New York City Mayor Eric Adams made headlines on Feb. 28 when he said, "When we took prayers out of schools, guns came in schools… Don’t tell me about no separation of church and state. State is the body. Church is the heart. You take the heart out of the body, the body dies." In true form, the liberal media jumped into outrage mode. CNN labeled the comments "controversial" and "alarming;" The New York Times went with "surreal;" and an opinion writer at MSNBC described Adams’s "theocratic impulses."
But Mayor Adams was exactly right in questioning the secular’s sacrosanct "separation of church and state." While the Constitution is clear that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion," the term "separation of church and state" is nowhere in our founding documents.
Despite this, the concept has been used to create a "religion of secularism" – the very outcome that the Supreme Court repeatedly warned against for decades. In my forthcoming book "Serenity in the Storm: Living through Chaos by Leaning on Christ," I explore the way in which God has been excised from society contrary to what our Founders intended.
NYC MAYOR ERIC ADAMS SAYS WHEN AMERICA 'TOOK PRAYERS OUT OF SCHOOLS, GUNS CAME INTO SCHOOLS'
In the nearly six decades since prayer was exiled from our nation’s schools, America has seen not "neutrality" toward religion but rather overt "hostility." Just a glimpse at case law pertaining to religion in our nation’s schools tells the story.
In 1985, for example, the court struck down an Alabama law allowing a sixty-second moment of silence "for meditation or voluntary prayer" in school. Student-led prayer before a football game at Santa Fe High School—even if "nonsectarian [and] nonproselytizing"—was barred. Likewise, a rabbi could not offer a prayer at a public middle school graduation ceremony.
Nor could the Virginia Military Institute recite a daily prayer before dinner with its cadets. The hostility toward faith from the court made its way into school curricula with the court striking down a Louisiana law called "The Balanced Treatment for Creation-Science and Evolution-Science Act," which mandated that where evolution is taught in school, creationism must be taught as well.
Pew surveys the aforementioned cases in more detail and points out that "[a]s a result [of the evolution decision], school boards have lost virtually every fight over curriculum changes designed to challenge evolution, including disclaimers in biology textbooks."
In New York, a federal court upheld the New York City Department of Education’s policy that allowed "[t]he display of secular holiday symbol decorations…includ[ing but not limited to], Christmas trees, menorahs, and the [Islamic] star and crescent" even though, according to Pew, "It explicitly forbids the display of a Christmas nativity scene in public schools."
Meanwhile, in Denver, a teacher was stopped from silently reading his Bible during a 15-minute "silent reading period" in his fifth-grade classroom, where students were free to read any book of their choice. The school additionally forced the teacher, Mr. Roberts, to remove the Bible from his desk while permitting him "to teach actively about Navajo Indian religion" and "read silently a book dealing with the life of Buddha and keep it on his desk for some period." The court admitted that the teacher, Mr. Roberts, "never read from the Bible aloud nor overtly proselytized about his faith to his students," but because he had a poster referencing "the hand of God" in his classroom as he silently read his Bible, the court found that Mr. Roberts had inappropriately "created the appearance that Mr. Roberts was seeking to advance his religious views."
CHRISTIANITY QUICKLY DIMINISHING IN US, ON PACE TO BECOME MINORITY RELIGION IN DECADES: STUDY
As you can see, for decades, courts across the country slowly whittled away at the free exercise of faith in our schools. Ironically, even in Schempp—Murray O’Hair’s case that ended prayer in schools—the court admonished against expelling religion altogether in a way that would establish a so-called "religion of secularism."
Citing the 1952 case, Zorach v. Clauson, the majority in Schempp went on to issue a very important admonition: "We agree, of course, that the State may not establish a ‘religion of secularism’ in the sense of affirmatively opposing or showing hostility to religion, thus preferring those who believe in no religion over those who do believe."
Regrettably, the court’s warning against a "religion of secularism" was unheeded, for that is exactly what has developed in America’s schools and society more broadly.
Yet, just a cursory look at history and tradition shows that the Founding Fathers intended the exact opposite. In the case Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow, a parent argued that children in the classroom hearing—even if not reciting—"under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance violated the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause.
Amazingly, the notoriously liberal Ninth Circuit agreed that the words "under God" violated the Constitution, though the court later backtracked on this decision. When the initial ruling of the Ninth Circuit reached the Supreme Court, the parent who brought the suit lost on a technicality, meaning that justices did not have to answer the substantive question at hand. Four justices, however, penned concurrences arguing that reciting the pledge in school did not violate the Constitution.
