U.S. high school forces students to take religious assembly

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Good for them. I don't think anyone should have to listen to religious services, particularly if the school is not religious in the first place. Where the hell do these people get off?

I believe it is a good thing this happened. These kids learned how crazy these people really are, and that will serve them well in the future. I've never heard of the Pinelake Baptist Church, but apparently they are willing to break the law to push their crazy beliefs on children. As a kid it is always interesting to see "adults in charge" (authority figures) break the rules. The people who worked at this school either didn't know anything about their own constitution, or they knowingly ignored the it. So they are either idiots or a**holes.

Speaking as a Christian: WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?????

Scripture tells us to be good citizens of our countries, so long as that does not mean renouncing our Faith, altogether.

There's really no balance there. As a Briton I think back to my school assemblies, even the ones by my ex vicar Religious Studies teacher. It was never about Jesus or God, it was morals, values, my perspective on myself. The fables & prayers weren't hammering home a deity, it was about us in our community.

I think that church selfishly missed a fantastic opportunity to shape the young minds in the local area by banging on about Jesus all the time.

It never ceases to amaze me how often "regular" church-goers complain about young people refusing to go to church, especially after reading or hearing about places like Rankin High School and Pinelake Baptist Church, and the lengths they will go to to increase church attendance ... and donations in the collection plate.


We have this thing about keeping Church and State separate. What those preachers and teachers did in collusion is illegal here. HRM may be the Primate of the Anglican Church, but over here we have no such hybridisation.

Such assemblies are absolutely prohibited by the U.S. Constitution.
Perhaps, being from Mississippi, the school administrators lack the required reading comprehension to understand the words of the Founding Fathers.
They should be required to hold an assembly with a constitutional law lawyer as the guest speaker.

Now they know how it feels when Christians and those of other faiths have to listen to atheists give talks on various subjects.

If that is a publicly funded high school then the requirement is very, very illegal.

ruveyn

In our local elementary school at least once a year and sometimes twice they have a preacher come in and talk to each class, during class. He goes around to all the classrooms and talks to them and prays and gives everybody little New Testaments. Even when kids don't want them they say "Well just take it home anyway". I don't know what they call it to be able to do that, but I think they found a loophole somewhere. My kids tried to give the bibles back but they wouldn't take them so I took them to the tanning bed that I used to go to and left them there. The owner said it was ok to put them on a table in the waiting area and eventually somebody got them. No need to throw them out I guess.

Also at the beginning of every year at orientation, every open house assembly, every sports event and every graduation, they have a different local preacher come speak for a minute and lead everybody in prayer. The principal once actually said at one of those orientations "I'm not allowed to say what I want but Brother HisName here can because he is a guest speaker" and he also talked about making sure you attended school, study habits, being on time, etc. All the normal things that they get reminded of every year but then also he put in a little sermon about how you can't pass a class without Jesus.

The praying doesn't seem to bother anybody, even those who aren't religious or who aren't that particular religion. Most people just stand quietly during it or even bow their heads. My kids who are athiests and agnostics always bow their heads to be polite. I don't think the school should have had that assembly that was in the article and I think that if they were damned and determined to that they should have let the kids leave who wanted to leave. While the things they do at the local schools here are small things, and probably against the law unless there are actual loopholes, they don't bother me because about 98% of this town is protestant evangelical Christians and that's what they believe and what the kids parents teach them and if they tune it out at home they will turn it out at school too.

School sponsored prayer within a public school or its property is illegal.

ruveyn

Well, they do it. It doesn't matter to me anyway, even though I'm not of that persuasion. Down here, it's just become more cultural than religious anyway, prayer and church have. I know a lot of kids, mine included, who go to church events and even to church with friends even though they don't believe at all. It's social. Like describing something that somebody does nice as "Christian", like saying "Thank you, that was mighty Christian of you" (I've also heard "That was mighty white of you" but that's an insult, it's sarcasm and means what you did was in some way insulting or at least nowhere near enough)

I dislike it whenever my child is taught an opinion or belief as if it is a fact.
My son's school is very fond of having military veterans as visitors and sending mail to soldiers. They tell my son that if you're in the military, you're a hero. I would rather they stick to reading, math, and science, and knock off the underage recruiting.

Public schools exist to serve the local community and are reflections of community values. They have to be given how they are administered. School boards are elected officials and thus represent the interests of their constituency. If the local voters are largely in favor of religious assemblies, they can do that. If they want to allow a church to meet in their gym on Sundays, they can do that. Back when I still taught in the classroom, I worked Christmas music into my lesson plans to cover one of the benchmarks in the state curriculum. The only student I had who objected to it was a Jehovah's Witness, and we took some time to discuss acceptable alternatives. I never heard one complaint for a student, parent, or administrator about it, and I've always been open to student input and asking for advice from superiors. Religious elements are totally doable in an appropriate context. Sounds like NWR had a little trouble with execution--the actions of the truancy officers, et al didn't allow for an alternative.

The issue we have in finding the balance is that while there is the establishment clause, simultaneously students don't suddenly stop being Christian when they enter the school gates. They still have a constitutional freedom of religion. Most students here are not going to be offended if a baptist church holds an assembly, nor will their parents be offended.

I'm familiar with Pine Lake and NWR. NWR serves an affluent community. Pine Lake is a large church for the area...not a "mega church" but I'm guessing weekly attendance of at least 300 or more. It's an evangelical church but by no means charismatic or fanatical...just typical of that kind of neighborhood. I'm guessing that the district is accustomed to having church groups hold assemblies and have been free from problems in the past. They wouldn't have foreseen any problems this time around, and something got miscommunicated this time.

Of course, it doesn't seem right to me that the behavior of the truancy officer and others is characteristic behavior given the legal consequences of botching the assembly. I half wonder whether the offended students are being honest or if they just have an axe to grind with the school.

[edit] I don't think that Pine Lake is a "megachurch," but I do know that it is a multi-campus church. I've only seen one of their campuses, for which I guesstimated a weekly attendance. I'm familiar with Pine Lake partially from having seen one of their churches in passing, but also due to visiting their website and seriously considering applying for a job there! One thing to note is that younger baptists are well-aware that non-church-goers have gotten a negative opinion towards the "baptist" label. I suspect there is a growing number of churches like Pine Lake that are really baptists masquerading as non-denoms and that more churches started as "non-denoms" end up leaning more baptist than they do pentecostal. At any rate, Pine Lake is an interesting church.

Last edited by AngelRho on 07 May 2013, 1:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.

In the UK, a lot of squaddies (and ex-squaddies) really, really hate that.