Prayers paying off for school: Christian campus going strong

DATE                  2/19/90
NEWSPAPER             THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
SECTION               NEWS
EDITION               EVENING
PAGE                  a01
STORY LENGTH          46 INCHES
HEADLINE              Prayers paying off for school: Christian campus going 
                         strong
BYLINE/CREDIT         Dan Froomkin:The Register
SUBJECT TERMS         SCHOOLS:RELIGION:YOUTH:LIFESTYLES
  KEYWORD-HIT

          Every day, seven times a day, teachers at Calvary Chapel High
  School start their classes by talking to God.
    Their voices get soft and breathy, the students bow their heads.
    On the first day of the winter term in economics class, teacher Steve
  Sherman's prayer started with this:
    "Lord, we look forward to what you have for us this day and this
  whole semester. ... We pray that during this whole semester, that each
  student will do their work as unto you."
    After the prayer, Sherman handed out an economics textbook and a
  course description that wouldn't raise eyebrows in public schools. But
  then he noted that the semester will include an extensive discussion
  about borrowing.
    "The scriptures speak clearly as to cash being the way to purchase
  goods -- not to borrow," Sherman said.
    Calvary Chapel High is one of dozens of evangelical Christian schools
  in Orange County, part of a movement that observers say is growing
  steadily larger.
    Numbers are hard to come by, but the La Habra-based Association of
  Christian Schools International reports that there are more than 80
  evangelical schools in Orange County, with at least 10,000 students in
  grades kindergarten through 12.
    Nationwide, the group estimates there are 18,000 such schools with a
  total of 2.5 million students.
    Some parents who send their children to evangelical schools are
  deeply committed to the idea of a fundamentalist Christian education.
  Others do it more out of a loss of confidence in the public schools,
  citing "relativistic" moral teaching, lax discipline, low standards and
  general chaos.
    Certainly the education students get at Calvary Chapel High is a far
  cry from that in public schools.
    Biblical perspectives are woven into virtually every class: from
  biology, where the biblical story of creation is taught as undeniable
  fact, to senior English, where students compose sermons as well as term
  papers.
    Underlying all that is a curious mixture of fundamentalist
  Christianity and Southern California culture, to the point where
  students often speak about God in the language of surfing.
    On a recent morning, for instance, when senior and student-body
  president John Hwang lead the daily devotion, his prayer started with
  this: "Father, God, you are so awesome."


    For its 250 students, Calvary Chapel High is more than a high school;
  it's a fundamentalist boot camp. A dedicated, born-again faculty
  enforces tough disciplinary rules -- shoot a rubber band and you have
  to answer to the pastor; cut two classes and you're suspended.
    Throughout their schooling, the students are taught not only to
  believe in fundamentalist Christian doctrine, they are taught how to
  defend it to others. They are taught that people they might once have
  considered friends are leading sinful lives, and that they must go out
  into secular society to evangelize.
    Students here look, and for the most part act, like typical Southern
  California high school students. They dress casually, often in blue
  jeans and sneakers or surf clothes -- sometimes even in black leather
  jackets.
    The two-story school is in a stucco building with a red-tile roof.
  The classrooms -- containing rows of desks, chalkboards and
  inspirational posters -- open onto outdoor hallways. The
  building opens onto a grassy courtyard.
    Gathering in that courtyard at lunchtime, students horse around and
  talk about sports and surfing.
    But the intensely Christian atmosphere in which they go to school
  seems to affect them deeply.
    Those who are "walking with the Lord" -- one of the ways
  fundamentalist Christians describe their faith -- often are observably
  and deeply pious. In chapel, they shut their eyes and raise their palms
  skyward. In class, they volunteer to lead the daily devotions,
  describing how the Holy Spirit has changed their lives.
    And in a world where many high-school students are consumed with
  doubt, it is striking how Calvary students sound so sure about so many
  things.
    "I know why we're down on Earth," said Christa Echan, a senior. "It's
  to learn more about God." And there may not be much more time to do
  that, she said, because the Second Coming "could be any day."
    Senior Christy Travis, who lives in Santa Ana, said she wants to work
  with children after she graduates from high school, but like many of
  her classmates she's waiting for a sign of the Lord's will. "It'll be
  so evident," she said. "I don't doubt that one bit."
    Junior Julie Punt, a 15-year-old junior with frizzy blond hair
  surrounding her face like a halo, said many Calvary students have
  reason to be confident -- especially when compared with non-Christians.
    "We know that we're going to heaven and they're not," she said with a
  smile. "They're going to hell. So we can be happy."
    In their enthusiasm, many students have translated Christian doctrine
  into youthful Southern California slang. Senior and surf-team member
  Brad Frohling, his blond hair turned platinum from the sun, punctuates
  his every homage to God with the language of the beaches.
    "Check this out," Frohling said one lunchtime, reaching into his
  knapsack to pull out his Bible. "This is pretty gnarly."
    When he leads the daily devotion, he calls his fellow students'
  attention to "really hot" Psalms, and he urges them to join him in
  being refreshed by the Holy Spirit. "God," Frohling said, "wants to get
  so radical with us."
    On the other hand, Calvary Chapel High also is home to the inevitable
  conflicts between a teen-ager's typical yearnings and what is perceived
  as God's will.
    Brian Hellesen, a 15-year-old sophomore, has attended Christian
  schools since first grade.
    "I believe what I'm taught," Hellesen said. But he's struggling with
  one of the teachings: that he should be praying for the Second Coming.
    "I told God to wait 'till I can drive," Hellesen said.
    And though it is virtually unheard of for students at Calvary to
  openly dispute biblical teachings, many students don't share the fervor
  of their most outspoken classmates.
    The school's pastor, Richard Cimino, estimates that more than half
  the students "have yet to have Jesus Christ impact their lives."
    Cimino sees that as a challenge -- as internal missionary work for a
  school that strives to produce more missionaries.
    But some students see casual Christianity as a contradiction -- an
  oxymoron -- and are strongly judgmental about their peers.
    "Everybody here is going to say they are a Christian," said Christy
  Travis. "But I think a lot of kids are lost. ... There's a lot of
  people here who aren't going to go to heaven."

