Officials with First Liberty Institute and the law firm Gibson Dunn & Crutcher have filed a brief encouraging the federal court there to affirm the right of Heather Rooks, the president of the Peoria Unif9ied School District Board, to recite from Scripture during meetings.

“Citing a quotation from any text, be it sacred or secular, for the purpose of encouragement or inspiration is completely protected under the Free Speech Clause of the U.S. Constitution,” explained First Liberty Institute lawyer Erin Smith. “That conclusion is compelled by Supreme Court precedent and confirmed by history and tradition.”

Matt Scorcio, of the Gibson law firm, said, “Our Nation’s public officials have quoted scripture in performing their duties from the Founding through today. Heather Rooks’ practice of opening her Board comments time with a brief quotation of scripture fits comfortably within that tradition, so it can’t as a matter of law give rise to an Establishment Clause violation.”

Rooks began her time with the board in January 2023, and she recently was elected president.

“During each Peoria School Board meeting, the agenda includes a brief ‘Board comments’ period where individual board members may offer remarks of their own choosing. Since the beginning of her public service on the board, Ms. Rooks opened her comments by quoting a short scripture from the Bible,” the legal team said.

But various “anti-religious organizations” wrote to the board, demanding a complete censorship of her comments.

The previous board chief told her to stop using scripture, and a motion now filed with the court argues, “Far from being compelled by the Establishment Clause, the District’s actions in this case violate Rooks’ own rights of religious freedom and speech under state and federal law. As the Supreme Court put it recently in the landmark case of Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, a ‘government entity’s concerns about phantom constitutional violations’ never ‘justify actual violations of an individual’s First Amendment rights.’ The Court should grant summary judgment to Rooks, award her nominal damages, and grant her declaratory relief.”

The Daily Caller News Foundation reported when the dispute arose that Rooks went to court after being ordered to censor her Bible references.

It was Lisa Anne Smith, the board’s lawyer, who dictated that members were not allowed to “pray or recite scripture during board meetings.”

The legal action complained,” The District’s official policy and actions—which purport to ensure Rooks does ‘not read scripture’ or ‘offer bible verses’—regulate her speech based on its content, message, and viewpoint. The District’s policies and actions therefore chill her ability to freely speak, in violation of the First Amendment.”

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Bible sales rose 22% through October compared to the same period last year, according to data released this month by Circana Bookscan. Total U.S. print book sales were only up 1%, according to The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the trend.

“The religion book market has been a bright spot of growth within the total book market since the pandemic,” Brenna Connor, an industry analyst with Circana, told Fox News Digital in a statement. “Bibles are leading that growth, but other subjects like Christian Life and Biblical Studies are also up, reflecting increased interest for Christian subjects in the U.S.”

I have never heard of anything like this happening before.

Bible sales have been rising since the first year of the pandemic, and this year they took off like a rocket…

Print Bible sales hit a five-year low of just under 8.9 million in 2020, according to Circana’s data, before beginning to tick upward again. Sales surpassed 13.7 million in the first 10 months of this year, Circana reported.

Interestingly, this is taking place at a time when the percentage of the population that identifies as “Christian” has hit an all-time low…

The share of Americans identifying with a Christian religion hit a low of 68% last year, according to Gallup polling. Half a century ago, 87% of adults in the U.S. identified as Christian, Gallup found. About 28% of American adults are now religiously unaffiliated, according to Pew Research.

As a society, we just don’t embrace institutional churches the way that we once did.

Last year, I discussed the fact that church attendance in the U.S. is now far lower than it once was…

In 1958, a Gallup survey found that 49 percent of Americans had attended church within the past 7 days. That number started to decline during the ensuing years, and by 1972 only 40 percent of Americans said that they had attended church within the past 7 days. From 1972 all the way until 2012, church attendance within the past 7 days hovered right around that 40 percent figure. Unfortunately, over the past decade it has started to fall once again. Just prior to the pandemic, a Gallup survey found that 34 percent of Americans had been to church within the past 7 days, and now a new survey has discovered that it is down to just 31 percent.

And according to an article that was posted on Faithwire last week, the proportion of U.S. evangelicals that are giving to churches has dropped precipitously…

“The takeaway is that there has been a change over the last three years in terms of the generosity of the evangelical community, both toward church and toward nonprofit organizations or charities,” Mark Dreistadt said. “We’ve seen a drop in giving across the board.”

Infinity Concepts and Grey Matter Research found the “proportion of evangelicals giving to church fell 13 percentage points from 2021, constituting a 17% decrease in giving,” according to a press release.

While 61% of evangelicals gave to their local church in the 12 months before the study, this was down from the previous timeframe, when 74% of evangelicals had done the same.

Fewer Americans consider themselves to be “Christians” than ever before, church attendance is way down, and giving is way down.

But Bible sales are soaring.

What in the world is going on?

I think that what we are witnessing is a move of God that is happening mostly outside of the institutional churches, and it appears that young people are at the forefront of it.

In 2024, an organization known as UniteUS held a series of revival meetings at college campuses all across the country, and at school after school the response was amazing…

Tonya Prewitt, founder of UniteUS, explained, “We started at Auburn University. We had 5,000 students show up, and over 200 got baptized. We next went to FSU – Florida State, the second biggest party school in the nation. We had 4,500 students come, and I believe about 350 students got baptized at that event.”

The movement then swept through the universities of Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, and South Carolina, with numbers growing along the way. Tonya calls the mission a simple one: Bring hope to a generation.

College student Haden Smith shared his experience. “Just getting to be with your neighbors and friends as they pray with you for your struggles and being open with those you normally wouldn’t be open with – it was just overall powerful,” he said.

