"If God is for us, who can be against us?"
"I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me."
Those two specific passages of Scripture were on banners carried around by high school cheerleaders in the tiny Texas town of Kountze that became the focus of a recent court battle.
An atheist group brought down fire and brimstone on the cheerleaders, claiming that the cheerleaders were "on the job," and thus technically representing their school and thus representing the government. The school district banned the use of Scripture at games, and the students retaliated with a suit saying their constitutionally protected freedom of speech was violated. A district court judge ruled this month that indeed, the students' rights of free speech are being violated.
The problem with the assertion of the atheists is that the school district is not endorsing religion if it lets students post sayings from the Bible. Cheerleaders are not employees; they are students. The courts have ruled that as long as a student leads prayer at a ceremony, it's constitutionally protected. Most people have no problem with words from the good book.
Wow, what a threat to the town and the nation, huh? Imagine cheerleaders endorsing words from the Good Book and the manly atheist men - who should have no problem with the name of God being evoked since they believe He is as fake as the Easter bunny or Santa Claus - recoiling with a lawsuit.
Reality check here, please. What is the big whoopty-do with this particular set of athiests? Do they really think there is something sinister about teenagers expressing their faith and belief in God to the point that they want to share it in an open setting?
I don't quite understand people like Michael Newdow, the California atheist who sued over the Pledge of Allegiance invoking the name of God, the use of "In God We Trust" on our money and even trying to block prayer at the George W. Bush inauguration, or even striking the "so help me God" from Barack Obama's inaugural oath of office. Thank God Newdow lost his ridiculous suit; I still like to believe that a president can utter his own choice of words in a free democratic republic. No, if I were an atheist - and I am not ¬- I wouldn't bother; I wouldn't be threatened by someone's faith being expressed because I'd consider it all hogwash. Seriously, can the atheist community reject the notion that faith has an extremely beneficial effect on our young people? Can they cannot at least admit that thousands of churches operate food and clothing banks for the hungry, and are extremely giving to charitable causes.
This summer I had a chance to stand on the hill overlooking Columbine High School in Colorado. It was the same day that the other shooter had sprayed the movie theater audience with bullets in Aurora just miles away. I was reading a number of memorials to students. At least two of the 13 were Christians and their "testimony" will forever be shining legacies for others to follow. There was Cassie Bernal, who according to legend was shot at close range with a shotgun because she was asked if she believed in God and the gunman didn't like her affirmative answer. Then there was another believer in Rachel Scott whose story sends a chill up my back. An incredibly spiritual person, Rachel who often wrote to God in her diaries about wanting to reach those who don't believe in God. She begged God for the chance to show others "the way," to let her life have some purpose in spreading His word. In 1998 she drew a collage of images that included a rose growing up out of a columbine, with several dark drops spiraling it. On the morning of the shootings, she doodled a reprise of the picture: a pair of eyes crying 13 teardrops onto that same rose - the same number of victims the shooters would kill during the massacre just hours later.
Those girls believed in loving and serving others just as Jesus taught. They believed in the increasingly rare concept that one should consider their neighbor more important than one's self, which was another teaching of Christ. They believed that it was better to give than to receive; that one can forgive those who do ill toward you. Is there something wrong with that kind of love toward fellow man? That there is something wrong with tapping into the strength of a God and expressing that at a high school football game in a rather innocuous way seems tragically wrong to me. How anyone would think displaying such messages is a threat to our system of freedom is beyond me.
Contrast that with Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis, the young man who was arrested by the FBI two weeks for trying to blow up the Federal Reserve building in New York City. Nafis, an Al Qaeda wannabe, was of the Islamic faith and made arrangements to buy materials to detonate outside the building in the same deadly prescription of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy MacVeigh. Nafis' plot would have succeeded had the "bomb" materials not been sold by the FBI which was setting him up for an arrest.
Ask yourself who is a bigger threat: Texas cheerleaders or someone who wanted to kill "infidels" as outlined in the Koran.
It seems this country tends to get things backwards. As the "left" bends over backwards with nauseating tolerance for anyone but Christians and demands U.S. officials to abstain from profiling Mideastern men of a certain faith - who would do us harm - they find more threat in high school cheerleaders who exuberantly express their Christian faith.
How do you feel? Let Jeff know at jeffb@cerescourier.com.
