An evangelical Christian who favored pre-game prayers in high schools has a Paul-on-the-road-to-Damascus moment:

Let me start by saying I am an evangelical Christian and have pretty hard-core beliefs about the rights of individuals, particularly students, to express their faith, to include religious themes in their school work, to perform Christian-themed music and dramas during school talent events, etc. If a school administrator had ever tried to stop one of my kids from carrying a Bible, participating in voluntary prayer, or openly discussing their faith with another student, I would have sued him back in to the Stone Age.

Then our rocket scientist finds himself transferred to Hawaii and to a community that is largely Asian. At the first school football game he . . . Oh, but let's let him tell it:

Coming from a fairly traditional Southern upbringing, I was not at all initially surprised when a voice came over the PA and asked everyone to rise for the invocation. I had been through this same ritual at many other high-school events and thought nothing of it, so to our feet my wife and I stood, bowed our heads, and prepared to partake of the prayer. But to our extreme dismay, the clergyman who took the microphone and began to pray was not a Protestant minister or a Catholic priest, but a Buddhist priest who proceeded to offer up prayers and intonations to god-head figures that our tradition held to be pagan.

Nooooo! Noooooo! The horror! The . . . horror!

We were frozen in shock and incredulity! What to do? To continue to stand and observe this prayer would represent a betrayal of our own faith and imply the honoring of a pagan deity that was anathema to our beliefs. To sit would be an act of extreme rudeness and disrespect in the eyes of our Japanese hosts and neighbors, who value above all other things deference and respect in their social interactions. I am sorry to say that in the confusion of the moment we chose the easier path and elected to continue to stand in silence so as not to create a scene or ill will among those who were seated nearby.

Yes, who wouldn't be frozen in shock and horror when exposed to religious nonsense that is . . . gasp! . . . different than your usual brand of religious nonsense?

Get ready for epiphany. Not the epiphany, just an epiphany:

We often advocate the practice of Judeo-Christian rituals in America's public schools by hiding behind the excuse that they are voluntary and any student who doesn't wish to participate can simply remained seated and silent. Oh that this were true. But if I, as a mature adult, would be so confounded and uncomfortable when faced with the decision of observing and standing on my own religious principals or run the risk of offending the majority crowd, I can only imagine what thoughts and confusion must run through the head of the typical child or teenager, for whom peer acceptance is one of the highest ideals.

Really? You think maybe it's difficult for a fucking nine year old to figure out what to do when every single person around him is observing a bizarre religious ritual? You think? Did Jesus himself enlighten you on that point, genius?

I know, I know, I should be generous. I should be saying, "Oh, good for him," but I don't have a lot of tolerance for people who simply do not get, or simply refuse to get, what is blatantly obvious to anyone not in a persistent vegetative state.

Boo hoo: Mr. Christian had to be exposed to strange Buddhist rituals. Imagine how much fun it is to have Christianity rammed down your throat every eight goddamned seconds when you happen to believe that all religions -- majority and minority -- are exercises in mass self-delusion that tread perilously close to psychosis.

Of course this guy at least had the minimal decency necessary to admit the obvious once the obvious was hammered directly into his eye sockets. And that puts him miles ahead of the usual prayer in school nutjob who isn't shocked, shocked at the idea that public religious observances of this sort might be coercive and exclusionary but is rather thrilled, thrilled at the idea of coercing others and excluding the heathen.

Props to Debate Link via The Moderate Voice.

This entry was posted by Michael Reynolds, on Sunday, September 10, 2006. You can leave your response.