by Laura Strebel

Created on: March 13, 2009   Last Updated: January 14, 2010

Personal prayers would be impossible to stop especially just before tests or a sports competition. A silent prayer, under the breath, is, I'm sure, seen in almost every classroom and gymnasium hundreds if not thousands of times each school day. That quiet pause with eyes closed and perhaps the mouth moving just a little which is what a prayer should be, according to a Preacher I heard not too long ago. What has been stopped is the school sponsored prayer that all students who attend a school are forced to listen and/or join in.

In Abington School District v. Schempp, 1963, the Supreme Court of the Land ruled the enforced recitation of Bible verse and the Lord's Prayer starting each school day was illegal and had to stop. The question decided was:
Question
Did the Pennsylvania law and Abington's policy, requiring public school students to participate in classroom religious exercises, violate the religious freedom of students as protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments?
Conclusion
The Court found such a violation. The required activities encroached on both the Free Exercise Clause and the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment since the readings and recitations were essentially religious ceremonies and were "intended by the State to be so." Furthermore, argued Justice Clark, the ability of a parent to excuse a child from these ceremonies by a written note was irrelevant since it did not prevent the school's actions from violating the Establishment Clause.

(From: Oyez: Abington School District v. Schempp, 374 U.S. 203 (1963), U.S. Supreme Court Case Summary & Oral Argument) See also: Oyez: Engel v. Vitale, 370 U.S. 421 (1962), U.S. Supreme Court & Oral Argument)

In the case of a religious-run school and a parent or person who actually follows the Bible, the knowledge that in that book is an admonition not to say prayers out loud in order to "not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others."   Different religions, even differences between Christian religions, teach that prayer is to be done in different ways so that none is held to the same rules.

There are arguments time and again about the issue of prayer in school and my answer is always the same, do your own Bible reading then turn to the law of the United States and see if it isn't much closer than one might have heard.  There is much better truth in the law than most can pull from listening

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