"I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me."
Those two specific passages of Scripture were on banners carried around by high school cheerleaders in the tiny Texas town of Kountze that became the focus of a recent court battle.
An atheist group brought down fire and brimstone on the cheerleaders, claiming that the cheerleaders were "on the job," and thus technically representing their school and thus representing the government. The school district banned the use of Scripture at games, and the students retaliated with a suit saying their constitutionally protected freedom of speech was violated. A district court judge ruled this month that indeed, the students' rights of free speech are being violated.
The problem with the assertion of the atheists is that the school district is not endorsing religion if it lets students post sayings from the Bible. Cheerleaders are not employees; they are students. The courts have ruled that as long as a student leads prayer at a ceremony, it's constitutionally protected. Most people have no problem with words from the good book.
Wow, what a threat to the town and the nation, huh? Imagine cheerleaders endorsing words from the Good Book and the manly atheist men - who should have no problem with the name of God being evoked since they believe He is as fake as the Easter bunny or Santa Claus - recoiling with a lawsuit.
Reality check here, please. What is the big whoopty-do with this particular set of athiests? Do they really think there is something sinister about teenagers expressing their faith and belief in God to the point that they want to share it in an open setting?
I don't quite understand people like Michael Newdow, the California atheist who sued over the Pledge of Allegiance invoking the name of God, the use of "In God We Trust" on our money and even trying to block prayer at the George W. Bush inauguration, or even striking the "so help me God" from Barack Obama's inaugural oath of office. Thank God Newdow lost his ridiculous suit; I still like to believe that a president can utter his own choice of words in a free democratic republic. No, if I were an atheist - and I am not ¬- I wouldn't bother; I wouldn't be threatened by someone's faith being expressed because I'd consider it all hogwash. Seriously, can the atheist community reject the notion that faith has an extremely beneficial effect on our young people? Can they cannot at least admit that thousands of churches operate food and clothing banks for the hungry, and are extremely giving to charitable causes.
This summer I had a chance to stand on the hill overlooking Columbine High School in Colorado. It was the same day that the other shooter had sprayed the movie theater audience with bullets in Aurora just miles away. I was reading a number of memorials to students. At least two of the 13 were Christians and their "testimony" will forever be shining legacies for others to follow. There was Cassie Bernal, who according to legend was shot at close range with a shotgun because she was asked if she believed in God and the gunman didn't like her affirmative answer. Then there was another believer in Rachel Scott whose story sends a chill up my back. An incredibly spiritual person, Rachel who often wrote to God in her diaries about wanting to reach those who don't believe in God. She begged God for the chance to show others "the way," to let her life have some purpose in spreading His word. In 1998 she drew a collage of images that included a rose growing up out of a columbine, with several dark drops spiraling it. On the morning of the shootings, she doodled a reprise of the picture: a pair of eyes crying 13 teardrops onto that same rose - the same number of victims the shooters would kill during the massacre just hours later.
Those girls believed in loving and serving others just as Jesus taught. They believed in the increasingly rare concept that one should consider their neighbor more important than one's self, which was another teaching of Christ. They believed that it was better to give than to receive; that one can forgive those who do ill toward you. Is there something wrong with that kind of love toward fellow man? That there is something wrong with tapping into the strength of a God and expressing that at a high school football game in a rather innocuous way seems tragically wrong to me. How anyone would think displaying such messages is a threat to our system of freedom is beyond me.
Contrast that with Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis, the young man who was arrested by the FBI two weeks for trying to blow up the Federal Reserve building in New York City. Nafis, an Al Qaeda wannabe, was of the Islamic faith and made arrangements to buy materials to detonate outside the building in the same deadly prescription of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy MacVeigh. Nafis' plot would have succeeded had the "bomb" materials not been sold by the FBI which was setting him up for an arrest.
Ask yourself who is a bigger threat: Texas cheerleaders or someone who wanted to kill "infidels" as outlined in the Koran.
It seems this country tends to get things backwards. As the "left" bends over backwards with nauseating tolerance for anyone but Christians and demands U.S. officials to abstain from profiling Mideastern men of a certain faith - who would do us harm - they find more threat in high school cheerleaders who exuberantly express their Christian faith.
How do you feel? Let Jeff know at jeffb@cerescourier.com.
