If You’d Like to See Prayer in Schools…

I keep seeing people talking about bringing prayer back to public schools.

I saw the video of the Oklahoma education secretary waving a Trump-approved “God Bless the USA Bible,” imported at great expense from China, and boasting that he was going to bring prayer back to public schools. “Bringing prayer back to public schools” is a phrase I heard spoken of positively growing up, and I’m hearing it again now. It makes me a little nervous.

Here’s something you might not know: there’s already prayer in public schools.

No, I’m serious, there’s already prayer in public schools. It’s going on right now.

I didn’t know there would be prayer in public schools either. I was raised very conservative and assumed public schools were godless hell holes, but one thing led to another, and homeschooling wasn’t working out for our family anymore, so I put Adrienne in the public middle school. And after she’d been going for awhile, I found out that there was a friendly pastor who came to the school weekly, early in the morning, and facilitated a little student-led prayer and Bible study in the computer lab during the breakfast hour, or sometimes outdoors at the flag pole if the weather was good. Since breakfast is officially before school is in session and it’s led by students, it doesn’t violate any laws or anybody’s rights, but any student who wants to come pray and learn a bit about the Bible can do it. Students who aren’t interested can just keep eating breakfast in the cafeteria. Sometimes Adrienne goes to Bible study, and sometimes Adrienne sleeps an extra half an hour and shows up just before the tardy bell. But people are definitely praying in schools.

That’s not the kind of prayer the MAGA movement with their God Bless the USA Bibles want, of course.

What the MAGA movement wants, is MANDATORY prayer in schools.

They want to bully everyone into the prayers that THEY want them to say, to the particular interpretation of Christ that THEY want them to believe in. They want Jewish children and Muslim children and children who don’t believe in God to be forced to pray to that particular shade of white Jesus. And if you’re Christian, they don’t necessarily want your children to have freedom of religion either. Not if you belong to the American Methodist Episcopal Church and your pastor preaches fiery sermons on social justice too often. Not if you are from a Lutheran or Anglican Communion church with a female pastor. Not if you’re a Quaker who shows up with your first aid kit at government protests. And, eventually, not if you’re Catholic either.

You may not know this, but the alliance between white conservative Evangelical Christians and Roman Catholics is not at all a traditional one. It dates back to a certain point in the Nixon administration. Before then, in America and all over the rest of the world, white Evangelical Protestants did not see any common ground with Catholics and viewed them as creepy foreign idolaters. Now, politically, they’re willing to make bedfellows with a certain type of “traditional” dudebro Catholic like J. D. Vance, the kind of Catholic who goes around saying “Deus Vult!” But theologically, they still don’t think most Catholics are Christian. They still despise the Pope. They still think the sacraments and belief in the Communion of Saints are idolatry. They think nuns and friars and celibate priests are scary. A lot of them think the Virgin Mary is the Whore of Babylon. And there are far more of them than of us.

Does that sound like a good situation to you?

As the MAGA movement of conservative Christians gets their way and becomes more and more able to throw their weight around and bully others, they won’t need to court our vote or pretend they think we’re Christian anymore. What do you think will happen then?

Is that what you want?

Would you like a scenario where your child is told by a teacher that their NABRE Bible is from the devil, the scapular they’re wearing is demonic too, and if they don’t wipe those stupid Ash Wednesday ashes off their forehead they’re getting sent home from school? Me neither.

Would you like to be able to practice your faith and pass it on to your children in peace? Me too.

Would you like to ACTUALLY help there be prayer in the lives of public school children? Me too. Maybe you can arrange a before-school optional prayer session like the one at this school. Or after school. Or at a free after school program at your church.

Skip those overpriced “God Bless the USA Bibles,” though. You can get a lot better quality Bibles for a lot cheaper somewhere else.