PLEASE, LET THE KIDS PRAY (5/94) The following is from a recent edition of Christian Crusade Newspaper, P.O. Box 977, Tulsa, OK 74102. The newspaper is in its 42nd year of publication. Dr. Hargis can be E-mailed on America On Line as BJHargis, on Compuserve at 72204,541, and via the Internet as BJHargis@aol.com . Permission is granted for this article to be used in newsletters, on computer BBSs or other otherwise published, provided that attribution to Dr. Hargis and Christian Crusade Newspaper is included. copyright 1994 Christian Crusade Newspaper. All rights reserved. from CHRISTIAN CRUSADE NEWSPAPER by Dr. Billy James Hargis, publisher Keith Wilkerson, editor Hundreds of students nationwide this month are expected to present their schools with a simple request. The kids want recognition of God returned to their graduation ceremonies. In western Virginia, before commencement programs last year, hundreds of students protested what they said were illegal and un- American bans on graduation prayers with walkouts, petition drives and rallies -- one in a football field, another in a supermarket parking lot. In Westchester County, N.Y., hundreds of teens signed a petition to include "a tasteful reminder of the presence of God" in the graduation ceremonies at John Jay High School in Cross River, N.Y. When a class valedictorian included a prayer in his speech at a Robertson County, Tenn., high school, the crowd joined in, then gave the boy a standing ovation. A baccalaureate service for Leslie, Mich., High School included scriptural readings and a short prayer. "We weren't trying to make a religious statement," said Tom Urban, president of the Leslie school board. "We made the decision based on the traditions of this area. We wanted to get the senior class together for one final time and send it off with an inspirational message." The service was presided over by the Rev. Thomas Bump of Leslie First Baptist Church and featured one scriptural reading, a short sermon and a prayer. Held in the school gym, the baccalaureate was school sponsored and school board- approved. Graduates weren't required to attend, but 80 of 93 seniors came. However, in Wellsville, Kan., high school officials canceled plans for invocation and benediction prayers after the American Civil Liberties Union threatened to sue. Just down the highway in Emporia, the national anthem was sung after the graduation procession, a time reserved for prayer in past years. In Pittsburgh, Penn., the ACLU filed a lawsuit in federal court to stop a student-led prayer at Upper St. Clair High School's graduation ceremony. In Iowa, a federal judge granted the frantic Iowa Civil Liberties Union a temporary restraining order blocking two school districts from allowing student-led prayers, although students had voted 105- 10 in favor of prayers. But in Idaho, U.S. District Judge Harold L. Ryan ruled that allowing students to decide whether to include prayer in graduation ceremonies was constitutional. Student-led prayers also were held to be constitutional by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans. On the other hand in Berlin, N.H., high school Principal Bruce MacKay said an invocation was dropped when the ACLU threatened to sue. In Georgia's Richmond County, Superintendent John Strelec canceled the traditional baccalaureate service. Some schools leave it up to kids Elsewhere, officials allowed students to make the decision. "The seniors met, without me or any other member of the administration or faculty, and voted to have a prayer at the beginning of graduation," said Principal Thomas Fairbanks in Gettysburg, S.D. "The seniors are doing exactly what we've been told is legally acceptable." In Tennessee, Blount County schools let students decide whether they wanted prayer. In Milton, Mass., the school board said clergy would be allowed to speak at graduation, but only after signing an agreement they would not pray or mention any deity. In Elizabethtown, Ky., high school senior Amy Clark was told she could start a graduation service by praying for her classmates as they enter adulthood, but she couldn't use the word "God." "Now who are we praying to: to whom it may concern?" Patti Stewart, the mother of one of the graduates, asked The Courier- Journal of Louisville. In Sevier County, Tenn., Principal Bruce Wilson of Seymour High School said prayer was included in ceremonies there because "some things are right to do, and some things are not right to do, depending on the community. We're a community school, and we're a reflection of what our community wants." Students at Medina, Ohio, High School circulated petitions to the school board meeting, asking it to allow student prayers on the graduation program. Officials at several other small Ohio school districts in rural areas near Akron, such as Black River schools in Medina County and Chippewa Schools in Wayne County and Springfield schools in Summit County, said they have no intention of interfering with students praying at graduation exercises. Other