Prayer Ought to be in Schools

Prayer has always been part of the culture of the United States of America, its people, and its foundation. George Washington himself was a devout Christian, as were most of the founding fathers. The hand of God directed the Bill of Rights and the U.S. Constitution. Christianity found its way into the very heart of our nation and remained the pulse of this country until 1962.

That year was one of tragedy, opposition, and downfall for young people in America. That year the Supreme Court prohibited prayer in schools. Ironically, the Supreme Court judges struck prayer from our nation's educational system in the same building where the Ten Commandments were hanging. They destroyed this part of our heritage, threw it away like a used scrap of paper, considered it useless in the present day. Yet, our president prays in the Oval Office.

Since 1962 young people in America have been in a downward spiral with nothing to catch them. They have nothing to cling to, no set of guiding morals, nothing to tell them the difference ­between right and wrong. Nothing to believe in; no ­foundation and no comfort for the agitated soul. Instead of upholding our Constitution, the Supreme Court ­destroyed it.

“It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ,” said Patrick Henry, a founding father and signer of the Constitution. Our country was founded on Christianity. That Christianity ought not to be taken from us.

Indeed, James Madison, our fourth president, said: “Cursed be all that learning that is contrary to the cross of Christ.” He would never have approved of the 1962 ruling of the Supreme Court – in fact, he would have cursed it. If our founders were here today, they would be putting their feet down and changing the United States back to the way it should be. The Ten Commandments would be hung in schools, prayer would be reestablished in the schoolhouse, and our government's ways would be corrected.

John Hancock, the first signer of Declaration of Independence, said: “Continue steadfast and, with a proper sense of your dependence on God, nobly defend those rights which heaven gave, and no man ought to take from us.” God guided the fathers to give us the right of prayer – prayer in schools, prayer in public, and prayer everywhere. We have instead succumbed to the broken ways of the world and obliterated the words of not only our founders but God as well.

With God – the Creator of the universe, Savior of sinners, the Prince of Peace, the Shepherd of all mankind – I will uphold John Hancock's words and “nobly defend those rights which heaven gave, and no man ought to take from us”!