In his concurrence, Justice William Rehnquist wrote, "The phrase ‘under God’ in the pledge seems, as a historical matter, to sum up the attitude of the Nation’s leaders, and to manifest itself in many of our public observances." Rehnquist then proceeds to outline the place of God in America’s history. On April 30, 1789, at the first inauguration of President George Washington, Washington placed his hand on the Bible and turned to Psalm 121:1, which reads, "I raise my eyes toward the hills. Whence shall my help come."
Washington then recited the Presidential Oath of Office, ending with the words, "So help me God"—words still used to the this day at the presidential inauguration. During the first Thanksgiving Proclamation, Washington referenced the "favors of Almighty God," "obey[ing] His will," and being "grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor…." As Rehnquist remarked, "Almost all succeeding Presidents have issued similar Thanksgiving proclamations."
During what is perhaps the most famous presidential address ever given, the Gettysburg Address of 1863, President Abraham Lincoln vowed, "[W]e here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom…." Lincoln, likewise, invoked God during his second inaugural address on March 4, 1865, saying, "[w]ith malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right…."
Rehnquist goes on to note that when President Woodrow Wilson declared war against Germany in 1917, he mentioned "God helping" America; when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt took office during the Great Depression, he "humbly ask[ed for] the blessing of God"; and, on D-Day, General Dwight D. Eisenhower told the Allied Forces, "Good Luck! And let us all beseech the blessings of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking." Moreover, during the treacherous Civil War, "In God We Trust" was added to the US currency. In 1956, Congress officially made "In God We Trust" our country’s motto. And our National Anthem, "The Star-Spangled Banner," has "In God is our trust" in the final verse.
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Taken together, Rehnquist writes this in response to the challenge of "under God" in our pledge, "The Constitution only requires that schoolchildren be entitled to abstain from the ceremony if they chose to do so. To give the parents of such a child a sort of ‘heckler’s veto’ over a patriotic ceremony willingly participated in by other students, simply because the Pledge of Allegiance contains the descriptive phrase ‘under God,’ is an unwarranted extension of the Establishment Clause, an extension which would have the unfortunate effect of prohibiting commendable patriotic observance."
I venture to say that our Founding Fathers would have agreed. In his book, William Murray [the son of famous atheist Madalyn Murray O’Hair, who later rejected his mother’s views and converted to Christianity,] explores the views of various thought leaders surrounding the founding of our country. John Locke—perhaps the greatest influence on our Founding Fathers and the Declaration of Independence—argued for the separation of church and state while also saying this of education in a letter to a friend: "With the reading of history I think the study of morality should be joined. I mean not the ethics of the Schools fitted to dispute, but…Aristotle, and above all the New Testament [which] teaches wherein a man may learn how to live…."
The term "separation of church and state"—while found nowhere in our founding documents—was used by Thomas Jefferson in this manner: the "legislature should ‘make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between church and state."
Murray makes an important and often ignored note—that Jefferson made his famous "separation of church and state" reference, ascribing it specifically to the legislature, not public schools. Setting this statement aside, Jefferson made ample references to morality and virtue, writing this in a letter: "The defect of these virtues can never be made up by all the other acquirements of body and mind." In other words, Jefferson understood and had high regard for morality. As Murray writes, "Jefferson’s aim was not separation of church and state but the fullest possible freedom of belief and opinion."
While the prohibition of a national religion is quite clear in the "Establishment Clause," our forefathers never sought to exile religion from school entirely. But that is exactly what has happened, and grave consequences have followed. William Murray noted, "July 17, 1963 was the first day Baltimore’s children could not pray in schools. Before that date, there had never been a murder in a Baltimore school. The nurses gave out aspirins and teachers taught English, math, history and the sciences. Thirty years later, there is a Baltimore schools police force to deal with violence and drugs in schools. The nurses give out condoms and implant birth-control devices that allow teen-age girls to have unprotected sex."
Those were Murray’s words in 1993, 30 years after prayer was taken out of our schools. Now, almost 60 years later, where are we? Teachers are convincing middle school students, without parental notice, that they may be a different gender. Kindergarteners are learning about sexuality and body parts. Toxic social media, suicide, and fentanyl overdoses plague our nation’s young people. Alongside the removal of God from education has come a series of ills that have tormented a generation.
Nevertheless, the tide very well may be turning.
