What Happened to Bible Study?

Sept 27 2006

Question:

Do you think we'll ever get back to the days when they allowed prayer in our public schools?  When I was young, we used to pray and read the Bible in school every day, but my grfandchildren aren't able to experience this, and it upsets me a grreat deal.

Billy Grahams Response:

I know this is a complicated political and legal issue, and I have no way of knowing if we weill ever return to the patterns of the past.  Unfortunately, the general trend in our society is certianly away from God and against any public expressions of faith.  I hope you will keep several things in mind, however.  First, non one can banish God from our hearts.  Second, never forget the important place of our families in helping our children come to believe in God and rely on Him.  Finally, we need to remember to pray for our country.  The issue you mention here is only one sin of our nation's increasing drift from God. Pray for our nation and its leaders every day.  The Bible says, "Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord." (Psalm 33:12)

Jen's Response:

Actually, this is not a complicated legal issue.  It is very simple.  Yes, it is complicated politically, but only because there are a lot of individuals who don't like what our Constitution says in plain easy to understand language about this issue.

First, prayer is allowed in public schools.  Individuals may pray as they wish, just not necessarily out loud or in a way that disrupts classes etc.  What has been disallowed is the school forcing children to pray or read the Bible by making it part of the curriculum.  And obviously, that is a good thing.  Not all of the children attending public schools in America come from the same faith and it is impossible to design a non-sectarian prayer because some faiths find group prayer or praying out loud to be offensive to their god, and then, some children come from non-religious families and don't pray at all. Schools simply do not have the right to force children to participate in a religious practice that they or their parents do not agree with.  That is a big part of what our First Amendment means when it says "government shall make no law respecting the establishment of a religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." in other words, government can't force you to pray and can't prohibit you as an individual from praying or not as is your desire or practice.  So, Graham is just plain wrong here.  Not forcing children to pray to gods they don't believe in isn't a sign of society drifting away from God, it is a sign that Americans respect the right of the individual to hold their beliefs, even if they are different from ours.

 Second.our nation is not sinning or drifting away from god.  Our nation is and always has been secular.  There has never been a mention of god in our constitution and our nation as a government entity has never professed a belief in god and does not have the legal right to do so (as it is prohibited by the founding constititon).  Since our nation (as a legal entity/government) has never acknowledged a belief in the god it can't possibly drift away from a belief it never had.  Now, it is quite possible that the people that make up the citizenry of our nation are more or less religious then they were in 1776, but Graham doesn't address that.  He is talking about the government, not the people.  Basically, if he is saying our government (and not just our society or the citizens of our nation) should ackonwledge the Christian god and make it the "lord" of our nation, he is proposing that we convert our democracy (government by and for the people) to a theocracy (government by and for religion), and ignore the wisdom of our founding fathers, who quite purposely separated church and state and forbid the state from professing a belief or interfering with the rights of the individuals to their own beliefs and thoughts.  What Graham is suggesting here is simply unamerican.

The only thing that Graham gets right here is that it is the role and right of the family to help shape the beliefs of the children of that family.