These days, I rarely feel the urge to write about a cultural or political hot-button topic. After everything we have been through the past few months, I just have too much other stuff swirling around in my head and heart.
But then, I saw a jaw-dropping meme on Facebook the other day, and I kept seeing it reposted over and over by other Facebook friends. Finally, the teacher and writer in me could not stand it anymore, and I decided to write about it so others could share the simple but brilliant audacity of this popular social media post.
The meme asks: What if teachers started secretly baptizing kids at school and hid it from parents? What would the Left’s reaction be?
Think about it!
I can plainly see the all-out media blitz that would occur when the first public school baptism was discovered. Just imagine!
Every single news outlet on the planet would have the horrendous scene plastered across our screens. It would inundate our televisions, our computers, our cellphones, and even our local, state, and national newspapers.
I can envision the televised arrest of those villainous public-school educators. It would be the show of the century! This capture and arrest would most likely take place in full daylight – at the school – no doubt with FBI, CIA, as well as local and federal law enforcement agents helping to apprehend the blatant and wanton offender that committed this heinous crime … of baptism.
How dare a trusted educator cross the imaginary line separating (Please gasp appropriately here.) church and state! How dare they violate the rights of parents so egregiously! No child should be religiously indoctrinated without parental consent – especially not on the dime of taxpayers.
Our trusty woke legislators would quickly (before the next election cycle) propose some “timely” bills to prevent this travesty of justice from ever happening again on American soil. These legislative exhibitions would be televised as well. In fact, all other programming would probably be preempted for this display of righteous legislative indignation on behalf of those children who had been violated and abused. After all, our students are America’s future; they are our greatest national treasures.
And have no fear! This imaginary misuse of public educational facilities would necessitate an immediate levy of emergency tax funding on the national, state, and local levels to prevent such a moral and legal mockery of our educational system from ever occurring again. A couple of trillion should do the trick! After all, these children are our future.
I could go on and on with my version of how the Left would respond to this imaginary Facebook proposition. We all know it would be such a loud and ongoing outcry in every avenue of mainstream media and every hall of justice, from the local police through and on to the Oval Office of the White House.
It’s not hard to imagine the reaction to this social media meme. Not hard at all.
Actually, there is no longer a need for speculation or imagination! The woke leftist darlings of the anti-religion group, the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) turned this meme into reality on Friday, September 22, when they threatened a university in Alabama for the documented baptism of 200 students. In a formal letter sent to the president of Auburn University, FFRF threatened legal action over the baptism (Again, please gasp appropriately here. Maybe even cry out in distress.) since Hugh Freeze, Auburn football’s head coach actually participated in this egregious violation of the Constitution.
Now, keep in mind that the baptismal took place in the small lake beside Auburn’s Red Barn venue. Tuesday night, September 19, after a “Unite Auburn” worship event. One student requested to be baptized after the worship event, but there was no ready baptism tank. Someone suggested a nearby lake, and the speaker invited everyone to attend – and participate, if desired.
What occurred at that point was totally spontaneous as hundreds of students began to stream toward the lake and join in the unplanned service. As word of the baptisms began to spread via social media, people got in their cars and headed to the Red Barn to be a part of this historic spiritual awakening. Soon, traffic started backing up all around the venue, and one person said it took 45 minutes to get there. For hours, they kept coming!
Also of note, this barn is part of Ag Heritage Park (AHP), a 30-acre venue that is run by the Auburn University College of Agriculture and the Agricultural Alumni Association. According to online advertisements, students, faculty, alumni, and friends can reserve the Red Barn or facilities at AHP for ceremonies, receptions, weddings, luncheons, dinners, and private meetings.
So, alright … let’s think this through.
Coach Hugh Freeze and other Auburn staff members went to a religious event on their own time, at night, off the clock. Then a baptism was held in a privately donated facility associated with the university, a facility other groups are welcome to reserve and pay to use.
Hmmm …. wait.
Coach Freeze was not standing behind a university podium in a taxpayer-funded, public classroom spouting his religious (or anti-religious) beliefs when he attended the disputed baptism at the lake behind the Red Barn.
No, you’re mistaken. That was a George Washington University professor who was alleged by her Jewish students to have told them their classroom presence was “violent.” But don’t worry! She followed up by assuring the so-called “Zionist” students in her mandatory “diversity” course that it was not their fault they had been born in Israel. They simply suffered from “settler psychosis.”
Coach Freeze did not force his players to financially support the baptism event or even attend. No, perhaps you have confused him with the professor at Michigan State who was sued for forcing each of her 600 students to pay a required $99 fee to join her personal activist community of rebellion. She blatantly explained the politically and socially woke uses of that required fee, including a donation to Planned Parenthood. And when Christian students balked, it was supposedly intimated that they would not pass her class without paying the fee.
And Coach Freeze did not secretly recruit players and students to attend this baptism. Perhaps you have mistaken him and his staff for the Colorado middle school that was accused of doing some recruiting to a secret “gender and sexuality club” under the innocent guise of an after-school art club. One savvy mom sued the district when she quickly discovered the real agenda of the club for sixth graders was nothing more than “queer” indoctrination. In fact, one club presenter discussed various sexual terms, including polyamory, and told the young students to simply call themselves queer if they had not totally figured out their sexuality. Sixth graders!
This brings me back to that meme suggesting teachers secretly baptize kids in their classrooms and see what happens. We no longer have to wonder about that secret scenario because Auburn University showed us what happens when educators openly participate in open baptisms at open venues.
But just as we imagined in our FB meme scenario, the social outcry from liberal leftists was predictable. Forget tolerance! There is no such thing when it comes to our legal rights as Christians in America. Unless we adhere to the Left’s agenda of radical and total indoctrination of our kids, they want us to believe we have no rights.
But we do. And so does Coach Hugh Freeze. Yes, he attended and participated in a Christian worship service. And yes, Coach Freeze did participate in an open and spontaneous public Christian baptism service. He is an American, and it is his constitutional right to do so.
But more than that, it was his Christian privilege and honor to do so. And as a fellow educator, I would imagine that standing in the water of that small Alabama lake as one of his beloved players made a public decision of faith in Jesus Christ was probably one of the greatest nights of Coach Freeze’s life.
So, regardless of what the FFRF says or what the rest of the world says, for that matter, I commend Coach Freeze and all his staff members and players for participating in this spontaneous baptism service on their own time outside of class. In a world where more and more men abdicate their homes, their wives, and their children, I commend any man who will stand up for faith and family.
Personally, I think it was Coach Freeze’s greatest win ever.
It was a win for him, a win for those young people, a win for our desperate and dying nation, and a win for the kingdom of God.
