Is January 16, National Religious Freedom Day, marked on your calendar as an incredibly important day in our nation?
It’s not on mine either. In fact, until I read on Facebook about President Trump announcing on National Religious Freedom Day, January 16, new rules designed to roll back “discriminatory” federal regulations to promote teachers’ and students’ right to pray in public schools, I wasn’t aware of this national day.
How was I not aware of such a significant day?! As a Christian writing and speaking about preserving and expressing religious freedom, how did I miss this day? Obviously, President Trump knew about January 16 and he took notable strides to not only commemorate it, but to regain many of our religious freedoms denied us over the years!
Prior to January 16, I didn’t see any publicity about a day so vital to all religions. No mention in church or social media, and except for the landmark announcements from the Oval Office, this day could have slipped by with no recognition.
Why wasn’t there more publicity, blogs, articles?
Why wasn’t social media a buzz about the significance of regaining so many of our lost religious freedoms?
Why was President Trump the only person making a big deal of such a momentous day? Especially, considering he is restoring in schools religious freedoms that I remember when teachers and students could talk freely about God, Jesus, the Bible, and their faith without fear of repercussions or discrimination.
According to Religiousfreedomday.com “Each year, [since 1993] the President declares January 16th to be Religious Freedom Day, and calls upon Americans to “observe this day through appropriate events and activities in homes, schools, and places of worship.” The day is the anniversary of the passage, in 1786, of the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom. We encourage schools to recognize Religious Freedom Day during the school week leading up to January 16.
The goal of ReligiousFreedomDay.com is to promote and protect students’ religious expression rights by informing educators, parents, and students about these liberties.”
There is information on their website for students, educators, parents, and churches.
Our Family’s Personal School Discrimination Story
When my granddaughter was in third grade, she was a little evangelist. She didn’t know that telling the Good News of Jesus stopped at the front door of the school. She and two other little girls of a different faith were discussing their beliefs and she told them the only way to get to heaven was a relationship with Jesus Christ. One of the little girl’s mothers complained to the school and my granddaughter was shattered when she was the one called into a parent teacher conference and scolded. How could this be she cried when she had learned at Sunday school and VBS to share Jesus with everyone?
Not only did this teacher wrongfully crush her emotionally, she crushed her spiritually. Whenever we talk about sharing Jesus with others, my granddaughter, now 14, recalls this life-changing incident because you’re supposed to obey the school rules even when they’re wrong.
Thank You POTUS!
[Tweet “On January 16, 2020, President Trump announced that the U.S. Education Department will send out memos to secretaries and administrators in all 50 states stressing that they can’t prevent teachers or students from praying in public schools.”]
On January 16, 2020, President Trump announced that the U.S. Education Department will send out memos to secretaries and administrators in all 50 states stressing that they can’t prevent teachers or students from praying in public schools. The goal is to “further safeguard students’ constitutionally protected right to pray in school” and to let public school administrators know that they can lose federal funding if they violate students’ religious freedom.
Additionally, the administration will publish rules issued by nine federal agencies that ensure less regulation on religious organizations and social service providers.
President Trump said during a news conference that he doesn’t think there is anything more important than “the right to pray.”
“In public schools around the country, authorities are stopping students and teachers from praying, sharing their faith or following their religious beliefs. It is totally unacceptable. You see it on the football field, you see it so many times where they are stopped from praying. We are doing something to stop that.”
“You have a side that believes so strongly in prayer and it is being restricted and it’s getting worse and worse,” he said. “And I think we have made a big impact. We have loosened it up a lot and I want to loosen it up totally.”
As President Trump sat in the Oval Office surrounded by religious leaders, Christian, Jewish and Muslim students who have suffered discrimination, and Joe Kennedy, a high school coach who lost his job for silently praying on the field, POTUS said: It is a “sacred principle in our republic that government must never stand between the people and God, . . . Yet in public schools around the country authorities are stopping students and teachers from praying, sharing their faith, or following their religious beliefs.”
Trump stressed “there is a cultural war” that not that many years ago it would have been unthinkable that something like this could happen.
[Tweet ““Tragically, there is a growing totalitarian impulse on the far left that seeks to punish, restrict, and even prohibit religious expression.” President Donald J. Trump”]
“Tragically, there is a growing totalitarian impulse on the far left that seeks to punish, restrict, and even prohibit religious expression.”
Where was the excitement from all of us for these historic comments and executive orders?
The hurrahs?
The “Thank you Mr. President for caring about us and our religious rights!”
I maintain that we lost these rights through complacency. And yet, isn’t it that same complacency that doesn’t find us jumping up and down with joy when our President is reinstating them?!
