Putting God Back?

Our schools have been attacked recently by bullets, politicians, and hateful rhetoric. We respond by pleading to God for mercy and guidance. And of course this is right. Of course we look to Him for understanding and comfort.

One loud outcry has been that we need to put God back in public school. The cry has been, in part, for legalization of teacher-led prayer and classes that teach the Bible. However, these actions miss the point and create more problems. As a firm believer in the sovereign Lord Jesus who made the universe and saves us from our own sin, I must disagree with this campaign to “put God back in public schools.”

First, the separation of church and state should not be disregarded. This constitutional idea serves to protect my own children from being proselytized by a state employee. This prevents my sons from being pressured to pray to a god we do not worship. It preserves my right as a parent to teach my children the religion my husband and I know to be right. It also protects me as a teacher. I will never lose my job if my own religious convictions differ from what my principal or superintendent believe.

Second, and much more importantly, God is not absent from public school, and so we cannot put Him back. Thousands of Christian teachers go into public school classrooms every day and with them the Holy Spirit. These teachers love and minister to all kinds of children from all kinds of backgrounds. They serve, care for, and shepherd children who are hurting, scared, hungry, and sad. They rejoice with their successes and hold them when they fall. These Christian teachers do not overtly preach the Gospel, and they should not; however, what they do is show the love of Christ every single day.

God is present in our school also through prayer. The idea that there is not prayer in school I find absurd. Like many others who work in public schools, I pray constantly. I pray for myself—that I will be effective, discerning, and compassionate. I pray for my students by name, that they will see that I love them and that He loves them. I lift them to the Lord earnestly pleading for His grace to come into their lives. I pray they will make good decisions, that they will go into the world and do good things, that they will be safe and loved. I pray a thousand things for my kids. And I do it in my classroom. God hears what humans cannot.

God is also a presence among our students. I see young Christians every day dealing with real world issues right along with their non-Christian friends. My African-American Baptist student hangs out with my atheist lesbian student. I love them both. My Buddhist Asian student sits with my Catholic Latino student. I love them both. I see them all struggle, but I also see them loving people who are not like them and learning to get along with people who don’t share their beliefs. This is beautiful to me. 

While there is a misplaced movement to put God back in school, there is also a campaign that seeks to promote a mass exodus of Christians from public school. As a former teacher in a homeschooling program and also a private Christian school, I know that alternatives to public school have their place for many reasons. I also know that so many Christians are fleeing public school because of fear. They are trying to protect their children from being hurt or being swayed by bad influences, when they should instead remember that they cannot forsake the lost world because they are afraid. I appreciate and respect parents’ right to choose what is best for their children, and that is not always public school. At the same time, this mass exodus of Christians from public school concerns me deeply.

This concern comes from the truth that we have a responsibility to go into the world and be lights. We are marked by how we love each other and how we treat people. These children in public school are not our enemies. They are precious people created in the image of God Himself. They are valuable. They are interesting. They are worth our effort and heartbreak. Even if they never profess faith in Christ, our service to them is not in vain. Loving a child is never an empty endeavor.

We are called by Jesus as a church to go. And so we should. But so many Christians are leaving, not going. We should not put God back into public school through legislation that is inherently unconstitutional and that will certainly threaten the very religion it seeks to proliferate. If a Christian is so determined to put God back in public school, I hope he will consider going there himself rather than plastering hurtful memes on social media that blast public school teachers or sputtering platitudes that are meaningless without genuine emotion and positive action. Rather, we should put God in school by putting ourselves there and loving people.