One of the most divisive issues in today’s world may be religious freedom. Many past and current international conflicts are rooted in religious intolerance. Such conflicts often start within the family, as they did in mine. Surrounded by a family that included a Catholic mother, Jewish father, Russian Orthodox grandmother, and an atheist grandfather, I was constantly torn between these religious orientations. When I look back, I see similarities between my own experience and that of others. I realize how easily a religious controversy that starts within a family can escalate into a major national conflict.
I believe that the only way to avoid conflict is to educate all sides. Introduce them to each other, initiate a dialogue that exposes the sides to the others, and help them to find common ground. This is the message of School Prayer: A Community at War, the documentary that I produced with Ben Crane.
The film portrays Lisa Herdahl, a Mississippi mother of six, who sues the public school district in Pontotoc County to remove prayer and religious instruction from the schools. Herdahl believes that the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, as interpreted by the Supreme Court in 1962 and 1963, protects her children from nonvoluntary participation in the prayers of others. Raised a Christian, Herdahl, a newcomer in Mississippi, believes that the proper places for prayer are the home and the church. In her view this is the American way, and it protects her and her children from the religious impositions of others.
Herdahl initially protests to the school board, which dismisses her complaint, citing a long tradition of prayer in Pontotoc schools. During her struggle Herdahl attracts high-profile support from national civil liberties organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and People for the American Way (PAW). Her strongest ally is a local ACLU civil rights attorney, Danny Lampley, who is the only lawyer in Mississippi willing to take her case.
Her opponents, the school prayer activists of Pontotoc County—many of whom are students—believe the First Amendment protects them from government interference in the practice of their faith. They say they are defending a way of life and the values of a Christian America. Three key members of Herdahl’s opposition are the Reverend Doug Jones, a local pastor, who acts as the community’s spokesman; Lisa Gooch, who started intercom-led prayers in 1978; and Pat Mounce, founder of the Citizens for School Prayer Committee.
Says Jones, “The agenda of the ACLU and the People for the American Way . . . is a god-free school, a god-free court, a god-free country. I believe that their philosophy is so far from what this country was founded upon that it would stagger the imagination of the average American if they really knew and understood the real philosophy behind the ACLU and . . . PAW.”
Ribbons and yard signs in support of school prayer still adorn many homes. The Herdahl family has been ostracized and harassed. Herdahl, who is often threatened and forced to change homes, refuses to move away from Pontotoc—even though she finds herself virtually unemployable in the area. Her children are proud of her, but her eldest son, Kevin, has been especially hurt by the controversy. Although it has shattered the harmony and tranquillity of many lives, the case extends far beyond the boundaries of the courtroom.
“It shouldn’t be that Lisa Herdahl’s family only has the right to be free of state-sponsored . . . prayer in Wisconsin,” says Elliot Minceberg from People for the American Way and one of the lawyers representing Herdahl. “They also have that right if they move to Mississippi. . . . They didn’t leave their constitutional rights in Wisconsin. They bring them with them wherever they go.”
Ultimately, Herdahl and Lampley win their case against the Pontotoc school board. But the conflict it engenders among neighbors remains. Religious practices have been part of the Pontotoc school day for many years, and community members have responded passionately as their religious traditions are challenged.
School Prayer: A Community at War reflects the ethical thicket created by the clash in Pontotoc County, which is torn between the law of humanity as set down by the Supreme Court and the law of God as they understand it from the Bible. According to Ben Crane, co-producer of the documentary, “[Lisa’s story] might turn out to be a good microcosm of the larger, divisive imbalance in the United States. It was a way of putting a human face on [a] serious social issue.”
At the ACLU conference in Santa Fe last year Nadine Strossen, president of the ACLU, awarded Herdahl with the ACLU’s highest award—the medal of liberty. In her speech Strossen agreed with Crane’s observations. “For half a century God and Jesus Christ were in the classrooms of Pontotoc County, Mississippi. Schools offered courses in biblical history, and school children prayed at the start of each day for the past 20 years over the intercom. Then Lisa Herdahl moved south,” she said. “Because of a lawsuit Herdahl filed, she has received bomb threats and death threats. After ceaseless harassing phone calls Lisa’s family was forced to move to an undisclosed location, and she still fears for her children’s safety. The Herdahl family’s plight and struggle put a human face on the importance of protecting religious liberty.”
“My children have learned. . . what being a minority means,” said Herdahl in her acceptance speech. “I think that’s one of the greatest lessons anybody can [learn]. . . . In our community a minority is anybody who thinks differently or [who] voices their opinion. . . . So not only have they learned to walk in the shoes of the minority, but they have also learned that no matter how hard it is, standing up and saying no is absolutely OK to do, even when nobody else agrees with you . . . [or] stands up with you.”
The school prayer battle, as captured by the film, is an intense ideological and legal struggle over the meaning of religious liberty in America. The debate over the role and jurisdiction of church and state is a fundamental element of American society. The film takes us away from the national spotlight and down to earth: the lawyer living in his office, the White church fighting external forces, the Black church being used politically, the mother receiving death threats. School Prayer: A Community at War shows that the issues driving this conflict have far deeper roots than the habits of one small town school system. School Prayer: A Community at War demonstrates how insularity, insecurity, and injustice can be fed by growing contact with the wider world.
The process of filming was an educational journey for me. My philosophy for making films is to submerge myself into the lives of my subjects—to develop a relationship with them based on trust and understanding. The camera is a vehicle which allows me access to life experiences which I normally would not have. It opens people up and grants me a unique intimacy with my subjects. My goal for making films is to share with the viewer this intimacy with my subjects and to take the viewer somewhere he or she has never been before. It is my way of making the world a better place.
Slawomir Grunberg, a Polish immigrant, co-produced and directed School Prayer: A Community at War.
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School Prayer: A Community at War was aired nationally in July of 1999 as part of the PBS series P.O.V. It brought an unusually high volume of letters, e-mails, and phone calls. Visit http://www.pbs.org/pov/ and http://www.itvs.org/schoolprayer/story.html or the film’s own Web site, http://www.schoolprayer.com/film/audience.html to read comments and excerpts from chat rooms, e-mails, and letters that came after the broadcast of the film. Responses continued throughout the whole year and picked up again in June 2000 as a result of the Supreme Court decision on the ban of school prayer before sports events.
The film’s broadcast also brought a lot of media attention, including from the New York Times, the Washington Post, and New York Magazine. The articles and reviews uniformly praised the film for its objectivity, fairness to the subject matter, and artistic approach.
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