When tragedy strikes, the most appropriate initial response is to pray. It’s an acknowledgement of our finiteness and reality that ultimately only God is truly in control; only God is sovereign over everything.
It was and is fitting for us to pray, to call on God, after this most recent atrocity, the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Indeed, given that he was an outspoken Christian, that is precisely the response Kirk would have wanted.
Prior to Kirk’s assassination, President Donald Trump announced that his administration would be pursuing an effort to protect the right to pray in schools. “To have a great nation, you have to have religion,” Trump stated.
Trump views this effort as part of a broader push to strengthen Americans’ religious liberty rights. And especially in places where they have long been maligned and attacked — in the nation’s public schools.
Trump made his comments during a Religious Liberty Commission at the Museum of the Bible. He also remarked, “As president, I will always defend our nation’s glorious heritage, and we will protect the Judeo-Christian principles of our founding, and we will protect them with vigor. We have to bring back religion in America, bring it back stronger than ever before.”
Pointing to the recent attack on the Catholic school in Minnesota in which two children were killed during the school’s mass, Trump warned of a growing “anti-Christian” mentality, saying that “far too many violent attacks [are] perpetrated against Americans of faith.”
The question is, what will this look like?
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the main issue is not pushing religion onto children but defending students’ religious freedom. She noted how, at the Religious Liberty Commission event, Trump had “a young student, invited him on stage to share his story about how when this young boy spoke about biological and biblical truth in his classroom, he faced consequences for that, and how Americans of faith should not be facing consequences for expressing their religious freedom and their religious views.” She added, “Not in any public school in America should that be happening.”
Trump’s aim appears to be twofold. First, he has engaged America’s public schools with an effort to eliminate the promulgation of woke ideology, which expresses itself in DEI indoctrination and LGBTQ promotion. Second, Trump wants to encourage and protect students within public schools to express their faith and beliefs. He aims to dispel the flawed notion that public schools should be God-free zones.
The Left will object, of course, citing the Constitution’s Establishment Clause, which forbids the state from establishing a church. The trouble is, this has long been used to establish a wall of separation of church and state to the point where the church, or religion, is excluded. In other words, the exact opposite of the intent of the Establishment Clause.
This had played itself out in public schools, where nearly any religious expression is deemed to violate the First Amendment. Just the opposite should be the case, where students should be encouraged to freely express their faith. Furthermore, teachers and coaches should be allowed to personally express their faith.
Given that nearly every effort Trump has made has been met with a lawsuit, it is likely that any actions his Education Department takes on this front will also end up in court. But that is often the manner in which change must be pursued.
