Kerby Anderson

You have probably heard about the mass baptisms that took place at Auburn University. I heard about it when I was out of the country. While I was baptizing people in the Sea of Galilee, Auburn Coach Hugh Freeze was baptizing some of his players. Who could possibly be opposed to that?

As you might have guessed, the Freedom from Religion Foundation sent a letter to the university warning that the baptisms in September were a clear violation of the Establishment Clause of the Constitution. They had a problem with a coach expressing his Christian convictions while on campus.

The first thought in my mind was: Didn’t we just have a Supreme Court case that ruled that a coach does have a right to express his Christian convictions while on campus? Why yes, we did. And Coach Kennedy was doing so while in his capacity as coach when he went to pray at the 50-yard-line after the game. By contrast, Coach Freeze was doing this after hours.

First Liberty Institute Attorney Jeremy Dys has been on numerous programs to talk about this group “upset that Christian people are doing Christian things at a Christian organized event.” He reminded the hosts of these programs that their recent Supreme Court victory shows that coaches do not “shed their constitutional rights when they walk to the schoolhouse gate.”

Alabama Governor Kay Ivey responded to the letter from the atheist group and called their interpretation of the Constitution misleading. “As governor, I can assure you that we will not be intimidated by out-of-state interest groups dedicated to destroying our nation’s religious heritage.”

The many Supreme Court rulings in favor of the cases by First Liberty Institute and Alliance Defending Freedom have given us more religious freedom than we have had in decades.