Religion and Morality Are Basic Supports in Education

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George Washington, the “father of our country,” said:  “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.” Washington reminded the nation in his Farewell Address. “In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars (religion and morality) of human happiness.”  These “great pillars” and “indispensable supports” of America’s religion and morality are none other than the very core of God’s law – the Ten Commandments.

It has been noted “In 1975, sixty-two percent of respondents to Gallup said that they had “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in public schools.  Ten years later, in 1985, that percentage had plummeted to forty-eight percent.  In 1995, only forty percent of Americans felt so positively about public schools.  Ten years later, in 2005, confidence in public schools drooped to only thirty-seven percent.  So how many Americans in this latest Gallup Poll expressed confidence in public schools?  A paltry twenty-six percent.  In four decades, American confidence in public schools fell an incredible forty percentage points.” (American Thinker, Bruce Walker- June 24, 2014).  Much of this decline relates to the fact that public schooling, which was once very much central in the formation of character and morality is no longer doing that job.

The youth of today are the adults of tomorrow, and the followers today are the leaders of tomorrow.   The Apostle Paul wrote to Timothy:  “Let no man despise thy youth; but be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity.”  (I Timothy 4:12)   Character in our youth is molded through our families, our friends, the media, churches, and the schools.  It is the foundation of our future nation.  But there are forces coming at us that very much attack the freedom that was basic to the freedom that developed this land.

Proverbs 1:7-8 says: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction. My son, hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother:”

Our nation was established on the basis of faith in God, and a commitment to Christian morality.  As we look back to the Puritan settlers, when they came to this continent, we find the principles of liberty as united with that of morality. Even the first contract of government in our land, the Mayflower Compact, was signed in “in the name of God, Amen.”

Our Declaration of Independence concludes: “with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence”.  Our nation basically was committed to faith in God, but insistent to allowing each person to worship or not worship as they saw fit.   The first article of our Constitution stated:  “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise of thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or of the right of the people to peaceably assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” Notice the “or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” in respect to religion!

The Judeo-Christian influence was basic to our education, but schooling has changed since the 1950s, and beginning in the 60s, as the morality of our society has continually caved in, much of it in regards to removal of religious influence and cultivation of positive morality through our schools.

Madalyn Murray O’Hair, a militant far left atheist in 1963 brought her son, William J. Murray III to the Woodbourne Junior High School in Baltimore, Maryland. She had tried for a long time to defect to the Communist Soviet Union where God was never mentioned basically because of her hostility toward Christianity in America, but various obstacles kept her from doing so.  As she and her son at 8 a.m. passed a few rooms where the children were reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, she asked William, “They do this every day?”  As they approached another room, they saw students with heads bowed, reciting the Lord’s Prayer.  With an outburst of obscenities, she shouted to young William, “Why didn’t you tell me about this?”

A few moments later they were in the counselor’s office, where Madalyn got straight to the point shouting, “Why are those f—ing children praying?  It’s un-American and unconstitutional.”  A heated discussion ensued, where Madalyn finally shouted, “This won’t be the last time you hear from me about these prayers in school.”  Madalyn removed William from school.  Soon NBC, CBS and ABC plus the major news wire-services were calling to arrange interviews with Madalyn and William, and it all started.  (Let Us Pray, by William J. Murray)

Then after a number of court decisions the case finally went to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1963, where on June 17 by an overwhelming majority vote of 8 to 1, where it reversed the Maryland Court of Appeals, and ruled that Bible reading and prayers in school were unconstitutional.

Overnight the school prayer issue became a national news story, and from this event much of the history of public schooling sadly escalated into continual demise in respect to moral character building in our nation’s youth, much of it from the removal of the Judeo-Christian values.

The assumption of the Supreme Court was that the Founding Fathers who wrote the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and sent their own children to schools that had prayer and Bible reading, did they not understand the government they had just created?  It seems that according to the Supreme Court, the Founding Fathers were wrong!  From 1620 until 1963, (a span of 343 years) school prayer and Bible reading had been an everyday part of American life, which was suddenly declared unconstitutional, and so it should be very evident what one person who is will to take a stand  can do it, even if it is ultimately detrimental to our land as in the Mad Madalyn O’Hair case was!

It is now opening into 2015 the display of the Ten Commandments is causing controversy at an Ohio public high school.  Harding High School’s class of 1953 had gifted a copy of the Ten Commandments to the school, and it had been on display ever since, hung in a hallway next to the preamble of the United States Constitution, but in August the principal ordered it taken down. Marion City Schools in Ohio said it acted to avoid legal challenges that have been prompted by similar Ten Commandments displays in other Ohio public school districts.

The removal of the commandments in August of 2014 prompted freshman Anthony Miller to go on strike and to pass petitions around for students to sign that the Ten Commandments might still be centrally displayed. He proposes to continually respectfully attend his classes, but in protest do no classwork or homework, as he said, “I don’t care about my grades right now.”  He was not doing this to just get out of class and homework, at all!

Miller told the Morning Star newspaper, “I told the principal, until there is an agreement reached, that I will not participate in any Harding-related activities, any Marion City Schools-related activities. Sports, choir, classes, whatever. I won’t even wear my Harding Marching Band shirt.”  Also he is passing around petitions to support leaving the Ten Commandments plaque centrally displayed, for he feels it is important.   Here is courage being displayed to stand up against the moral corrosion sweeping across our land, much of it from the action of our educational institutions—particularly as they neglect or even attack our historical founding moral supports.

The Ten Commandments are shared by many faiths and denominations.  They the basic moral codes for the Jewish and Christian religions, which according a recent Gallop make up nearly eighty percent of America, with fifteen percent listing no-religious category and five percent some other.  They have been basic to moral code in America, since our beginning.

The whole “separation of church and state” thing is being grossly interpreted, as nowhere in the Declaration of Independence, U.S. Constitution, Bill of Rights, or any other founding documents is it mentioned. It was a phrase taken out of a personal letter from Thomas Jefferson to the congregation of a Baptist church and was not an attack against religion at all.

Ben Carson, renowned brain-surgeon and a leading spokesman for the call to our nation to return to the Judeo-Christian moral values that made our nation great wrote, “When we instill morals and values into the educational process for young people, however, we help them realize they have an obligation to become educated and informed citizens, and to contribute to the system as opposed to draining it of its resources.  Public prayer and discussion of common principles that strengthen society’s moral fabric are essential to establishing an atmosphere courtesy and decency.  The renowned Noah Webster said, ‘Society requires that the education of the youth should be watched with the most scrupulous attention.  Education, in a great measure, forms the moral character of men, and morals are the basis of government.”   (America the Beautiful, Ben Carson. p. 59)  There can be morality without religion, just as there can be religion without morality, but in Jesus Christ the two unite, and the Ten Commandments is a glue that can bind them together!

We are very much concerned about the future of our nation, and we need to heed God’s word in II Chronicles 7:14 that says: “ If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”  But if we don’t understand our errors, which are defined by the Ten Commandments, how can we turn from our wicked ways?  And how will God hear us?  And how will He heal our land?”

The situation between Anthony Miller and Harding High School is just another instance where the educational establishment has caved in to actions that negatively affect morality in schooling and on to society after the youth leave the schools, but thanks to young people like Anthony, maybe we can see our public schools seek to promote morality and character instead, seeking to avoid any reference to it, so as the reverse the negative thrust in America at this time.

Let’s pray that movement that Anthony Miller has started might take wings, and reverse the terrible direction that Mad Madalyn Murray O’Hair initiated in our land, for religion and morality should be seen as vital to education, and the Ten Commandments, Prayer, and the Bible are supports!

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