In 1962, the Supreme Court ripped the foundation stone out from under America’s public life. In Engel v. Vitale, the Court struck down a brief, voluntary, non-denominational school prayer written by New York officials:
The Prayer
“Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers and our Country.”
No student was compelled to recite it, no church dictated it, and yet the Court declared it unconstitutional. What was really struck down was not a prayer but the idea that God could be acknowledged at all in the public square. The United States, founded on the belief that our rights come from God, suddenly found itself told by its own judiciary that dependence upon Him was off-limits in the classroom.
The results were immediate and devastating. In 1962, before Engel, nearly 70% of American adults attended church weekly or almost weekly; by 2020 that number had dropped below 30%. Teen pregnancy rates skyrocketed in the decade after the ruling. Violent crime rates doubled between 1960 and 1980. Divorce rates, once steady, more than doubled from the 1960s into the 1980s. What was billed as neutrality was in fact a replacement: a new, secular religion enthroned in America’s schools. Instead of reverence for God, children were discipled into reverence for self.
And what creed has filled the vacuum? Nihilism and hedonism. If God is absent, then meaning is absent. If God is excluded, then man is exalted. Pleasure becomes the highest good, self-expression the only commandment, and restraint the only sin. The fruits are unmistakable: epidemic levels of depression, suicide rates at historic highs, pornography normalized, marriage delayed or discarded, and a generation taught that “my truth” is the only truth.
This was not the outcome of Engel v. Vitale by accident. It was the logical effect of a decision that declared America’s oldest acknowledgment—that we depend on Almighty God—illegitimate. The Court thought it was preventing “establishment.” In reality, it established a secular orthodoxy: a state-sponsored creed of radical autonomy, unrestrained desire, and cultural amnesia.
Today we are living in its aftermath. A nation once unified by a shared moral compass has fractured into tribes of competing appetites. Freedom has been redefined as license, and the dignity of man has been hollowed out by the worship of self. In 1962, the Court told America to stop praying. In 2025, we can see the bitter harvest: a society awash in despair, addicted to pleasure, and starved of hope. Until we repent of that judicial arrogance and restore God to His rightful place in public life, America will continue to decay under the secular “religion” it never voted for.
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I keep seeing in my feeds real Americans complaining about yet another closed church being sold to Muslims, who intend to convert it into a mosque. My answer is simple: if you don’t want to see Christian churches converted into mosques, go to church yourself!
Churches close when attendance is not high enough to support them. Don’t tell me you are a good Christian if you don’t get up on Sunday mornings and go to church!