Here’s another thing I remember, from back when we were citizens: from back before the government learned how to say “Just shut up and pay your taxes.”
In 1962-63 the U.S. Supreme Court suddenly discovered that reading the Bible in a public place–notably a public school–was somehow against the Constitution. Amazing, the things that can dawn on judges after a couple hundred years.
When I went to grade school and middle school, we had a reading from the Bible, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Pledge of Allegiance to start our day. No one complained. The Bible readings were from the Old Testament, for Christians and Jews.
In high school the Bible reading came over the P.A. system, read each morning by my Aunt Millie, who was then the school secretary. But then, in my sophomore year, it had to stop. The Supreme Court said it had to stop. Why? Because of “separation of church and state” or something, which is not in the Constitution and never posed a problem for anyone until a few atheists started complaining in the early 1960s. The Bible readings had to be replaced by “inspirational readings” from strictly secular sources. Frankly, I never find that inspiring.
Here are a few other things I remember about high school, 1963-67, which were different.
No girl had an out-of-wedlock baby.
No school shootings… anywhere. Ever.
No assaults on teachers.
No drug overdoses. No suicides.
No need for guards or special police at any school. No metal detectors.
How was this not better? How are we the better for banning God’s word and replacing it with inducements to try every sexual aberration ever imagined in a fallen world?
But that was when we were citizens. Not subjects.
My mother had a dream many decades ago that they were going house to house confiscating bibles, and people were just giving it to them nonchalantly. I don’t think that’s out of the realm of impossibility anymore.
Yes, scary. And the infamous “mark” will probably be next.
I experienced the same in my schools in the 1960’s. Girls had to wear skirts which had to touch the ground when they were on their knees. Boys had to have shaved faces. Students respected their teachers, and we got a good education (everyone could read).
I remember the Lord’s Prayer in my early school years. Things really have declined since then.