Pagan Godspell

In the mad rush towards the Most Important Holiday of the Season (and by that, of course, I mean Buy Nothing Day), those in the trenches of the Culture War may often forget to stop and, well, just say a little prayer.

In public school.  Because in case you forgot, The War on Christmas (cymbal-crash!) is only one battle in the larger War…on (mythical) “Christian America”.  We shouldn’t forget prayer in schools.  What would Cultural Warriors do the rest of the year without issues like prayer in schools? 

A Tennessee school’s “Praying Parents” group is being sued for promoting the group and other religious activities at the school.  Yes, it seems that some parents got a little concerned with their son started bringing home religious material from kindergarten, such as flyers for the group and cards telling the children that the group had prayed for them.  A couple of non-secular events, such as the “National Day of Prayer” were also advertised at the school.  Not a big deal, right?  Some flyers, a card.  Well and then there’s that accusation of a classroom prayer led by the teacher.  Maybe a little bigger deal.

But here’s where they get ya.  Complaining about these “small” violations, that have only “the best interests of children at heart,” and consist of people peacefully praying, or a flyer here, or a card there, make those who object to them look like Evil Nitpicking Trolls from Hell who disdain prayer or even plain kindness.  We’re made out to look so angry at other people’s attempt to think nice thoughts about our children that we just feel compelled to squelch all their “simple”, “good” notions and turn them into lawsuits.  And, as ever, we are labelled hysterically “political correct.”  (On a related note regarding the obnoxious new trend of proudly labeling oneself “politically incorrect,” see Echidne-Of-The-Snakes’ brilliant analysis.)  We’re told to suck it up and stop being so goshdarned mean about the whole thing.  Relax, it’s just a flyer.  Right?

Nope.  Sorry.  These things are important.  They are a big deal.  You can make it out to be whatever you like, but the fact remains that these are attempts to proselytize to children in the name of one religious tradition.  Otherwise, it wouldn’t bother parents to pray together for the school at church.  Or in their homes.  If praying for the school only works in the school, then one has to question the strength of that prayer. 

To be honest, I’m not terribly opposed to prayer in schools.  If you think you can get through the school curriculum and still have time to accommodate every child’s religious preference, then you go ahead and do that.  And if a child tells you that their religion requires them to sing or chant, the old gloss-over “moment of silence” isn’t going to fly.  And when a teenager tells you they’ve converted to Church of the Subgenius, or Discordianism, or any number of religions that are guaranteed to get school administrators’ collective undies in a knot, what then?  Who gets to decide how and when people pray?  Messy, messy.  Sounds like fun to me, but maybe not to non-anarchists.

But nobody’s arguing for this, really.  The “prayer in schools” folks don’t really want everybody to have the freedom to practice their religion in school.  They don’t want Pagans leading Pagan prayers at assemblies or teenage Witches meeting before school to perform love spells on their crush of the week.  Nope, they want Christianity as the default religion and the default method of prayer.  And see, here’s where ya lose me.  Cuz I’m a stickler for freedom of my religion too, it turns out.  If you’re gonna have a nation state (and hey, I’d rather you not, but that’s what we’ve got going right now), you have to keep religion out of it, because you have only two options otherwise – the absolute chaos of trying to appeal to all religions all the time (not bad, but really really messy), or theocratic rule of a single faith (bad).

And as for the theory that us righteous lefty trolls hate prayer: I pray a lot.  I believe in silence, in loud chanting, in singing, in communion with the Universe, the gods and spirits, the Earth.  I pray when I dance.  I pray when I make art.  I pray in the evenings before bed and, when I remember in the fog of being newly awakened, I pray in the morning when I arise.  My life is a prayer.  I pray hard.  I pray without ceasing. 

Never have I felt the urge to pray on people.  But hey, maybe one day I will, and suddenly I’ll feel the need to rush up to a total stranger and ask them if I can pray for them, and then without waiting for an answer sweep them up into an impressive, sexy Tango.  No?  You prefer Paso Doble?  Oh, okay.  I’m down with ecumenism.