Prayer in public schools?

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© 2024 Christy K Robinson

 

Yes, in private schools that don't get government (taxpayer) money or tuition vouchers. 

 

But public schools? That is a religious liberty issue that was drilled into us in religious (Adventist) schools in the 1960s and 70s. No way! 

A government that promotes religion (which is unconstitutional in the United States, see First Amendment) and funds it will never respect your rights and specific beliefs, and it will bulldoze right over who you worship, when you worship (problematic for several denominations and religions), and how you worship. It will determine the curriculum and how the school operates. It will spill past schools and into your private life. 

Besides, ANY student can pray privately and/or silently. That isn't against the law. 

Requiring all, regardless of family choices or ethnicity (like Jews), to pray to Jesus or venerate the Bible or the Quran, or cause your kid to pray to a Hindu god or Satan or Cthulhu is blatantly immoral and unconstitutional. 

Unless religious liberty is applied to all, equally, it's not religious liberty. It's elitism. It's Christian nationalism. 

And it's plain to see that that kind of Christianity is winning precisely (checking my notes) no one to Jesus Christ. It's alienating and divisive, and has caused non-believers to hate Christians and mock God. Pay attention: you are not doing Christians any good, and not advocating a lifestyle or belief system based on the God you claim to serve.

Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.” John 18:36 

Serve God with all your might and all your heart. Live humbly, justly, and mercifully, and be kind to foreigners and the helpless among you. Love one another. Pray in private, as Jesus instructed (Matthew 6:5,6). Just don't force others to be like you. God establishes his purposes, his salvation, and his kingdom on his time. 

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Christy K Robinson is author of these sites:  

• Discovering Love (inspiration)
• Rooting for Ancestors (history and genealogy)
• William and Mary Barrett Dyer (17th century culture and history of England and New England)

and of these books:

·          We Shall Be Changed (2010)
·          Mary Dyer Illuminated (2013)
·          Mary Dyer: For Such a Time as This (2014)
·          The Dyers of London, Boston, & Newport (2014)
·          Effigy Hunter (2015)
·          Anne Marbury Hutchinson: American Founding Mother (2018)