School Prayer

School prayer is a very hot issue among Americans, right up there with abortion and gay rights. But Americans who know the Constitution understand that the ban on school prayer is not an attack on Christianity or on religion or on God. In the first place, the ban concerns only public schools as they are agencies of the state, of the government (our taxes pay for public schools and they are open to everyone, not just members of one religion or one economic class). There is no ban on prayer in private schools as they do not represent government authority. And, finally, there is no ban on student prayer (individually or in a group), the ban is on prayers initiated (compelled) by the public school, as any such prayer would represent an “establishment” of a (particular) religion. Imagine, if you will, a prayer that would satisfy not only every Protestant Christian sect (Southern Baptist, Presbyterian, Methodist, Lutheran, Mormon, Christian Science, etc., etc.), but also the Roman Catholic faith, the Jewish faith (orthodox to Reform), the Muslim faith (Sunni and Shia) and even the “faith” of non-believers. Is such a prayer possible? So, any prayer is necessarily the work of one or more religious sects but never the work of all. Thus, any such public-school prayer would be a case of “establishing” a religion, forbidden to government by the words of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

The authors of the First Amendment were mostly men of Protestant Christian faiths with one or two Roman Catholics for good measure, and they did not want to repeat the agonies of European history where Christians had battled Muslims (nine Crusades, 1096-1272 AD), where Protestant Christians had battled Catholics (the Thirty Years’ War and many more), and where Protestant Christians had battled Protestant Christians.  Those who followed the Prince of Peace were not always peaceful. 

The framers were NOT anti-religious, they were surely not anti-Christian, or anti-God. So, they designed a government that would not tread on individual religions’ rights, by keeping government out of religion, by erecting a “Wall of Separation” (Jefferson’s controversial phrase) between government and religion. We can all pray when and where and how we see fit (your boss at work may not like you taking a prayer break from work, or taking a break from listening to him, and your teacher may legitimately want you to listen to him, too), but the government (which includes the administration of all public schools) may not compel prayer as it represents illegal government compulsion and the “establishment” of a religion. 

That is what being an American looks like: understanding that a ban on public school prayer is not an attack on religion but the foundation of religious liberty: freedom from government compulsion, freedom from government favoritism, and finally freedom from the other guy’s religion. 

P.S. 

I understand that the majority of present-day Americans does not agree with my take on this issue (at least before reading my argument), but the framers were not average Americans. And because of their genius, we Americans have avoided the countless killing wars that were a staple of European history.