Why School Prayer Matters

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
San Diego Legal Studies RPS Submitter ◽  
Steven Douglas Smith
Keyword(s):  
School Prayer

The Politics of Prophecy: The US Culture Wars and the Battle Over Public Education in the Left Behind Series for Kids

2009 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-27
Author(s):  
Ann Abate Michelle
Keyword(s):  
Public Education ◽  
The United States ◽  
Culture Wars ◽  
Church History ◽  
Good News ◽  
Cultural Issues ◽  
School Prayer ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
Religious Books ◽  
The Us

This essay argues that in spite of their obvious Biblically-based subject matter, clear Christian content, and undeniable evangelical perspective, the Left Behind novels for kids are not simply religious books; they are also political ones. Co-authors Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins may claim that their narratives are interested in sharing the good news about Jesus for the sake of the future, but they are equally concerned with offering commentary on contentious US cultural issues in the present. Given the books’ adolescent readership, they are especially preoccupied with the ongoing conservative crusade concerning school prayer. As advocates for this issue, LaHaye and Jenkins make use of a potent blend of current socio-political arguments and of past events in evangelical church history: namely, the American Sunday School Movement (ASSM). These free, open-access Sabbath schools became the model for the public education system in the United States. In drawing on this history, the Left Behind series suggests that the ASSM provides an important precedent for the presence not simply of Christianity in the nation's public school system, but of evangelical faith in particular.

The Curious Case of School Prayer: Political Entrepreneurship and the Resilience of Legal Institutions

2012 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 394-418 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bradley D. Hays
Keyword(s):  
Religious Practice ◽  
Entrepreneurial Activity ◽  
Legal Institutions ◽  
Legal Change ◽  
Conservative Movement ◽  
School Prayer ◽  
Equal Access Act ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Entrepreneurial Activities ◽  
Reagan Era

AbstractSchool prayer represents a curiosity of Reagan era politics. Reagan and the social conservative movement secured numerous successes in accommodating religious practice and faith in the public sphere. Yet, when it came to restoring voluntary school prayer, conservatives never succeeded in securing the judicial victory that they sought despite conditions that seemingly favored change. Herein, we attempt to reconcile Reagan era successes with Reagan era failures by exploring Reagan's entrepreneurial activity to affect both the demand (i.e., judges) and supply (i.e., litigants) side of legal change. Identifying Reagan's entrepreneurial activities in his attempt to alter national social policy reveals the resilience of legal institutions to presidential and partisan regimes. Reagan's efforts to change national school prayer policy gained some measure of legislative success by securing the Equal Access Act but it failed to garner a change in school prayer jurisprudence. We conclude by noting that the difficulty of influencing both the demand and supply side of legal change in a timely manner and its implication for reconstructing policy through the courts.

scholarly journals Religion, Democracy and the Public Schools

2009 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael J. Davis
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
A Priori ◽  
United States Supreme Court ◽  
The United States ◽  
Religious Activities ◽  
The Public ◽  
School Prayer ◽  
Political Policy ◽  
Early School ◽  
K 12

In the six decades since it began adjudicating issues involving religion and K-12 education, the United States Supreme Court has issued numerous opinions on various aspects of that relationship. Several of the Court's viewpoints have changed over time. It explicitly reversed itself on the constitutionality of using publicly-paid specialists in parochial schools, and dramatically changed its perspective on public funds flowing to those institutions. But the Court has never wavered on issues regarding religious activities in public schools—it has struck down every policy or program it has chosen to review. No opinion was unanimous, and rationales changed. But no result has diverged from the Court's original perspective that the Establishment Clause's brightest line ran just outside the public school grounds.This piece begins with first doctrinal, then policy reviews of the Court's nine school prayer decisions. Parts I and II analyze the decisions as constitutional doctrine, dividing them along parallel lines of time and quality. In Part I, I show that the holdings and rationales of the Court's early school prayer decisions are both sound and commendable as constitutional doctrine. Part II takes a longer look at the remaining later decisions however, and reveals a struggling Court often relying on specious, fabricated or a priori reasoning to reach the apparently inevitable, but questionable, conclusion of unconstitutionality. Part III takes up the effects of the Court's decisions on social and political policy. I argue that the early decisions, though controversial, freed America from a past of sectarian domination, while the later decisions helped sow the seeds of several related and unhappy developments, especially ones promoting the very religious divisions they purported to guard against.

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