UPDATE 3/5/07 2:14 PM: I have now recorded an audio blog about this topic. To listen to “A Moment In My World,” click here.

From The Vancouver Columbian:

A dust-up over group prayers in the Heritage High School commons before the start of school triggered the suspension of a dozen students on Friday…

A top Evergreen Public Schools administrator downplayed the incident but confirmed that 12 pupils were disciplined after they ignored a faculty order to stop meeting for prayer in the commons area at the 2,200-student high school near Orchards, one of Clark County’s largest schools…

A praying student ordered to detention on Friday said two group co-leaders received 10-day suspensions, while eight others were given three-day suspensions. They had been warned on Thursday not to meet again in the commons, she said.

It’s unfortunate that a prayer group at Heritage High School, which included a member of my youth group at New Horizons Church, was suspended for meeting for morning prayer. I definitely support their cause because I like seeing Christians active in their faith in public.

That being said, and after reading the above article, I can’t say I support the prayer group’s actions at all. Because of their refusal to obey a faculty order in advance to not meet in the commons, they disobeyed the authority of those put over them in a secular setting. While the Bible says to obey the laws of the land as long as they don’t conflict with God’s Word, I don’t see where faculty asking to move a prayer group to a different area is in blatant conflict with the Bible.

A prayer group in a high-visibility area will turn heads and probably draw a crowd of onlookers and gawkers (read: not participants). Yes, it was a Satanic student that objected to their prayers, and the Columbian’s article states he brought up his concern respectfully. Read this key part of the article:

Heritage administrators offered use of a classroom to the group, per written district policy that allows religious or other student clubs to use school facilities during non-school hours, with limited supervision.

The school district was going by the book. Doesn’t matter what affiliation your group has, you would have been asked to move anyway. The students defied that. They were wrong. Heritage High 1, Prayer Group 0.

Issue #2 is the fact two students were suspended for ten days, where 10 others were suspended for only three. I wonder why this is…the Columbian states that the two students were group co-leaders, so maybe they were suspended for a longer period of time because they represented the group as leadership. Another possibility could be that they felt a bit of religious fervor at the moment, got caught up in it and talked back to the school staff, thus earning their extra seven days of sleeping in. However you cut it, everyone’s out of school for a few days. Heritage High 2, Prayer Group 0.

It’s an unfortunate situation but it sounds like the prayer group should have moved when asked, instead of pushing the issue and using Christianity as an excuse to do so. I love and respect my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ for standing by their convictions, but I take issue with not respecting a policy that has been set before them and in turn being disciplined. It makes them look like they carried on a “holier than thou” attitude, and in turn could seriously turn some people off to Christianity.

Message to the Heritage High School prayer group: Your prayers are no less effective if you would have obeyed the rules and guidelines set forth by your school leadership. In fact, I think God would have rewarded you for obeying. Instead, you chose not to, and you paid the price by being suspended from your school, which I as a brother in the Lord, have to still fully support.

There’s all kinds of civil disobedience in the Bible. However, as stated above, I don’t think asking a prayer group to move and comply with rules that have been set for other clubs and groups in the same school is in blatant disrespect to God and His Word. The students that refused to move when asked would do well to learn to respect their authority even if it is outside of the church. The fact that they are a Christian group does not place them above the rules of any other group or club at that school, even if their prayers are for a noble cause.

As I previously mentioned, one of the 10-day suspended students attends our church and was at Camp Wa-Ri-Ki, our church’s weekend retreat that concluded yesterday. Inevitably, the youth was praised for “taking a stand for their generation” and “proclaiming the name of the Lord in front of their peers.” This person was in turn directed to pray for all the young people in the congregation and proceeded to “anoint” those who came up front for prayer.

This bothers me greatly. Without presenting both sides of the issue, the incident was glorified as a bona fide stand for Jesus, in direct defiance of a world that is coming against Christians and prayer groups, because after all, it is Satan’s intent to stop anything and everything that is holy. Well, it is Satan’s intent to do just that, yet at the same time, I don’t think old Lucifer influenced Heritage High School administrators to write a rule in their handbook restricting groups and clubs to meet in a specific classroom after school hours.

I just don’t see how a blatant act of disrespect and disobedience to authority could possibly be championed as a defiant stand for the Lord in the face of tremendous adversity, and at a church camp, no less.

What we are all left with is a tremendous black eye on the face of Christianity in general. Something that should have been a non-issue has become a big one for no good reason at all.

It’s a good lesson in exercising spiritual wisdom when it comes to a public display of faith. We would all do well to learn it.