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Rejecting God in Public Schools

It's a violation of church and state to pray to God in public schools. However, the same standard does not appear to apply to those who worship Allah:

The U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal Monday by evangelical Christian students and their parents who said a Contra Costa County school district engaged in unconstitutional religious indoctrination when it taught students about Islam by having them recite language from prayers.
The court, without comment, left intact a ruling by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco last November in favor of the Byron Union School District in eastern Contra Costa.
The suit challenged the content of a seventh-grade history course at Excelsior Middle School in Byron in the fall of 2001. The teacher, using an instructional guide, told students they would adopt roles as Muslims for three weeks to help them learn what Muslims believe.
She encouraged them to use Muslim names, recited prayers in class, had them memorize and recite a passage from the Quran and made them give up something for a day, such as television or candy, to simulate fasting during the month of Ramadan. The final exam asked students for a critique of elements of Muslim culture.

Corruption Chronicles rightly notes:

The courts have not been so friendly to Christians and neither have public school districts across the nation, which have prevented Christian students from engaging in activities that supposedly violate the separation of church and state. Examples include a court ruling that the word God in the pledge of allegiance violates church-state separation and the recent disciplinary threat against a Maryland middle school student for reading the Bible during her free time at school.

For more recent news there is also this :

The ACLU has gone on the attack again against prayer on school property, this time in Tennessee. At the same time, a Muslim group in Virginia says schools should examine their policies to see that they accommodate the religious needs of Muslim students.

The contrast of recent judicial decisions is appalling but not surprising. Although many are likely to point out the injustice on the basis of "fairness", the reality is that fairness in this ideological sense is a myth. Within government, a particular belief system will always prevail and inevitably preference one religion over others. In the United States, Christianity has been the prevailing religion, which has led to considerable social, political, and economic blessings that are presently taken for granted.

Government is a reflection of the governed and transitions with the changing worldview of society. Christianity and faith in God do not rise or fall with the legality of prayer in government schools and whether or not Islam is taught in preference to true religion. However, such public attacks are indicators of a much greater and more important battle that is occurring each day for the hearts and minds and ultimately the souls of Americans.

It is absurd that prayer to the Creator of the Universe has been banned in government schools in preference to the worship of a false prophet. However, it is infinitely more grievous that Americans are increasingly rejecting the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which offers forgiveness, peace, truth, reality and salvation to those who believe.

Posted by tim at October 5, 2006 12:23 AM

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