[Tweet “Do you see the irony and spiritual battle of the news cycle obsessed with covering the impeachment of a President who is fighting for our spiritual freedoms?”]
Do you see the irony and spiritual battle of the news cycle obsessed with covering the impeachment of a President who is fighting for our spiritual freedoms?
[Tweet “Restoring religious freedoms is not political; it’s constitutional and moral regardless of which side of the political aisle you sit on.”]
Restoring our religious freedoms is not political; it’s constitutional and moral regardless of which side of the political aisle you sit on.
It has nothing to do with whether you like or agree with President Trump. It’s all about being on God’s side and helping to put Him back on His throne in the public square.
Dr. James Dobson didn’t let this historic day slip by his notice. Benjamin Gill wrote in a CBN News article on January 17, Dobson said,
“I’ve lived long enough to remember well a time when public prayer was expected and appreciated, even in schools.”
“I’ve also lived long enough to see the consequences of our societal disregard of the Ten Commandments and the eternal truth they represent.”
“For this reason, I’m greatly encouraged by the steps this administration is taking to correctly understand, restore, and preserve our constitutionally-guaranteed freedoms.
“It [the First Amendment] was designed to protect our first liberty. Unfortunately, government officials have increasingly bought the lie from groups such as Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and have worked to purge religion from the public square, demeaning the beliefs of millions of Americans in the process.”
Then he adds the important message I’m trying to drive home with this blog,
“We should celebrate the administration’s vital efforts to protect our religious freedom. But such work is in vain if we don’t seize the opportunity to live out our faith and thereby transform the heart of this nation.”
We May Have Missed January 16, But Let’s Celebrate Our Religious Freedoms!
We need to make sure our schools and colleges enforce these new rules the President is establishing. Unless we take it upon ourselves to exercise our religious freedoms that are quickly being denigrated by those who want to take God and His ways out of America, we could find ourselves censored in our churches, our speech, our writing, and in our homes.
How did abortion become legal?
How was God’s definition of marriage legally changed?
How did prayer, the Bible, and Jesus become taboo in schools?
How are crosses, even on a necklace, the 10 Commandments, Christian caps and clothes prohibited in schools and public places?
I submit to you, it’s because we let it happen.
Let’s be sure the significance of President Trump’s Proclamation and Executive Orders on January 16 are remembered and enforced.
[Tweet “Let’s bravely and courageously take a stand for our religious freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment written to protect the church from the State not the State from the church.”]
Let’s bravely and courageously take a stand for our religious freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment written to protect the church from the State not the State from the church. Don’t be fooled and don’t let anyone use it to silence you.
Let’s make it clear that our faith is in our heart that goes with us everywhere, including school.
Let’s not let the State rip the heart out of America.
“A society without religion cannot prosper, a nation without faith cannot endure because justice goodness and peace cannot prevail without the glory of almighty God.” President Donald J. Trump
[Tweet ““A society without religion cannot prosper, a nation without faith cannot endure because justice goodness and peace cannot prevail without the glory of almighty God.” President Donald J. Trump”]
For more on these historic strides allowing the expression of faith in schools:
“Trump Announces School Prayer Guidance; 9 Agencies Draft Religious Freedom Rules”.
Trump Criticizes liberals’ ‘growing totalitarian impulse’ as he vows to protect school prayer includes President Trumps Proclamation on Religious Freedom Day, 2020 that he signed in the Oval Office.
Who Told Students They Can’t Pray in Public School?
Read an Op-ed by Pastor Greg Laurie on President Trump’s historic executive action regarding religious freedoms.
Trump Fights to Protect Prayer In School with New Federal Guidelines.
If you haven’t read my book Forsaken God? Remembering the Goodness of God Our Culture Has Forgotten, it is written for such a time as this.
Yeah, Janet.
I totally missed it. Since we don’t get a newspaper and rarely watch the news, I totally missed this. But wait, I bet it didn’t get any mention in our liberal news! Plus, I wasn’t on Facebook much last week I confess I missed it. Thank you so much for your blog. I can hear your heart ❤️ in this great pronunciation of the freedom we were granted and also the frustration of so many of us missing it. Thank you so much and I will share your blog. You are a Rock Star for Religious Freedom and Jesus.
You’re right Penny, it wasn’t mentioned on any mainstream media, not even FOX News! But I follow Christian networking sites on Facebook and that’s where it started showing up. A national Presidential proclamation day since 1993 and there was silence! But we can break that silence and make sure these restored religious freedoms are enforced.