Is Your Public School Meeting Your Children’s Natural Spiritual Hunger With False Worship?   

The Christian Law Association received a call this week which should be of special interest to all parents and pastors who have children or church children in public schools, particularly in Spanish language classes or in the fourth grade.  This call to CLA concerned a public school celebration of a Mexican-American feast day called the “Day of the Dead.”  The mother who called our office indicated that parents in her public school are concerned that exposing fourth grade children to this type of ritualistic ancestor worship not only promotes a particular religious experience, but it also completely ignores any emotional problems children might experience due to the recent death of a loved one in their own family or to a general discomfort with death.  

Although some previous court cases have ruled that the Day of the Dead (in Spanish, El Dia de Los Muertos) is a cultural and not a religious experience, many parents and school officials are concerned about subjecting impressionable children to this sort of ritualism in school, regardless of what it is called.  Normally, the Day of the Dead is celebrated between late October and early November.  The date generally coincides with another religious  holiday  called "All Saints' Day," or “All Souls Day.”  In fact, the pagan or Wiccan religious holiday of Halloween is celebrated on the “eve” of “All Saints (Hallowed) Day.”  Many schools highlight the Day of the Dead festival for an entire week, even though the month-long fun-filled Christmas cultural activities that many of us and our own parents enjoyed in previous decades in public schools are now often banned as “religious.”

Historical Reference

The ancient Aztec ritual of “El Dia de los Muertos” is celebrated primarily in Mexico and in Mexican communities throughout the United States.  This celebration is said to date back 3000 years to ancient Indian cultures.  When Spanish conquistadors reached Central America 500 years ago, Catholic practices were interwoven with the pagan Aztec rituals.  While the celebration is certainly not illegal and it is celebrated by many Latinos in America, many parents do not want their children exposed to this sort of religio-cultural activity in public schools. Many schools promote Day of the Dead celebrations as a means of learning Mexican culture in Spanish language classes.  A favorite grade for promoting this activity is the fourth grade. 

In its genuine practice, the Day of the Dead typically involves honoring the dead by donning masks and dancing on their graves or building altars in their honor. The altars are surrounded with flowers, food and pictures of the deceased.  Celebrants light candles and place them next to the altar.  Dancing “mariachi style” skeletons are often featured.  Children also eat sugar skulls to symbolize death.  The Aztecs and some other Meso-American civilizations believed the deceased came back to visit them during these rituals as “honored guests." 

Celebrations of the Day of the Dead can include references to "altars” (in Spanish, “ofrendos") "ritual,""cycle of life," experiences “dead animals," invitations welcoming "death," and other clearly spiritual and religious themes.  In order to mask the religious nature of Day of the Dead activities, some schools will not talk about “altars” but will substitute another phrase, such as “remembrance tables.”  These Latino rituals, even if considered “cultural” rather than religious, can encourage altar worship, animism, paganism, religious anthropomorphism, offerings, human and animal necromancy, and could trigger emotional trauma in some children.

As part of these religio-cultural celebrations, children are often shown films highlighting death.  They might be asked to bring a picture to school of someone in their family who has died or of a deceased pet.  Children might be encouraged to focus on these dead relatives or pets, including imagining what their loved ones might have looked like when they were younger or talking about their favorite foods.  In short, the Day of Dead encourages children to focus on death and to honor those who have died, even if school officials often argue that engaging in this activity falls short of ancestor worship, which was its purpose in the early cultures that actually celebrated the holiday.  El Dia de Los Muertos honors death (muertos) by emphasizing it as an important part of the cycle of life---but without providing the hope of an afterlife through faith in Jesus Christ, which Biblical Christianity emphasizes.

 Protect Your Children

Christians understand that all people have an inborn spiritual hunger.  If that hunger is not satisfied by coming to know the True God and His Son Jesus Christ, humanity will attempt to find substitutes---whether these substitutes are called spiritual or cultural experiences.  Our public schools have removed all references to God, and often to Christmas, and some are now seeking to replace these traditional events with religio-cultureal experiences such as El Dia de Los Muertos.

Parents and church leaders can check to see if this ritual will be celebrated in their own local public schools.  Since the activity is obviously religious as well as cultural, the local school officials or the school board should ban its celebration.  If school officials cannot be persuaded to protect the children entrusted to their care from this sort of controversial activity, parents can exercise their individual "opt out" right to remove their own children from any classes where the holiday will be celebrated.  If classrooms celebrating Day of the Dead rituals are empty, schools will quickly catch on.

Children can be opted out of public school activities that violate their religious faith by sending a note to the teacher.  For purposes of opting out children from Day of the Dead activities, the note can simply state, “Because of our family’s religious beliefs, we are requesting a religious accommodation and will opt out [our child] from participation in any Day of the Dead activities.”  The child should then be excused from class while the objectionable activity is ongoing.