
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, November 23, 1994                   TAG: 9411230122
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                 LENGTH: Medium

SCHOOL PRAYER 'WRONGHEADED'

A group of religious leaders pledged Tuesday to lobby against any proposed school prayer constitutional amendment, saying it would harm people's rights to worship according to their own beliefs.

``We oppose any effort of government to poke its nose into our prayers, especially our children's prayers,'' Robert W. Tiller of American Baptist Churches in the U.S.A. said at a news conference.

Brent Walker of the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs said the groups will organize to oppose any proposed constitutional amendment on school prayer. House Speaker-to-be Newt Gingrich wants a vote on a school prayer amendment by July.

The religious leaders said they opposed changing the Constitution's First Amendment protection of religious freedom and ban on government establishment of religion.

``I appeal to Newt Gingrich: This is a wrongheaded, misguided, divisive agenda,'' said Rabbi David Saperstein of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations.

Also joining the news conference were leaders of organizations representing Evangelical Lutherans, Seventh-day Adventists, Presbyterians and United Methodists.

The Rev. James M. Bell of Interfaith Impact, a coalition of 35 religious organizations that oppose a school prayer amendment, recalled how, when he was a child, a teacher reduced him to tears by objecting to the way he led a prayer in class.

``Our custom is to pray in Hebrew,'' added Rabbi Jack Moline of the Rabbinical Assembly. Expecting conservative Jewish children to participate in other prayers conveys the message that their way of worshiping God is ``outside the mainstream of what's acceptable in American culture,'' he said.

Mark J. Pelavin of the American Jewish Congress said this month's elections showed that Americans want less government involvement in their lives.

``It strikes me as a very surprising reading of the election [by some Republicans] that the one area they believe the people want more government involvement is in the people's spiritual lives,'' he said.

by CNB