ReportWire

Tag: Religion in schools

  • Prayers go on, sometimes out of sight, in prep football

    Prayers go on, sometimes out of sight, in prep football

    [ad_1]

    WEST BLOOMFIELD TOWNSHIP, Mich. — Surrounded by a slew of players with their arms draped over shoulders, West Bloomfield High School assistant coach Justin Ibe bowed his head and led a Christian prayer before a recent Friday night game.

    Forty yards down the sideline, three Muslim young men were having a quiet moment of their own.

    “Ameen,” the players quietly said, using the Arabic word for amen.

    Across America, most high school football seasons are winding down. Thousands of games, the first since the Supreme Court in June ruled it was OK for a public school coach near Seattle to pray on the field. The decision prompted speculation that prayer would become an even bigger part of the game-day fabric, though that hasn’t seemed to be the case.

    Fouad Zaban, the head coach at Fordson High in Dearborn, calls the area just outside Detroit the “Middle East of America” and it is indeed home to thousands of people of Arab descent. After the court ruling, Zaban said, he was flooded with requests to use his platform and constitutional right to pray publicly. After thinking about it, he chose to keep his team’s prayers behind closed doors to avoid potential anti-Islamic jeers from fans in other communities.

    “That was a concern that they were going to get backlash,” Zaban said.

    With the nation’s culture wars spilling into education, it is challenging to have teachable moments about big news — like a precedent-setting court ruling — and coaches such as Zaban would rather punt than pray publicly.

    “It’s harder, whether you’re a coach, librarian, teacher or counselor,” said Lara Schwartz, an American University professor whose specialties include campus speech and constitutional law. “There are activist groups targeting books and ideas, saying you can lose your license if you have these conversations. That to me is a threat to people having good constructive dialogue in classrooms, or with coaches.”

    In Michigan, some teams with multiple religions represented on their rosters have found ways for everyone who wants to participate to do so if they wish.

    “We don’t force anybody to do that,” said Ibe, the defensive line coach in West Bloomfield. “We just take that moment to really just come together and give glory to God at that moment.”

    At Crestwood High School in Dearborn Heights, where most of the football team is Muslim, the entire team gathers before practices and games to pray on one knee. First, most of the players recite Al-Fatiha. Then, a player says a Christian prayer to the attentive group.

    “Between those two prayers, they’re pretty much all the same,” said Adam Berry, a senior and a team captain. “Asking God for protection, asking God for forgiveness, and asking God for any way to help us through our game.”

    According to a poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, a majority of Americans think a coach leading a team in prayer (60%), a player leading a team in prayer (64%) and a coach praying on the field without asking the team to join in (71%) should all be allowed in public high school sports.

    Still, the team plays it safe at Fordson High, where coaches clear the locker room and leave players to pray if they wish.

    “No one can ever say that we were involved in it,” Zaban said, adding he just wants to coach instead of drawing attention.

    Hassan Shinawah, a senior and team captain at Fordson, said players supported keeping their prayers in the locker room and away from the public.

    “We don’t know if people are comfortable,” he said. “We don’t know what their opinions are about it. We just don’t want any conflict with anybody else.”

    In the South, at least three high schools, two in Alabama and another in North Carolina, received letters in recent months from the Freedom From Religion Foundation. The nonprofit that advocates for atheists and agnostics said it fielded complaints about the promotion of religion surrounding football games. Jefferson County (Ala.) officials were asked to “ensure that its schools are no longer scheduling prayer at school-sponsored events, including football games.”

    The Associated Press left multiple messages for athletic directors and principals at the schools in both North Carolina and Alabama that were not returned.

    Outside Detroit, coaches gave time and space for their players to pray, showing the teenagers that accomdations can be made for different faiths as well as the right to decline.

    At West Bloomfield High, an assistant football coach once walked miles with a Jewish player — whose faith would not allow him to ride in a car one particular day — to make sure he got to his hotel after a road game. The unique nature of having Christians, Muslims and Jews playing on the same team was not lost on one of the players who participates in a pregame Islamic prayer.