Ohio school officials, however, vowed to obey the Supreme Court ban on allowing kids to pray. Texas commissioners send out a message Banning prayer in the public schools has helped unravel America's moral fiber, spiritually depriving an entire generation of this nation's youth. That is what is proclaimed by a resolution recently passed by the County Commission of Galveston County, Texas, and 131 other Texas counties. Although the commissioners do not oversee the public schools and although their prayer resolutions do not change the law, they are sending out a message, says Denton County Commissioner Scott Armey. Kids, teachers, administrators and parents know where their commissioners stand. And so do Congressmen, says Armey. He says having Texas' county commissioners on record endorsing school prayer just might embolden U.S. Senators and Representatives to fight to return prayer to the classroom. The Texas commissioners are not alone in their concern. "Saying America's youth need to be guided by a higher purpose, hundreds of lawmakers around the nation, from black urban liberals in Washington to white rural conservatives in Mississippi, are seeking to return prayer to public schools," reports Washington Post staff writer William Booth. "The movement has generated school prayer legislation in the District and at least six southern states," wrote Booth. "Lawmakers, claiming that American public education has lost its moral bearings, insist that in a country where metal detectors are ubiquitous in schools, students deserve the right to hear the word 'God' again. Indeed, the resurgence of school prayer seems to be just one of a handful of 'values issues' being given renewed life by Republicans and Democrats alike, including President Clinton. "The new laws are being pushed by big-city liberal politicians as well as by traditional members of the religious right. The liberals include Georgia state Sen. David Scott, a Democrat from Atlanta, whose other big issue this year is stricter gun control." "There is now this extraordinary need to provide our young people with a way to look into themselves for strength and meaning," said Scott. Americans want the right to pray "It has nothing to do with being a liberal or conservative, a Democrat or Republican, black or white," said Tennessee state Sen. Don Wright, a Republican who championed his state's prayer legislation last year. "The people want the right to pray. They want that right back again." "We're bringing back to our children the recognition that there is a place for spiritual and moral enlightenment," said Florida state Rep. Beryl Burke, a Democrat who represents Miami's mostly black Liberty City neighborhood. "The whole country is realizing that there were decades when God was left out of our society. We're seeing the error of our ways, and returning to what was good." High school students gathered around their schools' flagpoles last fall on campuses around the nation, celebrating and publicizing a three-year-old Supreme Court decision ignored by the national press which actually allows student-sponsored prayer groups in public schools. "There is just one word for it -- awesome," said Cameron Lane, who attended a gathering at Johnson High School in Savannah, Ga. Brent Moody, a senior at Mount Zion High School in Clayton County, Ga., near Atlanta, said it was "about time we as Christians stand up for what we believe in and go out and tell the world." "Organizers said more than 1 million students participated in the meetings, which were held around the flag poles of public high schools before classes began," reported Robert Naylor of the Associated Press. "The meetings started in Texas after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1990 that public high schools generally must allow student prayer groups to meet and worship if other student clubs are permitted to meet at school." The justices said such extracurricular prayer meetings do not violate the constitutionally required separation of church and state if high school religious groups are given the same access accorded other student activities. ACLU determined not to let it happen However, the American Civil Liberties Union is fighting the student-led prayer circles, calling them a step backward from the brave new world that the ACLU has envisioned for America in the last 25 years. In Michigan, the American Civil Liberties Union asked state school superintendent Robert Schiller to discourage students from attending the rallies. But Schiller said he believed the students had a constitutional right to participate. Sponsors and backers said they had to convince school officials in other areas. "A lot of school districts and a lot of school administrators argued that it violated the separation of church and state, that you can't have students praying on campus," said Jay Sekulow, an Atlanta lawyer who argued for the winning side in the 1990 case. "But our position is that it was voluntary, it was student-led and it was protected." Students said