And sometimes revival has erupted without any big organization being involved at all. For example, NPR has reported on the revival that was initiated by football players at Ohio State…

Students and players deemed it a revival. The story made national news, including appreciative stories in religious publications and Fox News. Now, as Ohio State University’s football team prepares for the college football playoffs, players like Henderson have a bigger platform to share their Christian beliefs.

Could all of this be the start of something really big?

Could all of this be the start of the end times revival that I have been writing about?…

The Remnant of the last days is going to do things the way that Christians in the first century did things. Have you ever wondered why so many Christian churches today do not resemble what you see in the Bible?  Well, the sad truth is that over the centuries churches got away from doing the things that the Scriptures tell us to do, but now God is restoring all things.  Without God we can do nothing, but with God all things are possible.

Right now, we have such an amazing opportunity.  During the first century, there were only about 200 million people living on the entire planet.  Today, the total global population is somewhere around 8 billion.  That means the population of the world is about 40 times larger today than it was back in the first century.

I believe that we are on the verge of the greatest move of God and the greatest harvest of souls in all of human history, and I encourage you to be a part of what is happening.

As wars, natural disasters, pestilences and economic problems shake the globe, people are going to be searching for answers, and Bible prophecy will become one of the hottest topics on the entire planet.

During the years ahead, so many will be consumed with despair as their lives are totally turned upside down by the cataclysmic events that are coming.  Instead of giving in to fear like everyone else will be, it will be a great opportunity for the people of God to rise up and take the message of life to a lost and dying world.

For some reason, a lot of people in the institutional church associate revival with prosperous times.

But often it takes a tremendous amount of shaking to turn people back to God.

During the very difficult years that are ahead of us, the shaking will seem unbearable at times.

It will seem like the worst of times, but it will also seem like the best of times because of the tremendous awakening that we will witness.

God is calling for His Remnant of the last days to arise, and no force on Earth will be able to stop that from happening.

Michael’s new book entitled “Why” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

Yet how many actually read it? Two years ago, Christianity Today noted: “The data said roughly 26 million people had mostly or completely stopped reading the Bible in the last year.”

Meanwhile, as of this writing, the education department of the state of Oklahoma is planning to purchase 55,000 Bibles for the public schools. I’m sure the left is gnashing their teeth over such a plan.

But historically, the Bible was the reason education for the masses was developed in America in the first place. The Puritan forefathers created schools for the masses (a forerunner to the public schools), so that children could learn to read, so they could read the Bible for themselves.

Someone might argue, “Well, that was the Puritans. But surely the Founding Fathers didn’t agree with that.”

But actually, they did argue for that in 1787 and in 1789 when the founders adopted the Northwest Ordinance. As new territories became states in the newly formed United States, they were to follow the same basic template.

Here’s what Article III of the Northwest Ordinance had to say about schools, which were voluntary at that time and often run by churches: “Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary for good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.”

The Bible was the chief textbook in one way or another for the first 200-300 years of America – and that’s when the children could read, because of it. It was the Bible that gave birth to Harvard, William and Mary, Yale, Princeton, Dartmouth, Brown and so on.

It was only when the schools explicitly went against the Scriptures that American education went off the rails. Now there are major portions of society who can’t read, despite years of schooling.

Meanwhile, is there a correlation between reading the Scriptures and human flourishing?

Many social science studies have shown that church is good for society, that attending church on a regular basis lengthens your life (on average) and that attending church often improves the quality of your life as well. Dr. Byron Johnson of Baylor’s Institute for Studies of Religion has spent years assessing studies on the impact of applied religion (generally, Christianity) leading to positive personal and societal improvement. Dr. Johnson even wrote a book showing how Christian belief and practice helps lower criminal behavior. The book is appropriately titled, “More God, Less Crime.“

But what about Bible-reading? A recent study Dr. Johnson wrote, along with M. Bradshaw and S.J. Jang, is entitled, “Assessing the Link Between Bible Reading and Flourishing among Military Families.”

Before exploring their results (which were positive), the study mentions earlier related findings: “Previous research shows salutary associations between multiple dimensions of religiosity (including reading sacred texts) and different aspects of flourishing (e.g., physical health, psychological well-being, character and virtue, social connections and support).”

The abstract of the study noted: “Bible reading may promote overall mental, physical, and social well-being. Implications and limitations of these preliminary findings are discussed.”

The researchers list three of their findings on how the Bible fosters human flourishing: “First, Bible reading is likely to promote psychological well-being by helping individuals develop a close relationship with a loving and caring God who engages in the lives of individuals.”

They continue: “Second, Bible reading may facilitate feelings of divine control that help cope with stress. Third, positive and encouraging messages in the Bible may also promote purpose in life and guidance seeking, which may also enhance flourishing.”

When I started reading the Bible for myself as a young man I found that it was such a great source for knowledge, for wisdom, for direction, for personal relations, etc.

The Bible was important to great Americans like George Washington, whose writings and speeches are filled with biblical phrases, such as “And everyman shall rest under his own vine and fig tree, and there shall be none to make them afraid.” This was Washington’s vision for America.

Even Jefferson, wisely or unwisely, collected many of the teachings of Jesus (including a few miracles) in a document for Native-Americans, so they too (like us) could benefit from them. People mistakenly call this unpublished work “The Jefferson Bible.” But as Jefferson noted once, the morality of Jesus is the most sublime and greatest moral teaching of all time.

President Lincoln called the Scriptures, “the greatest gift the Savior gave the world.” Indeed, great Americans through the ages were very familiar with the Bible.

As Ronald Reagan once said of the holy book, “Inside its pages lie all the answers to all the problems that man has ever known.”

To promote human flourishing, spread the message of the Scriptures.

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