    “Some other teams, they probably don’t have the same thing,” said Mohamed Menisy, a 16-year-old junior offensive tackle. “We’re one team, one family. We just respect each other.”

    ———

    Follow Larry Lage at https://twitter.com/larrylage

    ———

    Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Japan PM orders probe of Unification Church problems

    Japan PM orders probe of Unification Church problems

    [ad_1]

    TOKYO — Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida ordered an investigation Monday into the Unification Church in an apparent move to calm the public outrage over his governing party’s cozy ties with the controversial group, which were revealed in the wake of Shinzo Abe’s assassination.

    Former Prime Minister Abe was shot to death during an outdoor campaign speech in July. The suspect, Tetsuya Yamagami, told police he killed Abe because of his apparent link to a religious group he hated. A letter and social media postings attributed to Yamagami said his mother’s large donations to the church bankrupted his family and ruined his life.

    Kishida said a government hotline set up to receive complaints and inquiries related to the church has resulted in more than 1,700 cases that have been handled by police and legal experts.

    “Many victims face financial difficulty and their families were destroyed, but the government has not been able to provide adequate support and I take it seriously,” Kishida said. He also pledged to do more to support the alleged victims, including a possible revision to the consumer contract law to prevent future problems.

    The Unification Church, founded in South Korea in 1954 by Sun Myung Moon, obtained a religious organization status in Japan in 1968 amid anti-communist movement supported by Abe’s grandfather and former Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi.

    Since the 1980s, the church has faced accusations of devious business and recruitment tactics, including brainwashing members into turning over huge portions of their salaries to Moon.

    The group acknowledged there have been cases of “excessive” donations. It says issues have been mitigated since it adopted stricter compliance in 2009, and recently pledged further reforms.

    A government panel submitted a report earlier Monday that found many financial problems and lawsuits stemming from the church’s methods. The report called for an investigation while considering revoking the group’s legal status, though officials are seen as reluctant to go that far.

    Kishida told a parliamentary committee meeting Monday that he has instructed the Education and Culture Minister Keiko Nagaoka, primarily in charge of overseeing religious groups, to prepare for an investigation into the church under the Religious Corporations Act.

    The police investigation of Abe’s killing led to revelations of widespread ties between the South Korea-based church and the members of the governing Liberal Democratic Party, including Abe, over their shared interests in conservative causes. The case also shed a light on the suffering of adherents’ children, some of whom have come out and said they were forced to join the church and were left in poverty or neglected because of their parents’ devotion.

    Many critics consider the church to be a cult because of problems with followers and their families over their financial and mental hardships.

    An LDP survey in September found nearly half of its lawmakers had ties to the church, including Cabinet ministers. Kishida has pledged to cut all such ties, but many Japanese want a further explanation of how the church may have influenced party policies.

    Kishida has come under fire and his government’s support ratings have nosedived over his handling of the church controversy and for holding a state funeral for Abe, one of Japan’s most divisive leaders who is now seen as a key link to the governing party’s church ties.

    Nagaoka, the culture minister, said she will set up a panel of legal and religious experts next week to discuss a rare investigation into a religious group.

    Members of the National Network of Lawyers Against Spiritual Sales, who watch the church, submitted a request last week to the culture and justice ministries and the top prosecutor to issue a disbandment order to the church.

    A group of about 40 individuals and organizations, including anti-cult activists and so-called second-generation followers, started a petition drive seeking to revoke the church’s legal status as a religious organization. The petition has collected nearly 25,000 signatures within hours of the launch.

    The church has acknowledged that Yamagami’s mother donated more than 100 million yen ($700,000), including life insurance and real estate, to the group. It said it later returned about half at the request of the suspect’s uncle.

    Experts say Japanese followers are asked to pay for their ancestral sins committed during their colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula, and that 70% of the church’s funding comes from Japan.

    [ad_2]

    Source link