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Texas AG Ken Paxton encourages students to recite Lord's Prayer in latest test of church-state separation
The endorsement comes as Texas elected officials push for more Christianity in public life and as Paxton’s office fights a legal challenge to religion in education.
Link to tweet
https://www.texastribune.org/2025/09/02/texas-ag-ken-paxton-lords-prayer-religion-schools
With a new Texas law in effect allowing time for prayer and reading religious texts in public schools, Attorney General Ken Paxton on Tuesday encouraged students to practice the Lord’s Prayer as relayed in the King James Version of the Bible, marking the latest instance of a Texas public official endorsing Christianity over other faiths.
The U.S. Constitution prohibits states from promoting one religion over another, but in a news release asking Texas schools to comply with Senate Bill 11, Paxton called on schoolchildren to consider utilizing prayer time to engage with the Lord’s Prayer “as taught by Jesus Christ.”
“In Texas classrooms, we want the Word of God opened, the Ten Commandments displayed, and prayers lifted up,” Paxton wrote. “Twisted, radical liberals want to erase Truth, dismantle the solid foundation that America’s success and strength were built upon, and erode the moral fabric of our society. Our nation was founded on the rock of Biblical Truth, and I will not stand by while the far-left attempts to push our country into the sinking sand.”
The attorney general’s endorsement of a Christian prayer in Texas schools comes as he seeks to pick up more conservative support in an effort to unseat U.S. Sen. John Cornyn. It also went out just weeks after a federal judge found a state law requiring the posting of the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms unconstitutional.
The attorney general’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Texas Tribune on whether Paxton’s messaging violates the Constitution or why Paxton found it appropriate to use state resources to endorse a particular religion.
The U.S. Constitution prohibits states from promoting one religion over another, but in a news release asking Texas schools to comply with Senate Bill 11, Paxton called on schoolchildren to consider utilizing prayer time to engage with the Lord’s Prayer “as taught by Jesus Christ.”
“In Texas classrooms, we want the Word of God opened, the Ten Commandments displayed, and prayers lifted up,” Paxton wrote. “Twisted, radical liberals want to erase Truth, dismantle the solid foundation that America’s success and strength were built upon, and erode the moral fabric of our society. Our nation was founded on the rock of Biblical Truth, and I will not stand by while the far-left attempts to push our country into the sinking sand.”
The attorney general’s endorsement of a Christian prayer in Texas schools comes as he seeks to pick up more conservative support in an effort to unseat U.S. Sen. John Cornyn. It also went out just weeks after a federal judge found a state law requiring the posting of the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms unconstitutional.
The attorney general’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Texas Tribune on whether Paxton’s messaging violates the Constitution or why Paxton found it appropriate to use state resources to endorse a particular religion.
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