In the pervious article we cited Erik Erikson’s eight stages of life, which seems to describe individuals that enjoy normal life experiences as they move through the stages of development. We all have watched people traverse what we might consider the typical migration through the years. Every human being and family hits their speed bumps in life, but we need to distinguish between a speed bump and a head-on collision. I was blessed with two godly, healthy, and well-adjusted parents who enjoyed each of the stages of life without disruption from relational breakdowns, destructive sinful events, or a debilitating disease. Reflecting on their life experiences, I would view their journey as following Erikson’s description of life’s stages
However, when individuals and families encounter disruptive intrusions into their lives, these events comprise an unsettling force, creating a detour from a normal and healthy journey of life, and preventing individuals from experiencing the desired fulfillment during the final stages described by Erikson. Recently, America witnessed the murder of Charlie Kirk, the termination of a life that seemed to hold great promise. This event reminds us that Erikson’s theory only pertains to people who through health, safety, and other life-affirming factors enable an individual to enjoy the full range of positive stages life potentially holds.
In the previous article, we discussed what we might have anticipated to be the course of America’s future, had it continued in good cultural health as it traversed the remaining stages of its national life. However, our history tells a different story. Instead, when we reached our prime as a nation, when it appeared that everything was in place for America to enjoy a stage of maturity characterized by national health and global influence, we contracted a debilitating illness. As we will see, that disease inhibited our natural national progress and still today obstructs America from achieving healthy cultural development, threatening America’s capacity to move into a productive geriatric stage.
What was this event that robbed America of normal health progression into future stages of development? Beginning in 1962, two back-to-back incidents occurred that changed the trajectory of our country. In 1962 the Supreme Court banned prayer in public schools and in 1963 it outlawed the reading of Scripture. Up to that point, many if not most public schools began every school day reading a portion from the Bible followed by a prayer. In many schools, they would recite the Lord’s Prayer. In Engel v. Vitale (1962) and Abington School District v. Schempp (1963) the Supreme Court declared these practices to be unconstitutional.
Some might think that Bible reading and prayer in public schools was unconstitutional from the outset, and that our public schools were functioning in violation of the constitution. Therefore, these Supreme Court decisions only entailed the law finally catching up with illicit practices in public schools. In the minds of at least some historians and legal scholars, this was not the case. With our federalist form of government, one would think that states would have the latitude to allow prayer and Bible reading in schools without permission from the federal government. Think, for example, of how today some states pronounce themselves sanctuary states for illegal immigrants and on that basis resist the work of ICE agents in rounding up criminals who are here illegally. If states possess the latitude to protect criminals who are illegal aliens from arrest by the federal government, one would think that states would have the latitude to authorize Bible reading and prayer in schools for children. The point is that these Supreme Court decisions did not emerge from a more legally legitimate reading of the constitutional but from the political and religious preferences of Supreme Court justices. These decisions did not represent healthy law but biased adjudication.
When the Supreme Court banned prayer in public schools, my father-in-law, who was a pastor, wrote a tract entitled “The Day America Died.” He believed that this decision rang the death knell of our nation because of its abandonment of our foundational cultural commitment to Christianity, and that it would serve to inhibit God’s future blessing on our nation. We find support for the accuracy of his obituary of our nation in David Barton’s book, America, to Pray or Not to Pray. That book contains a number of graphs showing drastic societal decline in our nation, beginning with the Supreme Court decision to ban prayer in public schools. Virtually every graph tells the same story. America was on a stable and even upward course until the Supreme Court made its devastating ruling. Beginning with that event, precipitous decline set in. He follows trends such as school dropout, crime, alcohol consumption, SAT scores, and single-parent households. In every case, trends in these areas in America were stable or even improving until that fateful Supreme Court decision to prohibit prayer in public schools. From that point on, societal trends began a steep decline.[i]
For example, Barton reports that from 1948 to 1962 divorce rates in America declined from 2.7 divorces for every thousand Americans to 2.2. However, 1963 began a period of dramatic increase in divorce, so that by 1980 it reached 5.2 marriages per thousand Americans.[ii] In other words, the divorce rate reversed its course from improvement to more than doubling during the 17 years after the Supreme Court expelled God from our public schools. In 1952, total SAT scores hit 980. By 1980, they had plummeted to 890.[iii] Note the long-term societal implications of these types of outcomes. Children raised in households that have experienced divorce are more likely to divorce, thus initiating a downward spiral that portends an endless downward cycle. Also, lower SAT scores suggest that students begin college at a disadvantage, which may lead to lower performance in the careers that they pursue, and consequently lower productivity as employees. This trend would negatively impact every segment of American society.
These trends prompt the question, did these disastrous developments result from the removal of prayer and Bible reading from our public schools? Barton establishes a correlation, but we know that correlation does not prove cause. Why should we conclude that these trends cited by Barton resulted from the removal of Bible reading and prayer from schools? Could that seemingly small alteration in America’s culture really produce the serious trends identified by Barton? Our next article marshals support for Barton’s assertion that the removal of prayer and Bible reading from public schools produced these negative outcomes.
[i] Barton, David: America: To Pray or Not to Pray, 1988
[ii] Ibid, p. 36.
[iii] Ibid p. 58.