Prayer focus in schools

[annandale]

I seem to be starting a lot of potentially goody threads at the moment but I am trying very hard not to be goady, while being aware that this issue makes me truculent.

I am FB friends with a woman who is part of a Hillsong church. She works as part of a team aiming to open prayer spaces in schools. She frequently posts things about being thankful to open new prayer spaces in schools. As far as I'm aware this hasn't happened at ds'so school and I don't want it to. I'd imagine the focus would be on primary schools though.

My hackles rise at any attempt to get an increased religious practice into British schools. But am I just prejudiced? Has this happened at a school you know, has it been positive?

Not sure what you mean- I know several Christian secularists.........

I'm talking specifically about the organisation rather then the concept. I found the distinction between it and the evangelical wing of Humanism seemed to fade away and it became less about separating religion and state (which I support) and more about stopping religion altogether and using bad data to support arguments (neither of which I support - people should be free to follow their own philosophy as long as I'm not required to do likewise). In effect it became evangelical. This was about ten years ago - it may be different again now, I've not been back.

I find sneery comments about sky pixies unhelpful - not just because they are rude but because they close down discussion in exactly the way that evangelicals try to.

However if 'prayer space' is part of an evangelical campaign my points about the concept of a 'space' are not relevant on the thread.

Atheist humanism - to distinguish it from Christian humanism.

"I do not have a problem with something like Mindfulness being taught in schools"

Interestingly, some Christians do!

I run prayer spaces in schools.

It's a space where we say "these are some of the ways Christians pray". We then have four stations which children try for about 3-5 minutes.
It's along the lines of showing lots of words like amazing, wonderful, brilliant etc and encouraging children to see that they are those things and then thinking about how their friends are too. We usually say that Christians believe God sees them that way too.
Quite often children in yr3 upwards say that they aren't great/brilliant etc and that they aren't good enough so we talk to them about that and encourage them to talk to adults around them about how they're feeling.

I'm involved in roughly one prayer space like this each month and have never seen it run any more evangelical than I've just explained it to be.

"I'm involved in roughly one prayer space like this each month and have never seen it run any more evangelical than I've just explained it to be."
Well, that seems pretty evangelical to me. What is your purpose in running prayer spaces? What would you consider a good outcome?

Agree with Bertrand .
Why do some Christians object to mindfulness?

My understanding is that some Christians believe than any non Christian spiritual practice leaves a door open for the devil. It is only some Christians though.

A quiet room - open to children of any faith or none - would be a good idea instead of compulsory worship, IMO.

Why do some Christians object to mindfulness? My opinion on this is, if you practise the likes of Mindfulness and discover what is within, religion would become obsolete.

Secular simply means non-sacred. It can even be used in religious contexts to refer to lay people.

Another hi-jacked term.

OK, ffion. You are obviously too closed minded for a sensible discussion. Fair enough. Shame, though.

Pot, kettle, black?

Incidentally, it's not been hijacked. It just, like many words, has different meanings in different applications.

"Pot, kettle, black?"

No. I am happy to listen and address any points you care to make. The same does not seem to apply to you.

Caulk your procedure sounds all good until "and we tell them Christians believe God sees them that way too" - it's pretty blatant.

Look for kids with low self esteem and offer them the promise of someone who'll think they're special ...

Why not leave that part out?

The answer, of course, is that the self esteem building is only done to lead into the evangelism.

I have recently decided that we need more religion in schools. I didn’t work out for twenty years because of PE, I didn’t eat pudding because of school meals and I’m a staunch atheist partly because of RE.

More religion in schools means less religion in society as far as I can tell. Separation of church and state seems to have led to vast swathes of religious intolerance in the US. So as an atheist I think we should campaign for very boring, alienating religious education in schools.

I think mindfulness is fine and this can be practiced within Christianity as far as I'm concerned

I remember a "moving on" -assembly in year 6 at my dd's school. Lovely young people, lots af laughs, helpful games, sensitive handling of issues- and a booklet about how there was no need to worry about making friends at Secondary school because Jesus was always your friend.

Spiritual development is a duty for schools to provide.

Is there anything nowadays that people think schools don't have a duty to provide? 😱 Why not make it the duty of healthcare hubs or community services? Why is it always schools that have to find the time (and space)? No wonder teachers are overworked.

Love to see what would happen if a Muslim group tried it.

Er - it is accepted and still open to all. Most prayer rooms in my City are multi-faith, and most mainstream faiths in my City work very closely with each other. This goes for prayer rooms in hospitals and hospices too. Plus places like exhibition centre and big building sites and the station and the main shopping centre. The chaplains work alongside one another, being there for when people want to access them.

Most of the prayer rooms I've come across in hospitals and businesses are multi faith. In my local hospital there is a push on providing space for people of no faith and making it really clear that the space is for everyone who needs a bit of quiet.

Mindfulness is an interesting phenomena. It comes from Easter religious practice but with the religion stripped out. It looks and feels a lot like contemplative Christian prayer. As such I've been offering a mixture of the two for about a year now which some people find very helpful and others find confusing but it is fascinating how easy it is to put the religion back in. Within the Christian tradition we have a notion of something called the dark night of the soul which is something that practitioners of contemplative prayer are aware of and those who accompany them are trained to look out for. How that works in secular mindfulness I'm not sure.

My comment about Muslims was in response to this"AFAIK, Bertrand, there is nothing stopping atheist groups getting together and offering uplifting assemblies/quiet spaces." -and wondering how people would respond to Muslims offering uplifting assemblies in state schools.

I am aware that prayer rooms are usually multi faith. But the name suggests that a faith of some sort is a requirement.

Personally speaking I would be fine with a Muslim offering an uplifting assembly. I assume that any Muslim organisation would have to follow the same guidelines that cover Christian organisations which offer assemblies. Whether such a thing is likely to happen in the current climate of suspicion of Islam is another matter altogether.

thegreenheart Easter or Eastern? Most sources cited Buddhism (not strictly a religion in that it doesn't involve a god) as the root of mindfulness theory and practice, not Christianity.

Yes Eastern. Autocorrect.