orget gangs, fist fights in the hallways or the occasional verbal brickbat hurled at unpopular teachers. With millions of young people heading back to school, the most disruptive event on campuses this fall may be disputes over "spontaneous prayer" at athletic events, and crusades to demand the display of the Ten Commandments in classrooms.

    Groups like the American Family Association, headquartered in Tupelo, Mississippi, along with a popular regional radio DJ are already fueling efforts to organize prayer outburst at high school athletic events. All of this is seen as a reaction to the U.S. Supreme Court decision in June which struck down so-called "student led" prayer at high school football games in Texas. The suit was brought by two families -- one Catholic, one Mormon -- who challenged a local school policy which allowed students to elect one of their ranks who would deliver a "message" prior to the games.

    Religious conservatives, though, are initiating a number of strategies in hopes of returning public religiosity to the playing field.

   ¶    Plans are being made in Mississippi towns like Bogue Chitto for so-called "spontaneous" prayer as a way of circumventing the U.S. Supreme Court ruling. Associated Press reports that fans and players intend to join hands and recite the Lord's Prayer when the football season kicks off tomorrow evening.

    "We have a very strong Christian atmosphere here," declared one student, the 16-year-old son of a Baptist preacher. "I feel like people have a right to express their Christian views. This is a community thing."

    The local head of the American Civil Liberties Union, though, questions the propriety and spontaneity of the event. "It seems to me that a planned spontaneous prayer cannot be spontaneous and it violates the court's ruling," said David Ingebretsen. "If this planned, spontaneous prayer happens, it forces everyone there to hear that prayer or to participate in it."

    One influential prayer advocate is radio talk-show host and entertainer Paul Ott, who has a syndicated call-in program airing on stations in Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee, Alabama and Arkansas.

    "Ott, who sees the removal of prayer from schools as the cause of many of the nation's ills, said he consulted with lawyers and believes individual participation is the key to avoiding a legal confrontation," noted Associated Press. Ott said that he "doesn't know who will start it, I think it will be the students." As for the potential legal consequences, Ott adds: "We don't think this is breaking the law, but if it is breaking the law, I don't think they're going to take thousands of people to jail."

    Ott's "Listen to the Eagle" program has also publicized an Open Letter on the issue of school prayer. It cites various religious references in the Mayflower Compact and statements by Benjamin Franklin, and ominously declares: "Now comes the time, summer of the year 2000 AD, when we must, as a God-fearing people, take a stand, do the harder task... Our country, as you know, has taken God, prayer and the Ten Commandments out of every place it can be taken from, and now it has ruled that we cannot have a prayer or religious songs even at ball games......"

   Ott's call for "spontaneous" and public religious ritual continues:

"But the Eagles says, 'The first Friday night high school games and Saturday college games and each and every week thereafter and forever, thousands of our people will hold hands as soon as our national anthem is concluded. And we will pray together the Lord's prayer, as the Lord has taught us to do...' "

   ¶    Strangely, the town of Asheville, North Carolina is emerging as ground zero in the fight over public prayer -- at least since the issue has been resolved in Santa Fe, Texas. Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network and other fundamentalist outlets have been warning that the Asheville is being transformed into a citadel of new age, Wiccan and pagan beliefs. Last Thursday, several thousand prayer supporters filled a high school football stadium and even blocked roads for hours as part of a "We Still Pray" rally.

    It wasn't just the contingent from the Christian Motorcycle Association, though, which garnered media and public curiosity. Donnie Parks, Chief of Police for the town of Hendersonville, N.C. addressed the rally, and declared that his Christian faith was "inseparable from my identity as a public servant."

   "How do I separate my belief in God from my job?" Parks asked.

    "And my answer is simply this: I don't. The fact that I believe in Jesus Christ and I live for him is a threat to no man. It assures each and every person that I deal with that I will be fair, I will be moral, I will be humble."

    The question of whose prayer and which prayers shall be recited at high school gridiron games, though, may be played out in Asheville on September 22 when a local pagan groups hopes to hold an "interfaith pagan gathering" at Reynolds High School, and stage a "We Still Work Magic" rally of its own. A spokesperson for the group told the Asheville Citizen-Times that it hopes to cast spells asking for acceptance and a call for the earth to be healed.

    "It will probably be the same stuff the Christians do," said Ginger Strivelli of the Appalachian Pagan Alliance. "It's just that we have more gods than they do. We wouldn't be up there sacrificing cattle or anything."

    The group has sent letters to the principal of Reynolds High and the local school superintendent requesting the use of the school property.

    "It was a spur of the moment thing. But I couldn't believe it when I saw they held the We Still Pray rally there," Strivelli said. "But if they open it to one group, they have to open it up to every group."

