50 Years Without Official School Prayer

[T.G.]

http://www.christianpost.com/news/50-ye ... yer-76945/

50 Years Without Official School Prayer
By Jerry Newcombe , Christian Post Columnist
June 20, 2012|9:23 am

Fifty years ago this month, the Supreme Court declared an official school prayer unconstitutional. How have the schools fared since then? The facts speak for themselves.
The June 25, 1962 ruling by the Supreme Court was Engel v. Vitale, the first in a string of decisions that seemed to rule God and the Bible out of our public schools. Justice Hugo Black wrote the Engel decision, saying, "a union of government and religion tends to destroy government and to degrade religion." I agree with that statement, but not his decision.
Justice Potter Stewart, the lone dissenter, wrote, "On the contrary, I think that to deny the wish of these schoolchildren to join in reciting this prayer is to deny them the opportunity of sharing in the spiritual heritage of our Nation." As we'll see, that heritage is quite considerable.
Part of the problem with the case in question was that the New York State Board of Regents – a government body – had written a bland prayer that they hoped would offend no one.
Well, bad cases can end up causing bad precedents. Those who objected to the prayer could, and did, point out that the state had no business getting into the prayer-writing business.
But the bigger issue is the symbolic one. The Supreme Court seemed to begin a process of censorship of God in the public schools that continues to this day.
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The next year, the high court said you can't read the Bible in the schools – for devotional purposes – but they explicitly said that objective "study of the Bible or of religion" is to be allowed in schools. But many schools eventually threw the Bible out entirely.
After writing in favor of voluntary school prayer a few months ago, I had some interesting feedback from a Baptist deacon involved in the public schools. He said this of Engel : "The SCOTUS determined that any kind of organized prayer, composed by public school districts, even nondenominational prayer, is an unconstitutional government sponsorship of religion."
He added, "Public Schools should be religiously neutral." He also said the real solution is what parents do: "We should be encouraging and equipping parents to lead their children in daily prayer and Bible study, before school. Daily parent-led devotions in Christian homes across America would do more for the moral development of our children than all the government-composed generic prayers could ever hope to do." I certainly agree with him on that point.
Also he said, "Our public schools did not 'ban God from the classroom.' The US Supreme Court banned sectarian prayer and other religious observances that had been imposed on school children. Student prayer is not illegal – it happens every time there is an exam!"
I know that there are many well-intentioned people who oppose any form of school prayer, but I view as dubious the foundation of much of the opposition – that is, that the founders of America intended any reference to God in the public arena to be strictly forbidden.
The founders who gave us the first amendment also passed the Northwest Ordinance, which states, "Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary for good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged." The founders did not intend religion to be banished from the schools.
When he was sworn in, George Washington said "it would be peculiarly improper to omit in this first official act my fervent supplications to that Almighty Being who rules over the universe."
Our Constitution, signed "in the year of our Lord" (referring to Jesus), is predicated on the Declaration of Independence, which says that our rights come from the Creator.
President Eisenhower said in 1955, "Without God, there could be no American form of Government, nor an American way of life. Recognition of the Supreme Being is the first – the most basic – expression of Americanism."
His successor, John F. Kennedy, said, "The rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God."
But today, America has amnesia, and I believe the school prayer case was part of that forgetfulness. We have turned out back on God, and we are reaping the natural consequences.
After the Columbine massacre, Darryl Scott, father of a slain student, testified to Congress:
Your laws ignore our deepest needs,
your words are empty air.
You've stripped away our heritage,
you've outlawed simple prayer.
Now gunshots fill our classrooms and
precious children die.
You seek for answers everywhere,
and ask the question "why?"
You regulate restrictive laws
through legislative creed.
And yet you fail to understand
that God is what we need.

[catonist]

Ah yes. The glorious history of prayer in American schools...

During the 1840s, students in Philadelphia schools began the day with reading the Protestant version of the Bible. On November 10, 1842, Philadelphia's Roman Catholic Bishop, Francis Kenrick, wrote a letter to the Board of Controllers of public schools, asking that Catholic children be allowed to read the Douai version of the Bible, used by Roman Catholics. He also asked that they be excused from other religious teaching while at school.[3][4] As a result, the Board of Controllers ordered that no child should be forced to participate in religious activities and stated that children were allowed whichever version of the Bible their parents wished.[5]

Approximately one year later, a rumor was circulated that Hugh Clark, a Kensington school director who was Catholic, was visiting a girls school, where he demanded that the principal stop Bible reading in school. The story also claimed that the principal refused and that she would rather lose her job. Hugh Clark denied this version of events and claimed that after finding out several students had left a Bible reading to read a different version of the Bible, he commented that if reading the Bible caused this kind of confusion, that it would be better if it was not read. Anti-Catholics used the story to spur anti-Catholic sentiments by claiming that Catholics, with direct influence from the Pope, were trying to remove the Bible from schools.[5][6] Anti-Catholic and nativist groups further inflamed hostile feelings towards Catholics by twisting Bishop Kenrick's requests to the Board of Controllers into an attack against the Bible.[3][4]

The result of this was riots that killed a few dozen people, and had to be put down by military force.

link

[RedDog]

I recall reciting the Lord's Prayer every morning when I started school. We also had to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, which of course also contains a reference to God.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Near the Christmas holidays of third grade we moved from Texas to Connecticut and I have no recollection of the Lord's Prayer after that move. The Pledge of Allegiance carried on until middle school and at some point it just wasn't done anymore. I don't recall exactly when and don't know the circumstances.

[Kate Shaw]

New York State had an offricial school prayer until some time in the late 1950s, about the time Castro took power in Cuba and not long before the Cuban Missile Crisis took us closer to nuclear war than we have been since then -- in Alabama they not only had Bible reading and prayer, but we sang "Lord, I Want To Be A Christian" before the start of the school day.

It's interesting that President Eisenhower had "under God" inserted into the Pledge of Allegiance precisely to stick a thumb in the eye of the Communists...

[mindyrbusiness]

Isa 5:20 Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!

Discarding Prayer and Judeo Christian beliefs for Darwin inspired evolution,secular emerging liberalism ,subjectivity, tolerance,and relativity.The taxpayer forced to subsidize mandatory teachings to accept and tolerate things fundamentally against God,nature and absolute truth while all detrimental facts and religious beliefs are suppressed.


Things such as "sexual minority rights" now fundamental human rights with anti discrimination protections on par with race, ethnicity, biological gender, physical ability and subsequently challenging definitions of marriage, family, sexuality,and biological reality.

Romans 1:(23) And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four footed beasts, and creeping things.(24) Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:(25) Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.

(From Jesus is Savior. com)
2nd Peter 2:14, “Having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin; beguiling unstable souls: an heart they have exercised with covetous practices; cursed children.” We have mocked God; disobeying the Bible; living in wickedness; teaching our children the lies of Evolution; kicking God's Word and prayer out of our public schools since the 1960's;disobeying the God of the Bible Who created us; we are a wicked people, who have been given wicked leaders by God to afflict us.