FFRF Tells TN School to Stop Playing from Handle’s Messiah

The Freedom From Religion Foundation’s (FFRF) local chapter is angry after a teacher at Linden Elementary School (Oak Ridge, Tennessee) played a portion of the “Hallelujah Chorus” during morning announcements.

“While this music may be beautiful and even inspirational for Christians, it is not acceptable for broadcasting to the entire student body at Linden Elementary,” wrote Aleta Ledendecker on behalf of FFRF to the school district according to the Oak Ridger.

The aggrieved atheist group (FFRF) said they were acting on behalf of two parents who had children enrolled in the school.  “In consideration of all the possible choices of music, this piece with its distinctly religious content can be interpreted as proselytizing,” Ledendecker wrote.

For the record: There have not been any reports of children spontaneously converting to the Christian faith as a result of George Handel’s beautiful song.

“This is the litmus test I use: if I were a Christian parent walking in the school, and I heard over the PA system during morning announcements music with the words ‘Praise Allah. Allah is king on high.  Bow down to Allah,’ how would I feel as a Christian parent with that being broadcast to all the children in the schools,” Ledendecker told the Oak Ridger.

The school district told the Todd Starnes Show that a teacher had a good reason for playing a 20 second excerpt from Handel’s Messiah.  “The passage was selected to correspond with the school’s overall music curriculum that, for that particular week, featured the musical works of George Handel,” the school spokesperson told Starnes.  “The school system strongly disagreed with her [Ledendecker] position and, through our school board’s attorney, we responded promptly to the writer suggesting that she was in error,” the spokesperson told Starnes.  “The criticisms articulated by Ledendecker appear to have been based upon insufficient information taken entirely out of context, incorrect assumptions about the school’s music curriculum and a fundamental misunderstanding of the First Amendment’s relationship with historically sacred classical music compositions being taught in a public school music curriculum,” the spokesperson added.

It’s about time a school district stands up to these godless bullies and politely tells them to blow their horn elsewhere.  If Handel could speak, he would say, “Hallelujah!”

Rev. Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.

Chaplain (Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army

Pastor, Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel