanced), Smietana has a feature this week on a “pastor (who) found a 15-foot Kmart sign in his front yard — and became the talk of the town.”
Really, I’m not kidding.
BONUS: At Publishers Weekly, Cathy Lynn Grossman has the scoop on Beth Moore, the best-selling Christian writer and speaker, signing a six-figure deal to write a memoir, “All My Knotted-Up Life.”
Religion News Service’s Bob Smietana — there’s that name again — broke the news last year of Moore ending her Southern Baptist Convention ties. Smietana offers additional background on the book deal.
More Top Reads
• Southern Baptists may cheer DeSantis’ war on Disney, but don’t expect a boycott (by Yonat Shimron, Religion News Service)
• After a secret funeral for fetal remains, a priest faced a choice (by Michelle Boorstein, Washington Post)
• The lost Jews of Nigeria (by Samanth Subramanian, The Guardian)
• A crusade to challenge the 2020 election, blessed by church leaders (by Charles Homans, New York Times)
• Theologically conservative congregations set to break away from United Methodist Church (by Mark A. Kellner, Washington Times)
• Leading the Southern Baptist Convention amid a debate on sexual abuse: 3 questions for the nominees (by Liam Adams, Tennessean)
• The climate crisis is increasingly a refugee crisis, faith resettlement groups say (by Emily McFarlan Miller, RNS)
• For Muslims with eating disorders, Ramadan can pose dilemmas (by Mariam Fam, Associated Press)
• The Vineyard was built on friendship and shared values. Then a leading pastor split (by Bob Smietana, RNS)
• How inflation and rising gas prices are impacting churches (by Mya Jaradat, Deseret News)
• Pastor-led shelters bring schooling options to migrant kids (by Giovanna Dell'Orto, AP)
• Think piece: What does the right do when big business turns against Republicans? (by Ross Douthat, New York Times)
• Think piece: The slow-moving rift in Christian higher education (by Jacob Lupfer, RNS)
Inside The Godbeat: Behind The Bylines
Count a Godbeat pro among the 2022 Livingston Awards finalists named this week. The awards recognize the best storytelling and reporting by journalists under age 35.
Danae King, who reports on faith for the Columbus Dispatch, was recognized for stories about priest sexual abuse and the statute of limitations for child abuse in Ohio.
Charging Station: In Case You Missed It
Here is where you can catch up on recent news and opinions from ReligionUnplugged.com.
• Pastor Stovall Weems resigns from Celebration Church amid legal battle (by Anne Stych)
• Could Hispanic Americans, Protestants especially, shape the ’22 And ’24 elections? (by Richard Ostling)
• USCIRF: America’s watchdog on international religious freedom presents its 2022 report (by Lela Gilbert)
• Virginia church helps Afghan refugee family with housing, food, supplies (by Bobby Ross Jr.)
• In India, a new pattern emerges: bulldozing Muslim properties (by Hanan Zaffar and Danish Pandit)
• Southern Baptist Convention sexual abuse investigation tops $1.7 million (by Anne Stych)
• How a Christian education shaped the life of the late Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki (by Tom Osanjo)
• Hazaras again in the center of attacks in Afghanistan, now without necessary support (by Ewelina U. Ochab)
• Execution chaplain offers rare sighting of 1990s left-right religious liberty coalition (by Terry Mattingly)
• Securing peace for Egypt’s Christians at Coptic Eastertide (by Miles P.J. Windsor)
The Final Plug
Thursday was Yom HaShoah, Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day. The Associated Press’ Luis Andres Henao reports on survivors around the world uniting “to deliver a message on the dangers of unchecked hate and the importance of remembrance at a time of rising global antisemitism.”
At the Jerusalem Post, Eve Glover writes about Anna Salton Eisen’s new memoir, “Pillar of Salt: A Daughter’s Life in the Shadow of the Holocaust.” In an AP story last year, I profiled Eisen and an unlikely “reunion” of survivors’ children and grandchildren that she organized.
Happy Friday, everyone! Enjoy the weekend.
Bobby Ross Jr. is a columnist for ReligionUnplugged.com and editor-in-chief of The Christian Chronicle. A former religion writer for The Associated Press and The Oklahoman, Ross has reported from all 50 states and 15 nations. He has covered religion since 1999.