The Day God Took Over

By David Van Biema/Carriere

Jesus was nervous. The recruitment assembly for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes chapter at Pearl River Central High School in Carriere, Miss., was scheduled for April 12, a mere week before the first anniversary of the Columbine tragedy. Like students all over the country this year, Brandon Smith, 16, had been drilled on how to survive school violence. And now Smith, cast as the Savior in one of the fellowship's skits, joked a bit tensely to his best friend and girlfriend, "You all, I'm Jesus in this skit; so if anybody gets shot, it'll probably be me."

Instead of opening fire, however, the hundreds of Pearl River students watching Smith's mock crucifixion wept. They hugged one another, sang and testified to God's greatness and admitted their troubles. When the morning assembly, scheduled for 90 min., finally ended--five hours later--they knew a kind of fatigued ecstasy. They were not aware that they had presented conservative Christians and civil libertarians with a new object of debate: a full-blown, sweat-soaked religious revival in a public school.

The year since Columbine has been one of ferment among youthful Evangelicals. Shaken yet inspired by what they see as the martyrdom of Christian students--and encouraged by a decade-old Supreme Court decision affirming student-led, after-school Christian clubs--they have shown a new assertiveness. The movement's political arm, meanwhile, insists that reinstatement of adult-led class prayer is the best way to prevent new carnage.

These currents found focus in a county best known for its plump blueberries rather than controversy; one where school principal Lolita Lee made it clear that attendance at the Christian athletes' assembly was voluntary. But Smith, playing Jesus, realized the program was taking an unexpected turn when he made a choreographed stumble on the way to his cross and saw students weeping. "We had no special effects," he says. "It was me and an ugly brown robe. I thought, 'This is God.'"

Within half an hour, Smith's schoolmates were lining up 50 deep for a microphone with which to praise God and confess sins ranging from attempted suicide to premarital sex to simple bad manners. Lee, rising to explain why her administration legally could not participate, found herself professing her own Christianity. "One atheist [Madeline Murray O'Hair] took prayer out of the schools," Lee said, but she prayed it would return. "When she said that," notes Judy Mitchell, one of the Christian athletes' faculty advisers, "it broke the ice. Everyone said, 'I can do that, 'cause I'm not going to get in trouble.'" At least 450 of Pearl River's 670 students remained, lunchless, in the sweltering gym.

Soon, word spread from local churches to Christian radio and the Internet, where decisiontoday.org a website operated by the Billy Graham Evangelical Association, described "a full-fledged revival." The school received hundreds of congratulatory e-mails. "Thank you for your courage," wrote an Ohio man to Lee. "You have done the equivalent of not moving to the back of the bus."

Civil libertarians, however, said Lee violated the law: by publicizing the assembly, allowing it during school hours and participating in it. Respect for a spontaneous outpouring of students' religious expression, editorialized the New Orleans Times-Picayune, "doesn't translate into allowing them to take over the rest of the day. And it certainly doesn't mean joining in--an action that seems a lot more like advocating religion than simply allowing students to freely express their beliefs." Says Charles Haynes of the Freedom Forum First Amendment Center: "There is a huge move toward more religious expression among students during the school day. Schools will have to make policies so that people understand the boundaries."

Lee responds that many of the confessions and apologies that day were from student to student, without mention of Christ. "That's why I didn't stop them," she says. "It was something that they seemed like they needed to tell each other. It wasn't church. It was just kids." And almost everyone agrees that since April 12, students at Pearl River have been more thoughtful, polite and considerate of one another.

It will be September before anyone knows whether that will last. As 28 yellow school buses departed the school's parking lot on Thursday, the last day of the school year, their passengers acted like any other freed prisoners. They screamed, hung out the bus windows and tossed the odd paper ball at a contingent of teachers waving them off. The summer beckoned. Greg Mecomber, 16, a member of the Christian athletes, anticipated spending the next few months camping, studying and helping his uncle vaccinate cattle. But he prayed that the feeling from April would grow, that "something bigger is on its way eventually."

--With reporting by Lisa McLaughlin/New York

With reporting by Lisa Mclaughlin/New York