Jefferson's Wall - Still Standing Today

In 1802, Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter to the Danbury Baptists Association.  Part of the letter reads as follows, “Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between Church and State.”

This phrase has been quoted over the years by the U.S. Supreme Court – and we Americans have come to embrace the concept.

I appreciate this dividing wall, and I respect our country’s tolerance for individual choice when it comes to belief or non-belief in a deity.  No public institution should include or enforce a certain religious act upon the collective whole.

For years I have been against prayer in public schools.  Even when I was a church pastor, I refused to support activities designed to get prayers into the schools.  Why do I feel this way?

Everybody can “pray at all times” silently.  Nobody is restricting thoughts.  Therefore, prayer is already tolerated in schools.

What so many in the Christian church want is for the schools to allow public prayer.  More specifically, they want public prayers to the Christian God, thereby affirming their beliefs.

How would the Christian kids (and their parents) feel if the school chose to have public prayers to a Hindu diety?  Or how would they feel if all the Muslim kids hauled out their rugs, faced Mecca and prostrated themselves in prayer to Allah?

There is simply no need for any agencies supported by public governmental funds to align themselves with any specific religious belief.  Jefferson had it right when he said there should be a wall of separation between church and state.

If Christian parents feel so strongly that prayer is needed in schools, then they should send their kids to a private school – financially underwritten by private citizens and not public tax dollars.