the rallies draw the attention of other students, but it's not always approving. "People will come up to you and say, what a Jesus freak," said Samantha Clark, a Brunswick, Maine, high school sophomore who organized a rally. But she said the prayer service "makes the day go better. It just gives us strength." And strength is one thing that public school students need these days. "During a single week last month in the District of Columbia public schools, two high school students were shot and seriously wounded, another student was stabbed by a sixth-grade girl, an assistant principal was punched in the face, and a policeman was assaulted by students," wrote Richard N. Ostling in Time magazine. "Mayor Sharon Pratt Kelly responded to the mayhem as big-city mayors often do: she announced plans to post 60 more cops on campus. "But her predecessor in the job is convinced that a higher power is required. Ex-mayor and now councilman Marion Barry has proposed a law allowing students to lead nonsectarian classroom prayers. 'Maybe, just maybe, it will turn some of our values around,' he says. 'We've lost our way.' Ex-mayor calls for prayer in schools Barry served six months in prison for drug possession after he was caught in a sting operation. He might "seem a curious proponent of piety," chuckled the Time article, "but his campaign is no oddity. Pressed by voters, legislators around the U.S. are probing for loopholes in Supreme Court rulings that have forbidden mandated school prayers along with 'moments of silence' to foster praying. "These efforts come, moreover, at a time when the court is re- examining a cornerstone of its rulings on church and state: the so- called Lemon test, which has forbidden virtually all government involvement with religion." The 1971 Lemon ruling bars tax support for salaries and secular textbooks in religious day schools. The decision set up a three-part test to determine whether a government action is an unconstitutional infringement of church-state separation. To be legal, an action must: Ą have a ''secular legislative purpose,'' Ą avoid ''excessive government entanglement with religion'' and Ą have a ''primary effect'' that ''neither advances nor inhibits religion.'' Many legal experts and religious leaders feel that the Lemon test is at best confusing, at worst unfair, and in any event destined to change. The nationwide, grass-roots campaign to welcome prayer back into America's schools is also aimed at a weak link in the Supreme Court's anti-prayer rulings: the court has never expressly stated whether voluntary student prayers are permissible. Christians have to fight to pray The Court has already overruled lower court decisions that used the primary-effect criterion to outlaw voluntary religious clubs in public schools, rental of public schools to churches on the same basis as other community groups, and help for blind and deaf students attending religious schools. All are permitted, according to the high court. However, each ruling required long and difficult legal battles by Christians yearning for their children again to have the right to pray in freedom. At every turn, they have been met by ridicule in the news media. A classic example would be a noxious column in the Washington Post by Richard Cohen who proclaimed sarcastically that the notion "that America has slipped its religious moorings and even become hostile to religion" is nothing but "fiction." He went on to poke fun at Christians, who he seem to claim that "the entire nation has been zoned Sodom and Gomorrah -- a capitalist-communist hybrid in which profit is permitted but religion banished." He then laughed at the idea "that if only the government got behind religion more, all sorts of wonderful things would happen. Illegitimacy would diminish, crime would abate, welfare would be reduced É The assertion is that more religion in our lives would return us to the halcyon days of yesteryear. Media has fun mocking the idea "The constant bleat for values and religion," he wrote, "borders on the whimsical to suggest that America's problems are basically spiritual when they are more importantly economic and social. It is even a worse folly if we get to the point where a dreamy nostalgia for a mythical religious era is substituted for some hard thinking." However, America has tried Cohen's point of view and found it wanting. Another Washington Post writer, Steve Twomey also found the idea of returning prayer to our schools hilarious. In his column, he told the following: "So a guy brushes up against a guy on a Metro bus in Silver Spring and gets shot for it. So a teacher tries to disarm a Largo student and gets shot for it. So a student argues with a student at a District high school and gets shot for it. So a ... Aw, you know the litany of our moral degeneration. "Shall we pray? "'I believe,' Marion Barry was saying, 'in the power of persistent prayer, persistent and repeated prayer.' "Never doubt a man back from the political dead," wrote Twomey. "His Former Honor, now