Religiously speaking I have a weird CV. I may be one of the few people who has taught a class at all three of the major religious plus universities: BYU, Catholic University of America, and Baylor University (although you could include Yeshiva University in this list, and while I’ve done research with a Yeshiva U professor I haven’t taught a class there). I’ve been at conferences when people have badmouthed Baptists only to see my Baylor affiliation, putting me in the strange position of feeling defensive and offended for a religion I don’t subscribe to, and I have done so much Catholic-related research that you would be forgiven for mistakenly thinking that I am in fact Catholic.
So I’ve had the opportunity to see the different ways that devoutly religious universities do the religion thing. (Of course there are other major religiously affiliated universities, but there’s a gradation for how intentionally they try to incorporate their religious mission into the curriculum and behavior of the faculty/students, and the four I mentioned seem to take that the most seriously of all the major research universities.)
So when I occasionally teach at Catholic U I try to be a good citizen and carve out some time for discussing a Catholic perspective on whatever we’re talking about, and I’ll occasionally assign materials from Catholic teachings (I still remember, at the end of a sexuality class my prepared final lecture on Humanae Vitae strangely veered into “soaking,” as evidently a lot of my students had been watching a little too much anti-Mormon Tick Tock and got really interested in my take on the subject).
One of the traditions that BYU sometimes has that others don’t is beginning class with a prayer, so again in the spirit of being a good citizen vis-a-vis their religious mission I have sometimes have classes that I routinely start with a prayer. I’ve done it now for three courses. A few points:
- Twice I’ve fielded an anonymous survey among the students asking whether starting class with a prayer would be something they’d be interested in, and in both cases I had significant majorities saying that they would be. Also, the response from other teachers has been positive. Of course I don’t know if they’ll start doing it, but I haven’t gotten any kind of pushback about it being weird. So in principle the “prayer at the beginning of class” thing could be an innovation that happens at religious, non-BYU universities.
- Theoretical enthusiasm notwithstanding, when I also did a survey about who would be willing to offer such a prayer the response was more tepid. In my experiences, generally there have been a handful courageous students, typically the more religious ones from what I could tell, who volunteer, and they cycle through prayer responsibilities, although I would occasionally volunteer myself and would give a traditional LDS-formula prayer (“Dear Heavenly Father…Name of Jesus Christ Amen) after getting confirmation that that worked for Catholics.
- Of course, one issue is when the students’ prayers don’t follow a formula I could say myself. I’m not going to follow along with a “Hail Mary,” although I’m comfortable repeating an “Our Father,” (and being slightly embarrassed when I can’t quite remember the words in the right sequence). In cases where I didn’t feel theologically comfortable participating I’d just sort of sit back a little bit and reverently fold my arms and omit the “amen” at the end. I don’t think most of the students noticed, and if they did it wasn’t obnoxious or awkward.
- So it is a little awkward the first few moments when you ask for volunteers and at the beginning of class and there’s sometimes silence, but overall I think it has enriched my class and has been a good experience for my students.
Comments
11 responses to “Prayer at the Beginning of Class: My Experience at a Non-LDS University”
This is interesting. Why are you doing this? What is your goal?
My experience at BYU 1977-1986: All religion classes began with prayer. I took a Philosophy class from Truman Madsen that began with prayer. And I audited a Spanish class that began with prayer (in Spanish), I think more for pedagogical purposes than devotional. No other class I took at BYU included a prayer.
At the Catholic University I now teach at, I am not aware of any faculty that have prayer in class, although a now-retired nun in our department did pray at the beginning of her classes. Faculty meetings begin with prayer.
As an aside, I will note that neither BYU nor my current institution post the Ten Commandments anywhere. Nor are the Ten Commandments posted in any LDS church that I am aware of.
E: A couple reasons:
1) As noted, being a good citizen-instructor at a religiously affiliated university.
