Battling Anew Over the Place of Religion in Public Schools
JEFFERSON, S.C. — It has been nearly 50 years since the Supreme Court ruled that officially sponsored prayer in public schools violated the separation of church and state.
Anne McQuary for The New York Times
"I definitely think that we should try to get our relationship with Christ back into the schools," said Christian Chapman, who describes himself as a "traveling evangelist" and often speaks at schools.
A posting on YouTube showed the evangelist Christian Chapman speaking at a middle school prayer rally in Jefferson, S.C.
But in some corners of the country, especially in the rural South, open prayer and Christian symbols have never really disappeared from schools, with what legal advocates call brazen violations of the law coming to light many times each year.
At a school assembly here in South Carolina on Sept. 1, a preacher described how Christ saved him from drugs, telling his rapt audience that “a relationship with Jesus is