the council member from Ward 8, called back one day last week after attending a workshop on prayer in public schools, a workshop that focused, in part, on him. He's so enamored of prayer as an elixir that he has proposed a bill to allow students in the People's Schools to pray openly on the job. "'Prayer ought to be everywhere,' Barry said, 'at work, at school, at church, at home. Let's not box it in. It's wrong to box it in.' "He meant he wants prayer that's organized. Not by school officials. That would mix church and state, something we have long frowned upon. But if students, who aren't representatives of the government, decide -- presumably by vote -- that they want to pray as a group on school time, they should be able to do so, M.B. said. He doesn't mean a moment of silent reflection. He means say-it-loud, say-it-proud prayer. "'Our young people,' he said, 'need to do it for themselves and do it for others to hear.' "In the classroom?" asked Twomey. "'Of course.' "What about a student who doesn't want to pray? "'You don't have to sit there. ... It won't take long.' "And the assumption," asked Twomey, "is that this wouldn't infringe on his First Amendment right to worship or not, as he sees fit?" "'It works.'" answered Barry. "'That's the assumption. ... (And) you might catch the spirit by listening to those who pray.' He said young people grow up with ugly videos, gangsta rap, violent movies. 'They need to hear a different message. They need to see a different message.' "Amen to that," wrote Twomey. "Amen to much of what Barry says about prayer's value." Free speech and equal access A mail campaign spearheaded by Christian lawyers at the Virginia Beach-based American Center for Law and Justice has sent every high school principal and attorney general in America literature urging that such prayers be allowed as an expression of ''free speech'' and ''equal access to the marketplace of ideas.'' Daily drive-by shootings, jails packed with juvenile offenders, and what is generally recognized as a serious breakdown in the nation's moral values is fueling much of the state legislative activity as well. Georgia has enacted a law to permit moments of silence. Student-led prayers have been approved in Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee and Virginia. Similar legislation is under consideration in at least six more states. Congress has caught the fever this year as well. Both the Senate and House at one point passed measures that would strip funds from schools that forbid ''voluntary'' prayer. Eventually, the enforcement element of the bills was removed, turning the measures into federal suggestions with no teeth. However, Congressmen endorsed the legislation with great hoopla and undoubtedly will cite their pro- prayer votes on this fall's campaign literature. In almost all cases, state chapters of the American Civil Liberties Union and affiliated groups threaten to challenge the constitutionality of the new laws, citing decades of Supreme Court precedent declaring public school prayer a breach in the wall separating church and state. Proponents of prayer in schools say that they are acting less from political expediency than from deep concern that American society is out of whack. Mississippi kids stand by their principal Last fall, a soft-spoken but deeply religious principal in inner-city Jackson, Miss., made national headlines when he was suspended from his job for allowing his students to read a short prayer over the public school intercom. The principal, Bishop Knox, said his approval of the prayer followed a 1992 ruling by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Houston in Jones v. Clearcreek Independent School District, which concluded that student-initiated prayers, which were non- proselytizing and nonsectarian, could be read at graduations. The Supreme Court let the decision stand without comment last June. Knox and thousands of lawmakers, as well as Christian legal action organizations, seized on the ruling. He turned over his school intercom to the students, who had voted for prayer. Most of the new laws closely track the 5th Circuit ruling, giving students the right to pray, but only if it is voluntary and the students initiate the benedictions. Opponents say they are worried about the separation of church and state, which has been broadly applied to school prayer by Supreme Court rulings since its 1962 decision in Engel v. Vitale. The 5th Circuit ruling sanctioning student-initiated prayer applies only to Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi. The prayer read over the intercom at Jackson's Wingfield High School just before Thanksgiving was short and simple. But for many parents, students and teachers here, it was the beginning of an open revolt against federal prohibitions on school prayer. Thousands of students in 15 Mississippi counties, many with the support of their teachers and superintendents, walked out of class in the weeks that followed to protest court-mandated sanctions against school prayer. Parents and students, black and white, gathered at large rallies at the state Capitol to register their support for the soft-spoken and bespectacled principal of Wingfield High, Bishop Knox, who was relieved of his duties after allowing his students to read the 21-word prayer that mentioned God, but not Jesus Christ. After a volatile hearing before the Jackson school board, Knox's termination was overturned, and instead the principal and former coach was suspended without pay until the next school year. Knox said he is disappointed with the compromise decision and not certain he will return. 