    The weight of fundamentalist doctrine is felt in practically every
  class, but perhaps most strongly in biology.
    Surrounded by the trappings of a traditional science lab -- high
  desks with sinks -- teacher Michael Williams spends two weeks teaching
  the biblical story of the Creation as fact. About 10,000 years ago, God
  created the world in seven days, Williams says -- and to believe any
  other way is to contradict the most basic premise of the Bible.
    Williams describes the theory of evolution, but tells students that
  there is no evidence to back it up. Fossil evidence is dismissed as
  flimsy, carbon-dating techniques are passed off as speculative, and the
  idea that species change over time is considered obvious fiction.
    As a general rule, Williams warns his students to trust scientists
  only as long as what they say does not contradict the Bible.
    The school's "Biology for Christian Schools" textbook carries this
  introduction: "Those who do not believe that the Bible is the inspired,
  inerrant Word of God will find many parts in this book puzzling."
    In some cases, teachers weave biblical perspectives into their
  classes in a casual way. English teacher Gladys Alex interrupted the
  discussion of a poem by the late Langston Hughes one morning for a
  brief lecture on how existentialism is anti-Christian.
    More often, it's planned. Social studies teacher Sherman puts great
  emphasis on religious revival movements in his American history class,
  for instance. And overall, Sherman said, "We see God in history when a
  secular humanist doesn't -- and doesn't want to."
    Math teacher Steve Middleton does it the least of all, by virtue of
  his subject. But Middleton also is the basketball coach, and when his
  players start to complain, he tells them that "Christ wasn't a
  quitter."
    In Bible class, a popular optional class, the winter term's session
  is called "Apologetics and Evangelism." Teacher Dana DeVore's goals for
  the semester are to strengthen the students' beliefs as well as to give
  them information they can use to defend -- and share -- their faith.

    Founded three years ago with 15 students, Calvary Chapel High School
  moved into a spacious, modern building earlier this school year. The
  school officially is a ministry of the church next door, called Calvary
  Chapel of Costa Mesa even though it and the school are on Fairview
  Road, half a block north of the Santa Ana-Costa Mesa border.
    With 250 students enrolled this year in grades 9 through 12 -- and
  considerably more expected next year -- the school now is one of Orange
  County's largest evangelical Christian high schools.
    It draws students mostly from Santa Ana, Costa Mesa, Garden Grove,
  Westminster, Newport Beach and Fountain Valley.
    There are scholarships, but most families pay the full $2,000-a-year
  tuition. Students do not have to be members of Calvary Church.
    The high school will graduate 23 seniors this year, its second
  graduating class. Principal Jeff Roberts said he expects about half the
  seniors will continue their studies, some in secular four-year
  colleges, but most either at Christian colleges or two-year colleges.
    In an era in which some outspoken fundamentalist Christians are
  trying to inject Christian, or in their words "traditional," values
  into public-school classrooms, more parents in Orange County are
  choosing to pull their children out of the public schools entirely.
    The Orange County Department of Education reports that the number of
  children in the county's private schools has increased from 33,000 to
  43,000 in the past 10 years, while public-school enrollment has dropped
  from about 370,000 to 360,000.
    Orange County Superintendent of Schools Robert Peterson said he
  believes the fastest growth has been among evangelical Christian
  schools.
    Nationwide, the Christian day-school movement took off after the 1962
  and 1963 Supreme Court decisions banning mandatory school prayer and
  Bible reading in public schools. It's been growing ever since.
    Principal Roberts said he thinks the main reason his school and
  others like it are thriving is that parents are getting increasingly
  disenchanted with public schools.
    Diane Collins of Garden Grove said she sends her daughter Caren to
  Calvary High "mostly because of the presence of the Lord," but also
  because she felt Caren's teachers in public school were only
  "babysitting," and didn't really care about the students.
    Many students say they are relieved that they're not being sent to
  public schools.
    In some cases, there are religious reasons. Punt, for instance, was
  glad to leave Fountain Valley High School after her freshman year. "I
  was falling away from God because of all the non-Christians that are
  there," she said.
    In other cases, there is fear. "I live in Santa Ana," said Starre
  McMahon, a 15-year-old freshman. "And it'd be kind of dangerous for a
  white kid going to public school."
    A handful of students even pay their own way because their parents
  aren't willing to spend the money.
    Brad Drude pays to attend because going to Calvary was his idea. His
  mother Judy, a public-school teacher, said she has nothing against
  Calvary. "It's certainly not going to hurt him," she said.
    But she believes that her son's interest in evangelical Christianity
  may be a phase. Among his surfing friends in Newport Beach, "this is
  the thing this year," she said.
    But her son said that after becoming a born-again Christian his
  freshman year at Los Amigos High School in Garden Grove, he quickly got
  disgusted with public school -- particularly, he said, with the
  "atheist teachers" who took the Lord's name in vain. "It got to be
  really bogus."
    And what brought him to Calvary was not a fad, he said.
    Like many of his fellow students, Brad said it was something else
  entirely. "It was the Lord's will."