Righteous advocates of the tradition of public-school prayer judged unconstitutional on June 25, 1962, have won a major victory at long last as reflected in the 2024 presidential election! In tribute thereto, we wish for you a repaving of DC’s Pennsylvania Ave in solid gold, thereby opening a booming, eternal market for housing and roller skates!
For me, it came to a head in the fall of 1964, when the population of the United States stood at roughly 55% of its present population. I was just entering my freshman year at George Washington University Law School. The school prayer case, Engel v. Vitale, was a hot topic during my sojourn there. I found myself in agreement! Why?
I’m just old enough to have remembered the evangelical assault against the ruling. America was deemed to be headed downhill in freefall. In reality, however, my reaction to its history was that we were simply moving from bibliolatry (worship of the written Bible) to equalitarianism (unmerited grace).
Prayer or Salute to an Impotent God?
I had been raised in a culture in which fundamentalist Christianity and public education were attached at the hip. We had a great public school teacher in K-3 (1944-1948), the wife of a Pentecostal minister. She led us in the Pledge of Allegiance and a prayer every morning and taught us kid’s worship songs. The one I remember was:
“Can a little child like me, thank the Father fittingly?
Yes, oh yes, be good and true – Faithful, kind in all you do!
Love the Lord and do your part; learn to say with all your heart,
“Father, we thank Thee! Father, we thank Thee!
Father in Heaven, we tha-ank Thee!”
Then, in 1947, my 3rd grade year, our teacher was out due to sickness. Up popped a substitute, Mrs. Schields, notably of German descent. Out went the prayers and the songs, but in came a new salute to the flag:
“I pledge allegiance to the flag (simultaneous response moment – Hitler/Musk salute) of the United States of America…”
Nobody objected except the district superintendent, who sent her on her way when she came to class drunk one day. He sent us all home – winners in an administrative glitch.
I recently stumbled onto a June 2012 article by Charles Haynes, director of the Religious Freedom Education Project at the Newseum, 555 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W., Washington, D.C. Here are a few helpful excerpts from that article:
Public outrage was immediate and widespread. For millions of Americans, the Court had "kicked God out of the schools." Five decades later, Engel continues to be reviled by a good number of televangelists and politicians who take every opportunity to rail against the "godless public schools." Eliminating school-sponsored prayer, they argue, set America on the road to moral and spiritual ruin.
Over the years, the absence of "school prayer" has been linked to almost every social ill, from schoolhouse shootings to drug addiction. One popular YouTube video asks why God doesn't do something about the terrible things happening to our students in public schools — and a deep voice replies in ominous tones, "I am not allowed in schools."
But here's the catch: It isn't true.
Let's start by stating the obvious: The moral state of the union can't be correlated to the frequency of government prayers in schools or anywhere else. After all, in the era of daily teacher-led prayers, America had any number of social ills, including segregated public schools.
Just as it would be absurd to blame teacher-led prayer for racism or other moral failures in the 1950s, it makes no sense to blame the absence of such prayers for our moral failures today. But the Big Lie in the school-prayer debate is the false charge that the Supreme Court expelled God or eliminated praying from public schools.
In reality, the Court has never banned prayers in schools — in Engel or in any other decision. Instead, the Court ruled that, under the establishment clause of the First Amendment, "it is no part of the business of government to compose official prayers for any group of the American people to recite as a part of a religious program carried on by government."
In other words, state-sponsored prayers in schools are unconstitutional. Students, on the other hand, are fully free to pray in public schools — alone or in groups, as long as they don't disrupt the school or interfere with the rights of others.
Visit most public schools today and you are likely to see students praying around the flagpole, attending religious club meetings, giving each other religious literature, saying grace before lunch, talking about their faith in class discussions, and in other ways expressing their religious convictions. In fact, there is more student religious expression in public schools today than at any time since the 19th century. Far from being "kicked out," God goes to school today through the First Amendment door.
Critics of the Court's ruling in Engel v. Vitale do have one thing right: The decision changed America — just not in the way they think. Gone are the days when one faith (historically Protestant Christianity) dominated the public schools and the public square. Today, thanks in no small measure to Engel, we are closer than ever to the full religious freedom envisioned by the First Amendment — a level playing field for people of all faiths and none.
Jesus’ Position on Public Prayer:
Had America turned its back on God? No! America had turned its back on sectarian prayer in public discourse. This should have been consistent with Matt 6, where Jesus accused pubic prayer folks of being “hypocrites” (v. 5). What was His recommendation?
But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door, and pray to your Father, who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you (v. 6).
All of which goes back to why, as a 6-17 yr-old fundamentalist Christian, I could object to another 6-17 yr-old praying over the school intercom. Why, indeed?
As chief among them, I simply had grown tired of hypocrites!!
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