Let Us Pray: A Plea for Prayer in Our Schools

Murray, an ordained minister in Texas and an outspoken advocate of prayer in U.S. public schools, now regrets his historic role as 14-year-old plaintiff in the case against the Baltimore school system that led to the Supreme Court's 1963 decision banning school prayer and Bible reading. Rejecting the militant atheism of his mother, Madalyn Murray O'Hair, whose anti-prayer campaign molded his youth, he argues here that the Founding Fathers never intended to remove prayer from public institutions or the workplace. Thomas Jefferson's call for a ``wall of separation between church and State'' applied to Congress only and did not include public schools, in his analysis. Assailing what he views as the Supreme Court's calculated policy of secularization, Murray invokes John Locke, Tocqueville and others who attached great importance to religion as a moralizing force in society. He advocates a constitutional amendment that would allow voluntary prayer if students initiate it and school districts accommodate it. This polemic, written with Ross (coauthor of Compassionate Capitalism), is not likely to win over those not committed to his viewpoint. Author tour. (Sept.)