Our Town is all abuzz about a church that has gone off the deep end. What once was a rather staid Baptist church has gone into the weeds and started performing demon castings and speaking in tongues.
Their Sunday services are broadcast on the local cable access channel and I've been trying to catch an episode to see and hear this speaking in tongues business, a.k.a. Jibber-Jabberin' Fer Jesus. Um hummm...., yeah. OK.
Anywho, the cable TV guide doesn't list which church has what time slot, so I've been channel surfing on Sunday mornings trying to find these folks. I'll stop and watch any Jesus-Has-Three-Syllables preacher swinging a Bible in front of cheap paneling and plastic plants with grainy production values. They're always a hoot.
One guy from some itty bitty town in Louisiana was railing on about the downfall of the youth of America. He said he could pinpoint just when that happened...when they took prayer out of public schools. That was June 25, 1962 to be exact; I looked it up.
The downfall couldn't have been so instantaneous though. After all, the Class of 1963 had 11 years of praying, the Class of 1968 should have been only 50% downfallen, but the Class of 1974 would have been 100% heatherns (yes, with an "r".)
As a post-'74 grad, I guess I'm one o' them thar heatherns.
The school prayer in question back in '62 was "Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers and our country. Amen."
Does Preacherman really think this one line every morning can transform a nation of Junior High heathens into little angels? I mean really. Get a grip. And, would the absence of this one line from a child's day cause their eternal soul to be lost forever? Couldn't a family say a couple of extra lines during the blessing at supper to make up for it?
The amount of time I've spent in religious instruction/services from age 4 until the time I left home at 17 is somewhere in the 1,600 hour range. I don't think it made a bit of difference in my life one way or the other. I rillyrilly don't think a single line of prayer before math class would have lifted generations of schoolchildren to righteousness either. After all, we've had prisons full of prayful, public school educated folks waaaay before 1962, haven't we?
So, oh woe is me, I never got to beg the blessings of Almighty God before morning recess, but I've managed to stay out of the state pen thus far. And I don't set foot in a church these days unless somebody's getting married or buried.
I just might show up for one o' them thar demon castin' doings though.
Bonus points if it includes snake handling.
Monday, May 4, 2009
A Heathern's Rant on School Prayer
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6 comments:
I had thousands of hours of praying cast upon me as a small child and I still turned out gay. I went to private school for most of the schooling..and we prayed before everything..still gay...
"Heatherns"
Lordy, I hadn't heard that word in 30 years!
Love it!
Catholic School for me....8 years of it....I was pregnant at 16 and not one nun or priest helped me then just called me a sinner and told me to go to confession. One of my ex mother-in-laws was a huge follower of Katherine Kuhlman and I attended mu mil's baptism....lots of tongue stuff, folks falling over and waving of hands....quite a snow. I keep my faith to myself. The prayers I manage to fumble with are sincere. don't need a preacher to fix me.....what ever was and is wrong just is.
sneak in a video camera, will ya?
When I was in high school, I went to a demon-casting, tongue-speaking church for awhile. The high point of my religious career (*snort*) was taking my sister with me and seeing her get so freaked by the commotion out that she cried and hid in the bathroom.
Good times.
I would just like to see "Amen!" to you. *smiles*
Really, I couldn't agree more with you on this one. And I LOVE the phrase "Jesus-Has-Three-Syllables preacher." *grin*
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