In the 1960s, two Supreme Court cases officially banned prayer and Bible instruction from public education. These were Engel v. Vitale in 1962, when the court held that “reciting state-written prayers in public schools was unconstitutional government promotion of religion.” In 1963, the second case, School District of Abington Township, Pennsylvania v. Schempp, struck down “school-sponsored Bible reading and the recitation of the Lord’s Prayer.”
Many parents and citizens understandably reacted quite negatively to these court decisions, alleging that God had successfully been “kicked out” of public schools.
A renewed push to reinstate the Bible in public-school curricula began in 2019, but as of yet, only the State of Oklahoma is working to codify it in its new State Academic Standards. While Texas, Louisiana, Florida, and several other states have initiated attempts to include the Bible as part of an English Language Arts or Social Studies curriculum, so far only the use of “released time” has actually been successful in providing religious education during the public-school day.
The decades-old battle over prayer and the teaching of Scripture in public schools can be won through programs like Ohio-based LifeWise Academy, a thriving Bible study curriculum that is integrated into the weekly class schedules of tens of thousands of American children. According to the organization’s website, the program makes use of “released time,” which is time set aside during school hours, typically an hour a day or a week, for students to receive off-campus private religious education.
The concept of released time religious instruction dates back to 1905 and has been upheld multiple times at the U.S. Supreme Court. LifeWise points out that guidelines for usage of this time “both guard against government establishment of any one religion and allow expression of the right to the ‘free exercise of religion,’ also protected by the First Amendment.”
The day may come when prayer and Bible study are restored to American public education and God is again permitted in the public square, but the continued growth of LifeWise, School Ministries, and similar programs may help turn our public-school system around in the short term.
This post originally appeared at https://www.phyllisschlafly.com/constitution/teaching-the-bible-during-school-days/