    "We Still Pray" and the American Family Association are both trying to resuscitate H.R. Res 66, the old Religious Freedom Amendment sponsored by Rep. Ernest Istook which would amend the Constitution and allow organized student prayer in public school classrooms. The proposal was rejected by the House in June, 1998 after failing to win the necessary 2/3 vote for passage. A version now sits in the House Judiciary Committee.

   ¶    In Texas, the "No Pray! No Play!" movement has wrangled national attention. The organization describes its purpose as: "To rekindle the FIRE of our Godly national heritage by organizing public prayer and encouraging all Americans to make a BOLD stand for their personal convictions and constitutionally protected freedoms..." As noted earlier in AANEWS, the group received a supportive "thumbs up" from GOP presidential hopeful George W. Bush during the Fourth of July parade in Belton, Texas, where he expressed his enthusiasm at a "No PRAY! No PLAY!" banner. A spokesman for the organization that that it will be "leading the effort to organize spectators from the Christian community to recite the Lord's prayer directly after the national anthem" at public events, including high school football games.

   ¶    The "We Still Pray" effort even seems to have its own anthem thanks to developments on the Christian music circuit. Since being released in January, 1997, a Gospel song titled "We Want America Back" performed by the Steeles has become a bestseller and frequent play on religious (Christian) radio stations. A recent piece in the New York Times by R. W. Apple, Jr., opined that the tune seems to appeal to a crowd which is "explicitly sexist, rabidly homophobic (and) stunningly antigovernment." One of the milder verses suggests that the Supreme Court gladly hands out free condoms while frowning on distribution of the Bible.

    The response from the song's creator, Jeff R. Steele, has spread throughout the fundamentalist and evangelical subculture. "I wear this criticism as a badge of honor," replied Steele. "Mr. Apple, like so many in the liberal majority of today's media, just didn't get the message... The song is a commentary on the decline of moral values in our society and a statement of how people in key positions in media, entertainment and political leadership have let us down by not upholding the principles established by God and put into practice by our leadership as recently as thirty years ago (sic)."

    Steele's ballad appears to have struck a chord with many. "We Want America Back" has won several Gospel music awards, and incited rallies across the country. The song's producer, Daywind Music Group, says that letters of commendation on the piece have been received from governors of Arkansas, Georgia, Rhode Island, Indiana, Michigan, North Carolina, Virginia, Nebraska, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky and New Jersey. Vice President Al Gore even commended the piece, says the Daywind web site.

    "We Want America Back" is no Gregorian Chant, but rather sounds closer to the "muscular Christianity" resonated in groups like the Promise Keepers and, now, the gridiron crusaders intent on turning weekend football into a poignant reminder of the nation's alleged religious roots. Lyrics declare "We want America back from those who have no self-control," and compare the nation to "a runaway train" on the wrong track.

    "It's time for the army of God to arise and say we want America back," concludes one verse.

    The Supreme Court is pilloried in one verse for its decision to "expel God from the classroom over thirty years ago," while other lines make indirect reference to homosexuality --"what God calls an abomination..." Other targets include premarital sex, bans on distributing Bibles in schools, contraception without parental consent, and even the Andy Griffith show. The final verse declares, "The army of God that has been silent for too long is taking America back!"

   ¶    Members of the American Family Association and other religious groups will likely be out picketing, praying and pamphleteering high school football games once the season arrives. Demonstrations are already being announced in Hattiesburg and Tupelo Mississippi, but the fervor is likely to spread far beyond isolated communities in the south. The issue is also being linked to another campaign of promoting display of the Ten Commandments. Baptist Press is reporting that in Mississippi, there is yet another effort to distribute book covers in schools bearing a version of the Commandments. Members of the state Baptist Convention's "youth ministry team" have been preparing for the opening day of school in hopes of "witnessing" and "sharing the good news" with fellow students.

   ¶    Are "spontaneous" prayer demonstrations at these public events an illegal attempt to circumvent the Supreme Court's decision in the Texas case? Much would depend on the involvement of school officials, or whether public address systems or other resources are provided in order to further the religious ritual. Even if the outbursts are "spontaneous," perhaps the pop-culture Christian equivalent of a stadium wave, they still may create the impression of government sponsorship, and convey to those who do not wish to participate -- for whatever reason -- are not welcome, or part of a larger community.

   Paraphrasing a popular Christian slogan, though, "What Would Jesus Do?" We have no way of knowing, but there is the reminder found in the Christian Bible in Matthew 6:5-6 which admonishes believers:

"And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are; for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.

"But though, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou has shut thy door, pray to they Father which is in secret; and thy Father, which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly."

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