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"Oooo-baaa-baaa-baaa-la-sooo….," he repeats several times.

Immediately after, someone with the "gift to interpret tongues," translates these sounds into English:

"Hear me, my children, for I am the Lord, your God," he says in a trance.

The message continues and it talks of Jesus' returning. The youths begin to swagger. Someone falls on her knees and begins rolling on the floor.

This is what happens at a typical youth program sponsored by Pentecostal preachers such as Pat Robertson. Although these believers are rolling in private retreats and churches across the United States, their leaders want their beliefs rolling right into the public school curriculum.

"We've reached a point where there are certain communities ready to say, `We want our prayers in school and maybe you'll see the light and start believing in Christian prayer,'" said Steven M. Freeman, legal affairs director for the Anti-Defamation League.

Freeman, who is based in New York, was in Oakland recently to moderate a panel discussion titled "The Demise of Public School Education?"

Participants at the event, held at the Harper Building, were Marcus Cole, professor of law at Stanford University; state Sen. Bill Lockyer (D-Hayward); and Terry Mazany, associate superintendent for the Oakland School District.

Freeman later discussed his concerns about the intrusion of religion into public schools and why it threatens the Jewish community.

While the religious right "declares the United States a Christian nation built and founded on Christian principles," Freeman said it's vital that Jews and other groups refute this message.

"Another thing which troubles me is that many of those who promote prayer are not interested in a universal prayer; they want their prayer," he said.

Freeman added that sponsorship of religious activities in the schools could have a divisive and coercive impact.

"Kids are impressionable and subject to peer pressure. If there's a prayer or religious activity going on in schools, it's very hard for a child to get up in the class and say, `I don't do that,'" Freeman said.

However, Freeman stressed that the ADL is not against religion. Worship isn't a problem. What concerns him is that certain Southern states ignore federal law. In Alabama, schools are openly defying a judge's ruling prohibiting religious activity.

"In places like Alabama, where the community is overwhelmingly Christian, it's hard for organizations like the ADL to explain why prayer shouldn't be endorsed in public schools," Freeman said.

While parents recognize that religious teachings promote healthy attitudes, he said, "it's a pipe dream when anybody thinks that saying a prayer in school is going to solve the problems with drugs or gangs. Instead, the schools should teach values such as tolerance and respect."

Meanwhile in Alabama's pingpong battle over school prayer, Freeman said the state's attorney general has enlisted the assistance of Pat Robertson's American Center for Law and Justice to handle its appeal.

"It plays into a broader national strategy that the Christian Coalition and the religious right is advancing," Freeman said, "to infuse religion into public life in all kinds of ways."