With prayer movements rising up across the nation, it comes as no surprise that prayer is seeing a wave of new public attacks. The latest examples come from France and Australia.
For example, you can do plenty of sinning in the streets of Paris, but it is now officially against the city rules to pray. As of last week, the French government warned that police will use force if people of any faith pray in the public square, according to The Telegraph. It’s a move to keep the French capital’s public spaces “secular.”
“My vigilance will be unflinching for the law to be applied. Praying in the street is not dignified for religious practice and violates the principles of secularism,” the minister told Le Figaro newspaper. “All Muslim leaders are in agreement.”
Although the ban was implemented to deal with road blockages during Muslim prayer, the ban nonetheless restricts Christians from praying in public as well. The prayer ban may not end in Paris, either. There are whispers that similar rules will be put in place in Nice and Marseilles. It could spread throughout all of France.
Meanwhile, the Lord’s Prayer has been banned from a primary school in Western Australia. Despite a decades-long tradition of praying the prayer, Edgewater Primary School has banned students from reciting the prayer after parents complained.
“We acknowledge that of the parents who did respond to the survey, many wanted to retain the Lord’s Prayer and it is right that we continue to recite it at culturally appropriate times such as Christmas and Easter, as part of our education program,” Julie Tombs, principal of the school, wrote in a letter to parents. “However, at this school we have students from a range of backgrounds and it is important to consider all views and not promote one set of religious beliefs and practices over another.”
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