On June 25, 1962, the United States Supreme Court outlawed prayer in schools. That’s been the accepted narrative by conservatives for more than 60 years.
Only the Supreme Court didn’t outlaw prayer in schools, nor was it the court’s intention.
As someone wryly observed, as long as there are pop quizzes, there will be prayer in school.
What the court actually found in Engel v. Vitale, was a narrow ruling that said “state officials may not compose an official state prayer and require that it be recited in the public schools of the state at the beginning of each school day — even if the prayer is denominationally neutral and pupils who wish to do so may remain silent or be excused from the room.”
In a lot of schools, especially in the Bible Belt, nothing much changed after that ruling. I started public school in 1965 and morning prayers, sometimes delivered by faculty, sometimes by students, were played over the intercom. Somebody prayed before ball games and assemblies. Any time we were herded all together, what followed always commenced with a prayer. A lot of kids prayed over their lunches in the school cafeteria, and for good reason as far as I’m concerned.
In third grade, our teacher, Mrs. Lloyd, devoted the last two weeks before Christmas break to helping us memorize the first 20 verses of the second chapter of the Gospel of Luke, the best known biblical account of the birth of Jesus. On the last day before Christmas break, I was one of three kids to win a prize for being able to perfectly recite all 20 verses from memory.
I can still recite it today, for the most part, although I sometimes struggle with the order of Joseph’s GPS directions — Galilee, Nazareth, Judaea, Bethlehem. Joseph was up from, out of or into one another of these places at various points and I couldn’t always keep it straight.
Oddly enough, the only other thing I can recite from memory are the words printed on cans of Budweiser. In case you are wondering, it reads, “This is the famous Budweiser Beer. We know of no brand produced by any other brewer which costs so much to brew and age. Our exclusive Beechwood aging produces a taste, a smoothness and a drinkability you will find in no other beer at any price.”
There is no particular benefit to knowing either of these by heart unless you’re just showing off.
So the idea that Christianity had been banned from schools is not consistent with my experience.
What I don’t remember ever seeing in my classrooms were The 10 Commandments.
For some reason, there is an effort to put them back into classrooms where they never existed.
This year, the Louisiana legislature passed a law that says The 10 Commandments must be posted in every public school classroom in the state. As night follows day, the Mississippi legislature will have a similar bill to consider come January.
I’m not sure what this will accomplish. Is there rampant adultery among third-graders that has escaped my attention? Graven images probably aren’t a big issue in schools, since most of the graven-image erecting is done by adults in the form of towering crosses found along highways, a trend that has made giant cross manufacturing an emerging industry. How the Sabbath should be observed rarely turns into a school-yard brawl. Most kids need no reminder that it is not OK to murder or lie or disrespect your parents.
In fact, of all the wisdom offered in the Bible, The 10 Commandments seems the least helpful.
The Beatitudes would seem to be far better inspiration. They encourage humility, kindness, peacefulness, purity, perseverance and other admirable traits.
The 10 Commandments frame life in terms of the negative, The Beatitudes in the affirmative.
That’s why I question the sincerity of many people who embrace posting The 10 Commandments as the means of “putting God back in our schools.”
Mandating The 10 Commandments isn’t meant to be a call to Godliness but a provocation to a battle in the pointless culture wars that conservatives have built their identity around. Any lawsuit filed against Louisiana over this law will be cast by conservatives as yet another attack on Christianity rather than an effort to uphold the constitution. It’s political theater and a particularly nasty example of it.
And that makes it something else found in the Scriptures: Blasphemy.
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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