OPINION:
Prayer is one of the most peace-instilling, hope-granting and faith-centric rituals available to the human race, yet it’s also one of the most contentious, disputed and maligned practices.
Atheist activists have repeatedly taken to the courts to curtail public prayer or to, at the least, diminish and mock it. One familiar mantra often spewed is “Nothing fails like prayer.”
Even many well-meaning people have a strange, ill-placed fixation on the “separation of church and state” that leads them to cringe at the very thought of prayer popping up in a public space. And yet prayer centers, inspires and invigorates millions — no, make that billions — of people each day.
At a time when suicides continue to skyrocket and overdose deaths plague us, our collective desperation is at a fever pitch. Yet our culture pushes people further from faith and connective alignment with the Almighty and closer to a self-worship incapable of fulfilling us.
That’s why the recent failure of Republican South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem’s “A Moment of Silence” bill was so stunning. For those unfamiliar, the proposed law was an effort to “restore protections for prayer in schools” in the state — but it didn’t codify invocations as some falsely feared.
In fact, the bill’s text called for a simple moment of silence that would have been mandated each school day in classrooms across South Dakota. While the bill would have permitted kids to independently “pray in schools at the start of every school day,” the goal was to open a space for a moment of silence during which students and teachers could center themselves.
Prayer was an optional component, but the mere notion that people would be permitted to opt into such a practice was strangely decried by some secular activist groups. When you consider some of the insanely controversial things floating around some schools, prayer seems benign.
“Every student deserves the opportunity to begin their day with a calm, silent moment,” Ms. Noem said in December. And who could disagree with that sentiment? Another question, though: Why is prayer so threatening to so many?
It’s all so bizarre — and yet here we are, with some of the very same people who giggle at prayer or claim it’s a failure simultaneously verklempt and panicked that it could somehow make its way into our spiritually devoid public school system.
It’s a truly odd dynamic akin to eagerly waiting for Santa to deliver your Christmas gifts when you know full well he’s a figment of children’s imaginations.
Anyway, Ms. Noem’s bill made it clear the proposed law couldn’t be used to compel “religious exercise,” yet the panic continued. The proposal was strangely obliterated by members of Ms. Noem’s own Republican Party in the House Education Committee.
It remains a mystery why people would feel so threatened by a moment of silence, especially as our young people face a cacophony of social noise and chaos. Why not give the device-obsessed youthful masses an unfettered moment to think without the distractions of a screen?
Not only is there no harm in allowing students and teachers a moment to collect themselves, but there’s actually an immeasurable benefit to giving them space to ponder, especially if they choose to pray to their creator, to reflect on gratitude, or think over what the day will hold.
The defeat of Ms. Noem’s “moment of silence” bill might seem small in the scheme of legislative hooplas, but it’s yet another sign of the rotting core of our beleaguered culture and a pervasively problematic lens into just how little we care about our kids’ spiritual and emotional health.
We keep failing them again and again, watching the sociocultural fallout and somehow concluding that our descent into the abyss is actually a progressive step forward.
Our kids desperately need prayer. At the least, they need a focal point that isn’t the self. A moment of silence wouldn’t have solved the riddle, but it certainly would have afforded youths and teachers alike with a positive and much-needed respite.
• Billy Hallowell is a journalist, commentator and digital TV host who has covered thousands of faith and culture stories. He is the director of content and communications at Pure Flix, and previously served as the senior editor at Faithwire and the former faith and culture editor at TheBlaze.
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