God in Our Public Schools

The tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School, Newtown, Conn. on Friday, which resulted in the death of 20 children, has left many Christians, as well as Church and Christian leaders, asking the question, “Would this have happened if prayer and Bible reading had not been removed by the Supreme Court from U.S. public schools?”

I, personally, have had many friends and colleagues make such statements this weekend on some of the social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter, and have seen quite a few friends of friends comment on friends with similar opinions. Most recently, former governor, Fox News personality, politician, former pastor, and devout conservative Christian, Mike Huckabee, answered Neil Cavuto’s question, “How could God let this happen?” with the following statement that I believe illustrates the sentiment of too many conservative Christians, “We've systematically removed God from our schools. Should we be so surprised that schools have become a place for carnage because we've made it a place where we don't want to talk about eternity, life, responsibility, accountability?" (http://now.msn.com/huckabee-blames-school-shooting-on-no-god-in-classroom?ocid=ansnow11 – emphasis added)

Before I go any further, I want to set a few things straight about myself and the perspective from which I write. I am a devout conservative Christian who attended public school throughout my elementary years and then two different Christian schools (1 more lenient and 1 stereotypically fundamentalist for the era) throughout my junior and senior high years. I have been in pastoral ministry for about 19 years in various capacities; including working with children of all ages, pre-teens, and teens. Therefore, I approach this issue as a product of both public and Christian schools.

It is quite common in the Christian school movement in America, particularly among its more fundamentalist segments, to purport the belief that American public schools, supported by our federal judicial branch – the U.S. Supreme Court, have abandoned God by disallowing prayer and the Bible within public schools. While I will admit that the American public school system, as a generalized whole, has been infected by a systemic secularism that is not only antithetic to Christianity, but can even be militantly opposed to it; I question whether this is a result of a proactive agenda on the part of the public school system or an isolationist mentality of retreat on the part of conservative Christianity. Perhaps a bit of historical perspective will illustrate the impetus behind my questioning of the “party line”.

What we know today as “the Christian School Movement,” and its partner the modern “Homeschooling Movement” was birthed in reaction to two landmark Supreme Court cases, Engle v. Vitale (1962) and Abington School v. Schempp (1963).

In the former case, the Board of Education of Union Free School District No. 9, New Hyde Park, New York, acting in its official capacity under state law, directed the School District's principal to cause the following prayer to be said aloud by each class in the presence of a teacher at the beginning of each school day, "Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers and our Country." The recommendation of the Board was adopted by the NY State Board of Regents, a governmental agency created by the State Constitution to which the New York Legislature has granted broad supervisory, executive, and legislative powers over the State's public school system. This daily official prayer was codified as part of New York’s public school "Statement on Moral and Spiritual Training in the Schools." Shortly after this decision, the parents of 10 students brought court action against the State; arguing that mandating such a prayer, of any kind, violated the U.S. Constitutions Establishment Clause.  

In the latter case, Edward Schempp, a Unitarian Universalist and a resident of Abington Township, Pennsylvania, filed suit against his daughter’s school district in the United States District Court in Pennsylvania to prohibit the enforcement of a Pennsylvania state law that required his children to hear and sometimes read portions of the Bible as part of their public school education. That law required that "at least 10 verses from the Holy Bible be read, without comment, at the opening of each public school on each school day." Schempp argued, as did Engle v. Vitale, that the statute violated his and his family's rights under the Establishment Clauses of the 1^st and 14^th Amendments.

In both cases, and a plethora of subsequent cases, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the presence, and even official use, of the Bible as an instructional component in public school curricula is completely permissible. They further ruled that prayer is also completely permissible in public schools. What is NOT permissible / legal in public schools is school sponsored organized prayer or religious instruction (unless it is a comparative religions course that gives equal treatment to all religions without obvious preference for any one in particular). Everything else IS permissible / legal in public schools. Students and teachers alike can wear religious jewelry, pray to themselves, and carry and read their Bibles. Unfortunately, since 1963, it has been a commonly held belief that the reading of the Bible and prayer has been banned from public schools; making it impossible for students to pray to themselves or read religious texts. This is entirely untrue; it is a Christian School myth. Public school students ARE allowed to pray and read religious texts, so long as they do not disrupt other students. They may do this at any time, including before, during, and after school hours. School clubs which are religious in nature are allowed to exist and practice worship freely. This came as a result of Westside Community Board of Education v. Mergens, 1990 that ruled that as long as any school clubs are allowed to exist, so should religious clubs be allowed to exist. The reasoning was that students join clubs freely and voluntarily, and thus are free to leave at any time.

