I was recently exchanging comments other readers at The Honest Doubter (great blog, BTW), when I suddenly realized how strange many of the examples of Christian intolerance I provide must seem to people outside America (or even outside the bible belt in America). I left a comment about prayer circles in a post about the absurdity of calling children "Christian" when we would never call them "Democrats" or "Republicans." A fellow reader, Plonka, who happens to be from Australia, asked me whether prayer circles really happen here. I responded in the affirmative, but now I'd like to expand on what I wrote.

What is a Prayer Circle?

Imagine yourself back in the third grade. It is recess, and you are with your classmates on the playground. There is a teacher in the vicinity, but the supervision is fairly minimal. Suddenly, a group of 6 or more children approach you and say something along the lines of, "Have you been saved?" You are not sure what to make of the question, so other questions about your religious beliefs and experiences follow. Without understanding the consequences, you tell them that you and your family are atheists, Jews, Catholics, Buddhists, non-fundamentalist Protestants, etc.

The children start calling you names and hurling insults at you. If you happen to be Jewish, you will hear things that would make neo-Nazi's proud. You are a sinner. You are going to burn in a lake of fire. You will rot in hell. They form a circle around you, holding hands to make sure you can't easily escape. They tell you that the only way you can save yourself is to accept Jee-zuhs. They begin praying around you loudly to "save your soul."


The teacher, if he/she even notices what is happening shrugs it off. Maybe he or she cannot see that you are crying by now. It does not look like the children are touching you, so there seems little cause to disrupt the activity. Maybe the teacher even approves of what the children are doing. After all, he or she may have been raised in this culture of intolerance.

This, dear reader, is a prayer circle.

This Doesn't Really Happen, Does It?

I wish I could tell you that I am just making this up. I really do. Unfortunately, what I have to tell you is that this sort of thing happens far more often and is often worse than my feeble attempt to describe it here.

As I told Plonka, prayer circles are such a common occurrence on Mississippi playgrounds that nearly everyone I know with children who isn't a fundamentalist Christian has had it happen to their children. In some cases, especially if the family is not Christian at all, it happens many times throughout elementary school. Many victims are Jewish; some are Catholic, Buddhist, atheist, or even non-fundamentalist Protestant.

The first couple times I heard about this, I was absolutely stunned. I vividly remember my mouth hanging open as I kept repeating, "No way" to a Jewish colleague who was describing what his daughter had to endure. That was when he pulled out a scrapbook he had kept since moving here from the Northeast. But this was no ordinary scrapbook. It was a collection of fundamentalist Christian propaganda and anti-Semitic material that his daughter had been given by her peers at public school. I wanted to cry.

How Do The Parents Cope?

From what I have observed, and this is admittedly a small sample, the initial response is often exactly what you would expect - outrage. These parents typically meet with the school officials to express their concern, push for increased supervision, etc. But time and time again, they run into the same wall. The fundamentalists are the overwhelming majority, teachers can't be everywhere, we can't control what other children say, this is part of the culture here in the South, etc.

Many parents seem to tire of banging their head against this wall and come to believe that their primary role should be one of providing emotional support for their children. As parents realize that this really is part of the culture here, they tend to set efforts to change it aside in favor of trying to help their children deal with it. I certainly don't condemn them for this. I have no idea what I would do as a parent in this situation, and it would be absurd for me to pass judgment.

Instead, I focus my anger on the parents and churches of the tormentors and bullies. After all, these children learned their beliefs somewhere.



Tags: religion, education, school, prayer circles, playground, recess, children, intolerance, Mississippi, bible belt, teacher, Christian, fundamentalist, bullying