Organized school prayer was ruled unconstitutional in the United States and suddenly banned from public elementary, middle and high schools by a series of Supreme Court decisions in 1962.
I remember well when it was banned. One day we prayed. The next day we didn’t.
I was in the third grade, just an innocent kid, in Warren Point School in Fair Lawn, New Jersey. I was 9 years old. It was something I looked forward to. The class always participated in it. It didn’t require that we were all from the same faith – Catholics, Protestants, Jews and kids with no faith. Teachers, too. In my class, I had my favorite teacher – Miss Sally Abraham. She was Jewish. That didn’t matter to any Christian. We all got along.
She might read a scripture and pray. We kids would get very quiet and participate. It took no more than a few minutes. That’s how we started the school day.
The Supreme Court took a case from atheist Madalyn Murray O’Hair who couldn’t stand that the Lord’s Prayer was recited by American kids each day. I had the privilege of praying with her son, William Murray, as an adult.
The court found that the prayer violated the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
Needless to say, it didn’t in any way establish religion. It did, however, prohibit the free exercise thereof. (Of course, I recall when the absolute abridging of speech and the press took place in America. That occurred more recently when speech codes were enforced by Big Tech! What’s next for the Constitution?)
I was thinking of these abominations when I came across this in Psalm 78.
“Give ear, O my people, to my law: incline your ears to the words of my mouth. I will open my mouth in a parable: I will utter dark sayings of old: Which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us. We will not hide them from their children, shewing to the generation to come the praises of the Lord, and his strength, and his wonderful works that he hath done. For he established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children: That the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born; who should arise and declare them to their children: That they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments: And might not be as their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation; a generation that set not their heart aright, and whose spirit was not stedfast with God. The children of Ephraim, being armed, and carrying bows, turned back in the day of battle. They kept not the covenant of God, and refused to walk in his law; And forgat his works, and his wonders that he had shewed them.”
Isn’t it tragic that the commandments of God are no longer followed?
Churches are taking the commandments down, which were once posted outside! At one time they were posted in public building and on billboards. (I used to post them on billboards by the hundreds when I had the money! That stopped cold when Google demonetized WND and we had to beg readers to support our work because this guardian of “truth” – Google, I mean – no longer paid us.)
But there’s hope today due to the Supreme Court’s recent ruling overturning Roe v. Wade. How about a new look at the a ruling from a long time ago when people forgot about God as described in the Bible? Why not look again at prescribed prayer instead of proscribed prayer?
And since the freedom of the press and freedom of speech are required by the Constitution of the United States, why not bring them back?
Maybe if we get Donald Trump back in the White House, we will. Would that be so bad?
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