I give this historical context to remind you that there is NO SUCH THING as a ban on prayer or Bible reading in U.S. public schools.  The ACLU has routinely brought court cases to remove the exercise of religious liberty on public school campuses from American Christian teachers and students in public schools, but the U.S. Supreme Court has routinely shot them down.

All that said, where do I believe the problem exists with American public schools? I believe the problem stems back to the modern Christian School and Homeschool Movements which really took off in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Rather than encourage Christian families to keep their Christian students in the public school system and fight for the exercise of their religious liberty, while their students influenced their unsaved friends at school with the gospel of Jesus Christ, a host of conservative pastors and educators proposed abandoning the public school system in favor of establishing Christian schools. Rather than encouraging Christian teachers to remain in the public schools and use their influence among students toward Christian morals and biblical ideals; these same pastors and educators encouraged them to abandon the public school system and teach in the safety and comfort of dedicated Christian schools.

In short, Christians abandoned the public school system in America and left it, by and large, to the will of a growing Godless secularism in our country. Parents and churches alike isolated their children from their unsaved peers under the guise of protecting them from the sinful influences of the world (especially in the public school system). That seems well and good, but it is a tactic that is wholly unbiblical and unchristian. How can I say such? Simple. Christians are called to be salt and light in an unsavory and dark world in need of seeing and hearing the truth of the Gospel through the lives and out of the mouths of Christians. Isolating Christian students in Christian schools while preaching the evils of the public schools has only served to remove the salt and light which could have existed in the public schools. I believe my point is further illustrated by Scripture. Proverbs 29:18 says, “Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint…” Where else is the truth of God expected to come from if not from Christians? Of course public schools are going to become increasingly godless as Christian leaders encourage an isolationist mentality; removing the light of the Gospel carried by devout Christian teachers and students from public schools. Paul, speaking of the coming Tribulation time, said, in 2 Thess. 2:7, “For the secret power of lawlessness is already at work; but the one who now holds it back will continue to do so till he is taken out of the way.” What’s going to allow the sinfulness of mankind to wax so great in the Tribulation period? It’s the fact that it will be running unchecked. What is currently keeping man’s depravity in check? It’s the Holy Spirit of God who indwells Christians. When the Christians are raptured, and the Holy Spirit removed, sin and depravity will be allowed to run amuck. Similarly, I believe this has happened in our public schools. Well meaning pastors, parents, and churches evacuated their Christian students out of the public school system; greatly diminishing the presence of the Holy Spirit in those schools, and we wonder why public schools are in the state so many of them are.

Does that mean I blame Christians, Christian schools, or homeschoolers for what happened at Sandy Hook? Absolutely not! A wicked, depraved, maniac perpetrated a premeditated and inexcusable crime for which he is paying an eternal price. What is disconcerting to me is that Christians, particularly those in fundamentalist Christianity, are so quick to assign blame to our government and our public schools; promulgating the myth that they were forced out of the public schools. This is untrue. Rather history bears record that a large contingent of conservative Christians abandoned the public school system en masse in the late 60s and early 70s never to reclaim it or influence again with the Gospel of Christ as it once had. Lest I paint the picture that the public school system awaits Christianity with open arms today, I will quickly add that it does not. It has become thoroughly secularized, but what do you expect in the absence of the salt and light it once had?

I am not decrying Christian schools or homeschooling by any means. I believe those Christians who choose to educate their children in either of these avenues should do so after careful and prayerful consideration; weighing in the Gospel factor into their thinking. Parents who do choose to educate their children outside of the public school system would do well to ensure their children participate in civic and social outlets that afford their Christian children an opportunity to be salt and light; to influence their lost peers with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The purpose of this post is to call upon my Christian friends who have been so quick to assign blame for tragedies like the one at Sandy Hook, Columbine, or any other school-related incidents, to the public school system to take a step back, get a realistic grip on history, stop promulgating the Christian School v. Public School myth, and realize that we, as the light-bearers of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, do bear a measure of culpability for the secularization of America’s public school system. We cannot isolate our children from a wicked world and keep them from influencing their friends with the Gospel, Christian morals, and ideals, and expect society to improve. Our children will never sense the urgency of sharing the Gospel with their peers, as adults, if parents needlessly isolate them from the lost world. I fear we have raised generations of children who have grown up with the unspoken assumption that we (the Church) have the gospel and are ready to share it with the lost world if only they (the lost world) would come to us, and remain mystified that they choose not to. Rather, let us assault the lost world with the truth of the Gospel by taking it to them; let us show them Jesus in our lives and let them hear of Him from our lips as we go to the lost as Jesus did.