Take prayers out of school, and guns are likely to be the replacement

Nov 02, 2021 Letters

Dear Editor,

The American’s soldier believes in prayers. In 2004, as I was deploying to Iraq, I was on a plane with 300 soldiers and the chaplain (pastor) prayed for us. As we were leaving Kuwait to drive on the dangerous and daunting roads to Iraq, the chaplain prayed for us. Every time the soldiers left our military installation to go to downtown Baghdad, the chaplain prayed for us. Every time a soldier died or was wounded, the chaplain prayed for them. Before going on every mission, the chaplain prayed for us. For the American’s soldier, prayer is important.
Editor, if prayers are important to the soldier, it should be important to our children in schools. Prayers are important, so let us keep it in school. This is also the view held by the American Founders. They intended to institute a secular government, but insisted that it required a religious foundation. For example, in his Farewell Address, George Washington reminded his countrymen that “religion and morality” are the “firmest props of the duties of men and citizens” and, therefore, are “indispensable supports” of “the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity.” He added, moreover, that morality depends on religion: “[R]eason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.” Religion, he thus suggested, is necessary to the preservation of “free government.”
Accordingly, Alexis de Tocqueville, the French diplomat and political scientist, concludes, the preservation of America’s traditional religion is one of the most important tasks of democratic statesmanship. Indeed, he goes so far as to say that religion “should be considered the first” of America’s “political institutions” and even that it is necessary for Americans to “maintain Christianity…at all costs.” Prayers in schools can lead to national unity, social cohesion and morality.
Prayers can bring about some healing in our racially divided nation and help with the healing of some of the fabric of our country. Editor, since former President Ramotar, and others who opposed prayers in school, I wonder if they would also oppose soldiers praying before going to war. When the Americans took prayers out of the school, it was replaced with guns and violence in the schools. I’m putting it to you that if Guyana took prayers out of the schools, the same thing would happen here.

Anthony Pantlitz

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