2-8-20 Public Schools – To Pray Or Not?

Public Schools – To Pray Or Not? Espinoza Vs Montana Dept of Rev

President Trump is adjusting the bureaucratic rules regarding public prayer. The question relates to the Public Schools – To Pray Or Not?

The commentary for today is on this national controversy of Political Theology that reaches to the very core of the ability to pray and deeper into the Constitutional Right of children to pray.

I am just scratching the surface on this topic since we have many adjustments being made bureaucratically to existing law and Supreme Court debacles. We have seen decades of Court actions along with political and bureaucratic destruction of our Foundational soul for our Citizens and the Republic.

The Supreme Court Again

There is a current case before the Supreme Court that has many ramifications not only in the discussion on prayer but also regarding the potential definition of what will be the national religion. As with all the programs, the links to this case are in the References. The case deals with a modern tax-credit scholarships program in Montana. What is interesting is that the controversy is based on a law passed in the 1800’s which ostracized the Catholics from getting tax relief as the predominant Protestants were receiving. This case is bigger than the alligators coming back from the past.

Sepinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue is well articulated in full in The Federalist article (Reference #2) by Joy Pullmann. One point she makes is,

The truth is that there is no neutrality about religion. To not believe in God is a religious belief, just as believing in God is a religious belief. To include the Bible in curricula is a religious decision, just like not including the Bible in curricula is a religious decision.

To pray or not to pray: both are religious questions. Both teach something about the importance, existence, and nature of religion, as does every other decision about a school’s instruction, teaching methods, and priorities. Instruction techniques must change based on whether one holds the religious view that humans are by nature sinful or the competing religious view that humans are born perfect and corrupted by institutions.”

She ends the article with,

The Supreme Court has spent a century attacking religion under the guise of neutrality. Its decision on this case could reverse more than a century of injustice that the court has until now pushed apace.”

Will this matter at the local level? Will local administrators allow Public Schools – To Pray Or Not?

Implementation

How will the allowance for Public School – To Pray Or Not be implemented. The reality is that the beastly bureaucratic machine at the Federal level is changing up many of the rules. This has not been done since the second Bush administration. But what happens at the local level?

Well, the ACLU is already gearing up to fight for their no-belief-beliefs at the local levels. What about YOU? What will you consider at your local school and school board. Will you study the newly revised bureaucratic rules that affect whether students in Public Schools can pray and how they can do that? Or, will those who are against Christianity be the ones, as they already are, in the school board meetings and in front of school administrators pushing their religion and agendas?

What are you willing to get out of your seat to act upon? What pastors will take to the groundwork necessary to affect what is going on in the Public classroom or will they continue to submit education to the religions of the god of the world?

Reference #7 has the link to the actual rule changes.

Impeachment Madness Over – for now

Not to minimize the significance of this – We all must be in Thanksgiving to the Sovereignty of God for this large step of triumph over evil! Individual pray for this President and the maintenance of the Republic is required to keep the nation on a course of true justice and a civil society. This is not just a political issue – it is amongst various denominations a question of eschatology and a clear understanding of God’s Sovereignty.

Let it be warned that the enemies of the Biblical Reformation God are the enemies of the Republic and they will not stop acting to enslave the Citizenry as well as destroy the Republic.

Sam Adams Wisdom – Active Prayer:

TO WILLIAM COOPER.

[MS., Samuel Adams Papers, Lenox Library.] PHILADE Sept 30 1778

Excerpt regarding an introduction of Mr. Cooper’s Son: Sam writes – “I introducd your Son to your old Friend the President who receivd him with great Courtesy. Upon my hinting to the President that if he had publick Letters to send to Boston, this young Gentleman would take good Care of them, and it would be the Means of providing him with an Horse for his Journey, he very politely told me he should be glad [to] serve him in that Way, He as well as Monsr Girard having Letters which mt be as well sent by him as by any other Person. I assure you it is not Flattery to tell you that I am exceedingly pleasd with your Son. His modest Assurance is very engaging. If his Life is spared and his Morals well fixed, I think he will make an excellent Citizen. That the Children of N England may rise and serve God & their Country in the Room of their Fathers is the most ardent Prayer of

your cordial Friend,”

PROCLAMATION.

