Skip to main content

In Jesus' Name We Play



My hometown has ejected God from the football field.

Orange County, which includes Orlando, made a decision this season to not allow Christian chaplains to minister to student athletes. Chaplains, which are a staple on almost every sideline, typically lead players in voluntary pre- and post-game prayers, and are there for players in time of crisis.

The public school system went a step further, banning Bible verses and references to the Bible from campuses.

The decisions came after a threat was made by the Freedom From Religion organization. The very name of this organization is unconstitutional. The Bill of Rights guarantees us freedom of religion, not freedom from it. If people do not want religion, they have freedom from it, but the State cannot infringe upon the rights of those who do want religion.

Liberals are quick to cry, “Separation of church and State!” But they fail to see that the line of separation goes both ways. The Founders’ fear was not that the Church would dominate the State, but that the State would dominate the Church. That is what is happening in Orange County. The school board cannot make Bible reading mandatory, but it is just as wrong to declare it offensive.

Groups like Freedom From Religion need to stop seeking to strip away the religious liberty promised by our founding documents, and elected leaders need to stop acting like cowards whenever these groups makes threats. My advice to Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer, and all other officials in the area, is to reverse course immediately. This decision is unpopular in Central Florida, and the voters will make you pay for it.

In the early days of this country our Congress used tax dollars to print Bibles for the sole purpose of using them as textbooks. The government’s own printing press produced Bibles for children to read in school. Teachers led their students in prayer every morning.

One can’t help but wonder, since the Bible and prayer have been removed from schools, have we become better or worse? The “Greatest Generation” was raised on prayer and Bible reading; the pot-smoking, free love hippies were the first generation raised apart from those things.

Since God was expelled from school literacy rates have plummeted and classroom behavior is horrendous. Schools distribute condoms and drive girls to abortion clinics without parental consent, but they cannot even reference the Bible.

Maybe if we let students read the Bible they would grasp that abstinence works; they don’t need contraception or clinics if they aren’t having sex. Why is the school system afraid to let kids read the commands to not lie, cheat, or steal?

School systems pay out great sums of money for anti-bullying seminars, all the while the Bible gives free anti-bullying advice: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”


Expelling God from school was a disaster; what will happen now that He has been ejected from the field?  
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

To Save a Life

(Like my blog about the peace symbol, this blog was written as a default response to all the parents, students, and other people who are asking my opinion of To Save a Life.) By now you have probably heard of the movie To Save a Life, which opened nation-wide in theaters on January 22nd. The movie deals with so many issues that teens face today, like suicide, cutting, drinking, drugs, premarital sex, teen pregnancy, and abortion. At first glance this movie looks like an awesome resource that we should recommend for our teens, parents, youth pastors, and youth workers. But a closer look at the movie reveals a few disturbing things. For starters, according to pluggedin.com, there are 2 uses of the “A” word, 5 uses of hell (used as a curse word), and once the “D” word is used. There are other crude terms used to describe a girl, and crude terms for referring to sexual activity. There is also a bedroom scene that shows a girl removing a boy’s shirt, then afterwards the girl putting he...
38 comments
Read more

Catechism #15

Q. By what sin did our first parents fall from their original condition? 
A. Our first parents’ sin was eating the forbidden fruit. The first sin we see in the Bible was in the eating of the forbidden fruit by Adam and Eve. But as we saw last week, there are sins of commission and omission. The eating of the fruit was an act of commission—a sin that was committed in the Garden of Eden. But before Eve ever took her first bite, a few sins of omission occurred that led up to the sin of commission. First, notice that it was Eve, not Adam, that did all the talking with the serpent in Genesis 3. Yet it was Adam, not Eve, who was created as the spiritual leader of the family. For whatever reason Adam abdicated his role as the spiritual leader and stood silently by as Eve ate the fruit. After Eve’s bite, she gave it to Adam, and he ate it too. Not only did Adam omit his role as leader, Eve omitted her trust in the goodness of God. Not only did she misquote God ...
Post a Comment
Read more

All Things To All Men

One of our favorite verses to use in our evangelism methods is where Paul said that he “becomes all things to all men” so that he might “by all means save some (I Corinthians 9:22).” This is certainly a good idea if we keep it in its proper context and application. For example, I remember a time in high school where I knew a kid that loved skateboarding. Being the chicken that I am, I was never a skateboarder. All he would talk about was skating, and I knew none of his lingo. But to help develop a relationship with him (he was new to our church and didn’t know many people), I brushed up on my skating lingo so I could ask if he had done any sick ollies lately (impressed?). This would be like Paul saying “to the skateboarder, I became a skateboarder.” This is effective and necessary. But then there are the people that use this verse to justify doing sinful things in the name of evangelism. The first one that comes to mind is about drinking. Some people will go into the bars to evan...
23 comments
Read more