Religious Diversity 101

In a recent online edition of the San Diego Union Tribune, Helen Gao wrote that Carver Elementary School in Oak Park has added Arabic to its curriculum and that it has added a 15-minute afternoon break to the school day in order to accommodate Muslim students who wish to pray. This has created uproar among the “concerned citizens” in the community who believe that Muslim students (there are now more than 100 of them thanks to a failed charter school in the area) should not have the right to pray in the manner which their religion requires. These citizens argue that Muslims should not have any more right to pray than should Christian students. And since Christian students are allowed to pray only during the school-supported daily Moment of Silence, that is the only time Muslim students should be allowed to pray as well.

What these citizens don’t understand is that their Moment of Silence Code is structured in such a way as to allow prayer that aligns with the tenets of Christianity. Moreover, Moment of Silence Codes conspicuously lack the breadth necessary to allow prayer that follows the laws and tenets of non-Christian faiths.

Although there are hundreds of Moment of Silence Codes on the books throughout the country, codes that pass constitutional muster allow prayer that is done voluntarily, individually and silently, and that does not distract other students or otherwise draw attention to the praying student’s activities or behaviors. Such restrictions to how prayer can occur during a Moment of Silence make it impossible for non-Christians to pray in accordance to the tenets of their faith. Why? Because in non-Christian faiths, active prayer is the only prayer that matters.

Christianity is based on the concept of creed before deed. That is to say, it is more important to accept God in one’s heart and adopt an attitude of Christianity than it is to engage in prayer rituals that demonstrate your belief in Christianity. Ritual without attitude is viewed as hypocrisy, and so it is far more important for prayer to be authentic, genuine, and transparent than it is to follow certain conventions or rituals. The result of this philosophy is that any prayer that is offered from the heart and with the spirit of God is considered legitimate prayer. Such prayer requires no formal convention: prayer can be private or public, prayer can be said aloud or silently, in a group or alone, in any place and at any time. Any time a person feels the urge to pray, he or she can and should do so, simply by bowing the head and opening the heart. And so if a student chooses to pray during a Moment of Silence—quietly and without distraction—such prayer would be aligned with the basic tenets of the Christian faith.

But non-Christian religions ascribe to a deed before creed philosophy. Their perspective is that the public action of prayer trumps the individual person’s intention behind the prayer. The off-shoot of this is that prayer simply will not be legitimate if uttered quietly or without distraction. Practically all non-Christian prayers involve some type of formalized behavior: requirements to stand, bow, rock, or shuffle side to side would be construed as “distracting” under most Moment of Silence codes. There are time requirements that dictate when prayer must occur and the types of prayers that are said during each specific time. There are restrictions regarding which prayers can be said by the individual and which must be said in a group. And at least in the Jewish faith, even prayers that can be said quietly by an individual require that person to "move ones lips and speak the words audibly” so that anyone in close proximity can hear that the person is praying.

Because of the deed before creed philosophy, these actions simply cannot be separated from the prayer itself; the formalities of the actions help to define the individual’s relationship to God. That is why Moment of Silence Codes exclude non-Christian prayer: requiring a devout Muslim, Jew, or Hindu to pray silently and without distraction makes a mockery of their liturgy and their belief systems.

Of course, there is an obvious solution to the dilemma: eliminate Moments of Silence from the classroom. Doing so protects schools from inadvertently discriminating against non-Christians, and it re-assures Christian parents that their children will not be spiritually assaulted by unknown or foreign belief systems. Eliminating the Moment of Silence does not limit a Christian’s religious expression: A Christian student who intends to pray but is unable to do so because of governmental restrictions is not going to be seen as less of a Christian in the eyes of the Christian God, because the student’s intentions were pure even if there were barriers to prayer. And since the student can legitimately pray before or after school (or even during school as long as there is no state support for such prayer) the student is not in violation of his or her faith’s basic tents. Sure, the non-Christian students are left to their own devices to figure out a way to pray, but at least the field has been leveled and no specific faith is given “most favored religion” status.

Since most devoutly Christian families will find the aforementioned solution unpalatable, here is another option: in deference to those who expect their children to have the right to pray in school in accordance to their religious tenets, demand that such rights be extended to all students. Carver Elementary School is trying to make that happen. We should let them.