2) I do feel like a prayer at the beginning of class helps sanctify the learning experience. One of the unique facets of a religious university is that it ties the learning endeavor into something higher than a higher salary or a Rubik’s cube-type interest in the subject, and starting with a prayer makes that connection explicit.
3) In general I think religion is good for people, a lot of students don’t actually practice a lot of religious behaviors, so starting with a prayer helps give them some experience with that that they might not be getting elsewhere. Completely inappropriate at a state school, sure, but completely appropriate at a religiously affiliated one.
@Left Field: Interesting. For me, I had a polisci class that started with a prayer, but otherwise it was religious classes. There was one other sociology teacher at CUA that would start with a prayer. So yes, even at BYU it’s sporadic. I’m not sure where the Ten Commandments fits in with the OP.
I thought starting each class with prayer worked well when I was teaching at BYU-Idaho. Before I got there, I worried it would prime the students for religious indoctrination, but that wasn’t the case: prayer is how we prepare ourselves to do something serious or important. It also made for a great first-day-of-101 language learning activity. Of course it was easier when I shared the same religious culture as the students. I’m impressed you made it work at Baylor and CUA.
@Jonathan: Just a quick correction, I didn’t think about doing it until after Baylor. The more established nature of Catholic prayers perhaps made it easier for me to make a decision about whether to participate (oh, this is XYZ, that’s okay/not okay), whereas it might be harder to make that decision on-the-fly for a Protestant prayer (e.g. do we say amen if it closes in “God’s name,” etc.)
Like Left Field, my BYU experience (1999-2006) was largely devoid of classroom prayers. Outside of religion classes, I’m not sure any class began with a prayer. Others seem to have had a nearly opposite experience. I don’t know whether this is due to differences in timing, memory, luck, or courses. Perhaps the sociology department prays a lot more than the physics department?
When I taught at Notre Dame (law school), most teachers didn’t begin classes with prayer, but several did. (Including one professor of tax– not exactly a devotional subject.) At one point a couple of faculty objected, saying that starting class with prayer was intolerant and exclusionary, but there was a pretty strong reaction asserting that it was the objectors who were being intolerant. As a religious outsider, I wouldn’t have wanted to start my classes with prayer; but I did think the episode was a nice and amusing illustration of the point that there is no neutral baseline, and that secularism is definitely not such a neutral baseline.
I graduated BYU recently enough that I could count the years since on one hand, and in my experience religion classes started with a prayer each time and a couple history classes did. However almost all of my classes started the semester with prayer – it would be part of the “liturgical reading of the syllabus” as one of my professors referred to it.
Long ago I remember it coming up that a friend was taking a calculus class from Harvey Junior Fletcher in a BYU classroom where hymnals from Sunday meetings happened to be kept. So Prof. Fletcher used his opportunity and started those classes with a hymn and an prayer. (I am having a hard time remembering if we prayed in the math classes I took from Prof. Fletcher, but I think we may have.)
The distinction between joining in the prayer or standing by respectfully and the ability of each to freely choose which he is doing is significant. When my children’s friends have been in my home and it is time for the family to pray together, I have told them what we are about to do and said they are welcome to join us if they like or hang on a couple minutes while we pray. The first president of Johns Hopkins University, Daniel Coit Gilman, had previously been president of UC Berkeley. Johns Hopkins was not a religious school, but Gilman decided it was his proper duty as a university president of a non-state school to conduct a weekly devotional. The announcement for this said something like: “The presence or absence of anyone will not be noted.”
Posting of the Ten Commandments is not particularly pertinent to the OP. That’s why it was an “aside.” But it came to mind as another thing that the culture warriors want to force into public schools. My state just passed a requirement that the Commandments be posted in every classroom. But classroom prayer isn’t universal even in strongly religious schools like BYU. And in my experience, the Ten Commandments aren’t typically posted even in churches. Sorry for the tangent.
Hope you pray on Friday during the football season, particularly at Baylor. My Bears need help from wherever they can get it!