There used to be prayer in public schools.

I know there are people who will immediately tell me why that is a good thing. Separation of church and state. Religious diversity. Nobody should be forced to pray. I have heard every version of the argument.

Here is what I know.

The year prayer was removed from public schools in America was 1962. In the decades that followed SAT scores dropped consistently. Teen pregnancy rates rose. Drug use rose. Violence in schools rose. Dropout rates rose. I am not saying prayer was the only variable. I am saying something left the room and the room got worse.

What left was not just a ritual. It was an acknowledgment. A daily, communal recognition that there is a God, that we answer to something higher than ourselves, that the day matters and the children in those seats have dignity that comes from somewhere beyond the state.

When you remove that acknowledgment you do not create a neutral space. You create a space with a different religion. Secular humanism has its own gods – progress, autonomy, identity, self. It teaches its own catechism just as faithfully as any Sunday school. The difference is it does not call itself a religion so nobody challenges it.

God was not removed from schools because He was irrelevant. He was removed because He was inconvenient. Because a generation that wanted to do what it wanted could not do it comfortably with Him in the room.

He noticed the empty chair.

So did the children.

Stephon Rudd

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