Possession of Christian Material
How a High School Suspension Turned Me Into a Poster Boy for the Religious Right
In the fall of 1989, I was a senior at Henderson High School in Atlanta, Georgia. My brother, my good friend Scott, and I were officers in our school’s Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA) chapter — a loose-knit group of about fifty students who gathered before school for prayer, singing, and breakfast at a local restaurant.
It wasn’t much of a movement. We just wanted a place to share faith and friendship before the day began. Because of restrictions on religious clubs meeting on public school property, we usually met off-campus. It never struck me as strange at the time. That was simply how it worked — you prayed before first period, then you went to algebra.
But that fall, a small act of communication turned into a national cause.
What Actually Happened
One morning between classes, Scott and my brother passed a note to another student with the address of our next FCA meeting. It wasn’t subversive — just logistics: “Breakfast at 7:00 at the IHOP on Lavista.”
An assistant principal, not known for warmth, caught us. His reputation among students was equal parts disciplinarian and tyrant. He demanded the note, read it, and marched them to the office.
Within the hour, my brother, Scott, and I were suspended. The reason typed onto the disciplinary form had a checked box for “Other,” with a handwritten explanation beside it: possession of Christian material.
Even then, it sounded absurd. We hadn’t been passing drugs or test answers — just directions to a prayer breakfast. Still, we were sent home — three students briefly exiled for faith-based paper contraband.
My parents were livid. My dad took me back to the school that afternoon to meet with the principal, but nothing changed. The note stood, and so did the punishment. That night at dinner, there was more disbelief than outrage. My parents weren’t activists; they just wanted the school to use common sense.
The Call from Jay Sekulow
Somehow, word of our suspension reached a local attorney named Jay Sekulow. At the time, he was a young, ambitious lawyer specializing in religious-liberty cases. He had just taken on Board of Education of Westside Community Schools v. Mergens (1990), a Nebraska case about whether Christian clubs could meet on school grounds.
He called my parents and offered to represent us, pro bono. A few weeks later, he flew my brother, Scott, my parents, and me to Irvine, California, to appear on his Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN) show.
For three Georgia teenagers, that trip was more adventure than activism — limousines, bright lights, hotel buffets. I remember the studio vividly: the cameras, the lights, even a Christian bodybuilding troupe wandering around the hotel. We sat under the glare while Jay interviewed us about faith and freedom. We were polite, earnest, and mostly excited to be in California.
Looking back, it was a bizarre collision of innocence and ambition — a local misunderstanding turned into televised moral theater. At the time, though, it felt like vindication.
The Persecution Industry
Over the next few months, the story spread. We appeared on Pat Robertson’s 700 Club, and even received boxes of free Christian-themed T-shirts from a company trying to capitalize on our moment. Eventually, Jay invited me to Washington, D.C., in January 1990, to speak at an organizing meeting for a new group called the Christian Coalition.
The ballroom was grand and serious — chandeliers, heavy carpets, the smell of cologne and coffee. The room was filled with men I had only seen on television or heard on cassette tapes: Charles Stanley, James Dobson, Jerry Falwell, Gary Bauer, Ralph Reed, D. James Kennedy. Nearly all older white men in dark suits, looking like senators of a moral republic.
I was seventeen years old and confident. I gave a five- or ten-minute talk about what had happened to us, about standing firm for faith in public life. I don’t remember my exact words, but I remember the applause. I remember feeling seen.
It felt righteous — like something important was happening. Only years later did I realize what that moment actually was: the creation of a story — a myth about persecution, mobilized to unite Christians into a political force.
The truth is, no one at Henderson High had set out to persecute us. It was a misunderstanding by a rule-bound administrator. But by the time the national movement got hold of it, it had become Exhibit A in the argument that Christians were under attack in their own country.
Jay Sekulow would go on to win the Mergens case before the Supreme Court, then become a fixture in conservative politics and eventually a lawyer for Donald Trump. That arc says a lot about where things were headed — from small local disputes to full-scale culture wars.
Looking Back
At eighteen, I didn’t see the machinery behind it all. I felt validated, not used. The cameras, the speeches, the flights — it felt like purpose. For a kid with conservative values and a gift for public speaking, it was intoxicating.
In hindsight, it was one of my first tastes of the Gospel being replaced by cultural preference. Prayer meetings became platforms. Injustice became a brand. What started as sincere conviction was reframed into political theater.
Today, when I think about the phrase “possession of Christian material,” I mostly laugh. The irony is almost comic — the idea that faith could be contraband in a culture built by believers. But the deeper irony is how quickly that absurdity became useful.
It wasn’t just a school misunderstanding; it was the seed of a story that millions would later believe about themselves — that they were an oppressed moral majority.
I don’t think anyone intended harm. We were all caught in a wave bigger than we understood. But that’s how movements work: they don’t always need villains, just a narrative that keeps everyone unified and afraid.
The Lesson
If I could talk to my eighteen-year-old self before stepping onto that stage in D.C., I’d tell him to be just as wary of Christian celebrities as he was of school administrators. To remember that the Gospel doesn’t need defending through outrage or applause.
Because the longer I’ve lived, the more I’ve seen how easily the church mistakes visibility for victory.
Real discipleship is ordinary: breakfasts, quiet prayers, faithfulness without a stage.
Before You Go
The Washington Post would later run a story on the fallout of the Supreme Court’s Bible-club ruling — “Schools Brace for Fallout from Bible Club Ruling” (June 11, 1990). In its pages, you can see the arc of an era: what began as devotion turned into division, what began as prayer turned into power.
A question to carry
What if the real threat to faith isn’t being silenced by others, but being seduced by applause?