Religious Liberty
Intimidating?
01/14/2013 06:24
The Christian Message
With increasing regularity, anyone who presents the Christian message in the public square is silenced. In this regard, there has been a growing number of public debates over such things as publicly displaying a Nativity Scene, school prayer, or what constitutes Religious Freedom. In our society today, any Christian speech in a public forum is immediate targeted for rejection and, with increasing regularity, the secular doctrines are imposed on religious institutions. What makes this process so disconcerting is the latent anger that drives the rejection.
In the most recent case, a public school teacher has been told, “Your rights to free speech are not as broad as if you were simply a private citizen.” Certainly it is one thing to ask a teacher not to display a Bible quote. But the same teacher was also asked to remove a quote from President Reagan (see below), presumably because the former president spoke of God. And in all this, it remains unclear as to when public school teachers ceased being “private citizens.” Granted, every public school teacher in New York State takes an oath of loyalty in which they swear to uphold the constitutions of the United States and New York State, but, to the best of my knowledge, neither of those constitutions restrict the “rights to free speech” with regard to religion.
The question that should be brought up in this regard is, “What is it about Christianity and Christian doctrine that intimidates so many people to the point of vehemently silencing the voices of Christians?” Anyone would be hard pressed to explain why a doctrine that includes exhortation to moral living, a call to love that includes enemies, and promotes virtue over sin is one that is angrily rejected from the public square.
With increasing regularity, anyone who presents the Christian message in the public square is silenced. In this regard, there has been a growing number of public debates over such things as publicly displaying a Nativity Scene, school prayer, or what constitutes Religious Freedom. In our society today, any Christian speech in a public forum is immediate targeted for rejection and, with increasing regularity, the secular doctrines are imposed on religious institutions. What makes this process so disconcerting is the latent anger that drives the rejection.
In the most recent case, a public school teacher has been told, “Your rights to free speech are not as broad as if you were simply a private citizen.” Certainly it is one thing to ask a teacher not to display a Bible quote. But the same teacher was also asked to remove a quote from President Reagan (see below), presumably because the former president spoke of God. And in all this, it remains unclear as to when public school teachers ceased being “private citizens.” Granted, every public school teacher in New York State takes an oath of loyalty in which they swear to uphold the constitutions of the United States and New York State, but, to the best of my knowledge, neither of those constitutions restrict the “rights to free speech” with regard to religion.
The question that should be brought up in this regard is, “What is it about Christianity and Christian doctrine that intimidates so many people to the point of vehemently silencing the voices of Christians?” Anyone would be hard pressed to explain why a doctrine that includes exhortation to moral living, a call to love that includes enemies, and promotes virtue over sin is one that is angrily rejected from the public square.