In this thoughtful opinion piece published in the Orange County Register, Scott Powell suggest that prayer vigils BEFORE the massacres might help in preventing them. But that would be illegal. KS
The Valentine’s Day massacre at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida was the latest in a series of mass school shootings dating back to the Columbine, Colorado shooting in 1999. Evoking shock, these tragedies inevitably prompt a call to pray for the victims and their families.Calls for prayer are natural and appropriate after such wanton evil acts, but the question begs: What about prayers invoking protection in advance of danger? That’s not likely following two Supreme Court decisions in the early 1960s–Engel v. Vitale and Abington School District v. Schempp — which declared school-sponsored prayer unlawful. The fact is that the departure of God from public schools combined with schools being soft targets as gun-free zones has been an invitation to evil — an invitation that has been answered repeatedly by the deranged prone to violence.But it is not just public schools that have become God-free zones. Increasingly since the 1960s we have been crowding out God and His teachings about love, kindness, compassion and morality from the public square. Increasingly over the years, Americans have been bombarded by the entertainment industry’s non-stop output and celebration of deprivation and violence in music, video productions and video games. Is it really any wonder why so many have become desensitized about the value of life?
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