'People woke up; this is just plain wrong' "When you get a man fired for allowing school prayer, people woke up to the fact that this is just plain wrong and we're not going to take it anymore," said Bobby Clanton, president of a conservative political action group here. The prayer at Wingfield and suspension of Knox tapped deep religious feelings here and anxieties over what many see as worsening conditions in the schools. Leaders of the protests say they are creating a potent coalition of whites and blacks to fight for the return of prayer. Religious and conservative groups around the country are watching to see what happens here. The furor over school prayer was stoked by Gov. Kirk Fordice, who openly supported Knox. "Who says prayer in school is illegal?" said Fordice, saying the public sees a "jarring, shattering irony É You've got every kind of blasphemy in schools -- improper language, pistols, sexual conduct" -- but no prayer. Many parents, students and teachers echoed Fordice's comments that schools around the country are "out of control" and that a simple prayer in the classroom could help bring back what Knox described as "a sense of decorum and order and an acknowledgment that something bigger than us exists -- a Creator." ACLU upset; officials unafraid of them Even before the current furor in Mississippi, many schools there allowed or endorsed school prayer in the classroom, at Friday night football games, at graduation ceremonies and in Bible clubs. "They're violating it left and right all over the state," said Lynn Watkins, director of the Mississippi American Civil Liberties Union. "We've got a lot of school boards that basically have concluded, 'We don't care what the law is, we're going to have public prayer.'" Billy Moss, superintendent of Jones County schools in south Mississippi, said prayer is common in his schools. Moss supported the students and teachers who walked out of class over the prayer ban. "These students have rights, but sometimes we as adults forget about them," Jones said. "I don't want to go against the Constitution, but I think Dr. Knox is right." Knox said he believes allowing his students to recite a short prayer over the school intercom was not only right, but legal. Knox said he was approached by students who wanted to recite a prayer over the intercom. The school put the issue to a student vote, and prayer won, 490 to 96. The prayer was written and read by students. The prayer was read for three days before Knox was suspended for insubordination by his superior, Jackson school superintendent Ben Canada. Knox said he was satisfied that the prayer met the requirements of the 5th Circuit ruling. The principal, a Christian, said a short prayer at the beginning of the school day "sets the tone" and "gives a sense of purpose." "Some people are saying we were forcing prayer on students, but that is not correct," Knox said. "It was not state-directed. It was not a formal religious exercise. The students weren't asked to bow their heads or close their eyes or do anything." Adam Watson, a ninth-grader who walked out three times at Wingfield High in support of prayer and Knox, said, "We didn't even hear the prayer until the third day because all the kids were talking." Watson, 14, and his parents are considering suing the Jackson school district, citing a loss of religious and speech freedoms. How can this debate even be occurring in America? How low have we sunk? "A few months ago, I lunched with a friend who now lives in Asia. My friend observed that while the world still regards the United States as the leading economic and military power on earth, this same world no longer beholds us with the same moral respect it once did," says William J. Bennett, the U.S. Secretary of Education under President Reagan. "Instead, it sees a society in decline." African won't raise his kids here Writing in the April 1994 Reader's Digest, Bennett told of talking with a Washington, D.C., cab driver -- a graduate student from Africa. "He told me that when he receives his degree, he is returning to his homeland. He doesn't want his children to grow up in a country where his daughter will be an "easy target" for young men and where his son might be a target for violence. "It is more civilized where I come from," he said. What a pathetic commentary on our nation. Yet, since 1960, while America's gross domestic product has tripled, violent crime has