FEBRUARY 19, 1794

[Independent Chronicle, March 6, 1794 , No. 3764 of the Leffingwell sale appears to have been a manuscript of this text.]

Commonwealth of Massachusetts [Seal]

BY HIS HONOR SAMUEL ADAMS, ESQ , LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR AND COMMANDER IN CHIEF OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS

A PROCLAMATION FOR A DAY OF PUBLIC FASTING, HUMILIATION, AND PRAYER.

IT having been the invariable practice from time to time when our pious and renowned ancestors took possession of this land, at the approaching season of the year, to set apart a day publickly to acknowledge an entire dependence on the Father of all Mercies for every needful blessing, and to express sorrow and repenntace for the manifold transgressions of His Holy Laws: And the Practice being highly becoming all people, especially those who profess the Christian Religion:

I HAVE thought fit, by, and with the advice of the Council to appoint THURSDAY, the Seventeenth day of APRIL next, to be observed throughout this Commonwealth, as a day of PUBLIC FASTING, HUMILIATION and PRAYER; earnestly exhorting the Ministers of Religion to assemble with their respective Congregations on the same day—that deeply lamenting our ingratitude to our Heavenly Father, to whom we are under all possible obligations, and our many deviations from those right and safe Paths, into which, as our Supreme Governor, HE hath plainly directed us, we may with one heart and voice humbly implore His gracious and free pardon, thro’ JESUS CHRIST, supplicating His Divine aid that we may become a reformed and happy people. At the same time humbly beseeching HIM, mercifully to regard our lives and health, so that no infectious and mortal distemper may prevail amongst us: To favour our land with the alternate benefits of rain and warmth of the Sun; and that our hopes of a plentiful harvest may not be disappointed by devouring insects, or any other calamity:—To prosper our trade and fishery, and the labor of our hands:—To protect our navigation from the rapacious hands of invaders and robbers on the seas, and graciously to open a door of deliverance to our fellow-citizens in cruel captivity in a land of Barbarians:—To continue and confirm our civil and religious liberties; and for that great purpose to bless and direct our great University, and all Seminaries and Schools of education:— To guide and succeed the Councils of our Federal Government, as well as those of the several States in the Union, that under their respective Constitutions they may be led to such decisions as will establish the liberty, peace, safety, and honor of our country:— To inspire our friends and allies, the Republic of France, with a spirit of wisdom and true religion, that relying on the strength of HIS Almighty Arm, they may still go on prosperously till their arduous conflict for a government of their own, founded on the just and equal rights of men, shall be finally crowned with success:—And above all, to cause the Religion of JESUS CHRIST, in its true spirit, to spread far and wide, till the whole earth shall be filled with HIS glory.

And I do earnestly commend that all unnecessary labor and recreation be suspended on said day.

GIVEN at the Council-Chamber, in Boston, the Nineteenth day of February in the year of our LORD, One Thousand Seven Hundred and Ninety-Four, and in the Eighteenth Year of the Independence of the United States of America.

SAMUEL ADAMS.

And because you keep asking!

References:

For today’s program:

1. Trump uses National Prayer Breakfast to gloat about impeachment acquittal while standing just feet from Nancy Pelosi, Business Insider

2. Supreme Court To Decide If Atheism Can Keep Its Monopoly On K-12 Schools, The Federalist

3. The Court Case That Could Finally Take Down Antiquated Anti-Catholic Laws, The Atlantic

4. The FAQs: Trump Administration Issues Clarification on Religious Freedom in Public Schools and Colleges, The Gospel Coalition

5. Religion in the Public Schools, Pew Research Center

6. Trump administration rolls out new federal guidance for prayer in public schools, Chicago WGN 9

7. Trump Administration Reaffirms Regulations on School Prayer, Council for Exceptional Children

8. Samuel Adams Quotes from The Writings of Samuel Adams Volume IV. Pages 52 and 200.

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