Mosque in Hiding
John C. "Chuck" Chalberg on Making Room for Prayer Rugs on a Secular Campus
It was somehow fitting that my suburban community college was embroiled in a religious controversy at the height of our annual “winter festival” season. Thanksgiving, of course, survives as Thanksgiving on our campus, even though too many among us have no deity to thank or neglect to thank the one we barely remember. Christmas, to be fair, survives as well, but it has not survived in the official parlance of a state school.
As a result, from sometime in early December until students finish their final exams (in time to celebrate, dare it be said, Christmas), our campus is home to an essentially secular winter festival, if one celebrated with pagan rites.
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John C. Chalberg writes from Minnesota.
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