increased 560 percent. Divorces have more than doubled. And by the end of the decade, 40 percent of all American births and 80 percent of minority births will occur out of wedlock, notes Bennett. The United States leads the industrialized world in murder, rape and other violent crime. "There is a coarseness, a callousness and a cynicism to our era," wrote Bennett. "Our culture seems almost dedicated to the corruption of our young. People are losing their capacity for shock, disgust and outrage. What's to blame for this change? The hard fact is it is something we have done to ourselves. Thoughtful people have pointed to materialism, an overly permissive society, or the legacy of the 1960s. In my view, the crisis is spiritual. "There is a disturbing reluctance to talk seriously about matters spiritual and religious. One will often hear that religious faith is a private matter. But the Russian novelist Dostoyevsky reminded us that 'if God does not exist, everything is permissible.' "Much of society ridicules and mocks those who are serious about their faith. America's only respectable bigotry is bigotry against religious people. And the only reason for hatred of religion is that it forces us to confront matters many would prefer to ignore. "What can be done? For one, we must connect public policies to our deepest beliefs. Right now we say one thing and do another. We say we want law and order, but we allow violent criminals to return to the streets. We say we want to discourage teen-age sex, but educators treat teen-agers as if they were animals in heat, and are more eager to dispense condoms than moral guidance. We say we want a color-blind society, but we count people by race. "Most important," says Bennett, "the solution to our chief problem of spiritual impoverishment depends on spiritual renewal. America desperately needs to recover the purpose of education, which is to provide for the intellectual and moral education of the young. Plato made the point that good education makes good men, and good men act nobly. "We must carry on a new struggle for the country we love. If we have full employment and greater economic growth -- if we have cities of gold and alabaster -- but our children have not learned how to walk in goodness, justice and mercy, then the American experiment will have failed." What does the Bible say that we should do? "Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it," promises Proverbs 22:6. "I suppose that most professing Christians are acquainted with this verse," wrote the great Christian preacher J.C. Ryle almost 100 years ago. "The sound of it is probably familiar to your ears, like an old tune. It is likely you have heard it, or read it, talked of it, or quoted it, many a time. "But, after all, how little is the substance of this text regarded! The doctrine it contains appears scarcely known. The duty it puts before us seems seldom practiced." A century ago, Ryle wrote that "we live in days when there is a great zeal for education. We are told of new teaching systems, and new books for the young. Yet, still for all this, the vast majority of children are not trained in the way they should go, for when they grow up to an adult, they do not walk with God. How shall we account for this state of affairs? The plain truth is, we have ignored the Lord's commandment. Therefore, the Lord's promise is not fulfilled. You have a clear promise on your side, said Ryle: "Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it." "Think what it is to have a promise like this, challenged Ryle. "Promises are the gracious hope which in every age have supported and strengthened the believer. Fathers and mothers, when your hearts are failing and ready to stop, look at the word of this text, and take comfort. "Think of who it is that promises. It is the word of the King of Kings, who never changes. Has He said anything that He will not do? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good? Nothing too hard for Him to perform. The things that are impossible with men are possible with God. If we don't get the benefit of the promise we are dwelling upon, the fault is not in Him, but in ourselves. "Cast your bread upon the waters," says Ecclesiastes 11:1, "for after many days you will find it again." The Lord is not talking about soggy bread. He is telling us to teach our children. To let them pray. To save this great nation. WHAT IS CHRISTIAN CRUSADE NEWSPAPER? Christian Crusade Newspaper is in its 42nd year as a monthly voice of Christian conservativism. It has a worldwide circulation and is published by Christian Crusade, P.O. Box 977, Tulsa, OK 74102. The newspaper is distributed free -- without charge -- to subscribers as a result of the conviction of its founder, Dr. Billy James Hargis, that he was not to put a price-tag on the gospel. For your free subscription, just ask. Dr. Hargis can be E-mailed a number of ways: on America On Line as BJHargis, via the Internet as BJHargis@aol.com , on Compuserve at 72204,541, and on GEnie via K.Wilkerson3.