It is hard to be a Christian in the public square. Ole Miss head football Coach Hugh Freeze got in trouble recently simply by inviting people to worship with him at Pinelake Church, Oxford, Mississippi, where he is an active member.
Dan Cathy, CEO of Chick-fil-A, continues to have opposition to his business because he said on a radio show that he supports traditional marriage.
And who can forget the employee of the Hoover Chamber of Commerce who was fired for wearing a Ten Commandments pin on the lapel of his suitcoat?
People opposed to Christian values it seems will go to whatever length necessary to silence any voice or eradicate any vestige of Christian faith.
Using social media
Recently the Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) sent a letter to the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) chancellor Jeffrey S. Vitter protesting a Palm Sunday tweet posted by Freeze that read, “Hope you have the chance to worship today with others. Looking for a place near Oxford? Join us @PinelakeOXF 9:15 or 11:00.”
The Sunday prior to that Freeze posted a tweet that read, “Life is precious and short and today is a gift from God, who never changes.”
An FFRF lawyer charged Freeze was playing off his popularity as the university’s head football coach to promote religion. The lawyer urged the university to ban Freeze from using his Twitter account to write about his Christian faith and about God.
‘Free Exercise Clause’
FFRF stresses the “No Establishment Clause” of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution that requires government not to favor one religion over another or religion over no religion. At the same time the organization ignores the “Free Exercise Clause” of the same amendment that generally prevents government from interfering with one’s religious expressions or activities.
Just because Freeze is a university employee he, nor any other employee, does not lose First Amendment rights to engage in religious conversation or activities as individuals. He is free to say what he wants on his own Twitter account and on his own time. Using his identity as a head football coach does not change that.
Still it takes determination on the part of the Christian employee not to be dissuaded by the bully-like actions of groups like FFRF and to put up with all the guff such organizations produce. It is just another example of why it is hard to be a Christian in the public square.
Few people argue about the quality of the product produced by Chick-fil-A. In 2016 the American Customer Satisfaction Index Restaurant Report rated Chick-fil-A best in customer satisfaction. But Cathy’s support of traditional marriage continues to prove costly.
In 2015, Johns Hopkins University’s student government opposed adding a Chick-fil-A outlet to their campus because support of traditional marriage constituted “micro aggression” against lesbians and gays.
A year later the University of Nebraska at Kearney scuttled plans for a restaurant on campus because the chain’s “corporate values are not aligned with our values.” It did not matter that Chick-fil-A was the most requested restaurant by students at the school.
Most recently students at a Catholic school in Pittsburgh, Duquesne University, charged having a Chick-fil-A on campus was “a threat to the safety of LGBTQ students.”
Defended by LGBT activists
Interestingly Cathy’s company has not been accused of discriminating against gay/homosexual individuals and has even been defended by prominent LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) activists such as Shane L. Windmeyer, according to The Christian Post.
Evidently these universities want to turn everyone who believes in traditional marriage into an enemy who must be banished. It seems these efforts are bent on silencing every voice that does not endorse the LGBT lifestyle.
How ironic that on university campuses where diversity is supposed to be a value, where understanding is supposed to be promoted through interactions, where various views are supposed to be tested in the crucible of life experiences, where diversity is supposed to be encouraged — that in these places people who reject the biblical standard of traditional marriage resort to strong arm tactics to ban a business whose owner disagrees with them.
But again it is hard to be a Christian in the public square.
Sometimes it is easy to write about what happens in faraway places like Nebraska or Maryland or Pennsylvania. But to be fair the same kind of problems exist in the heart of the Bible Belt — right here in Alabama.
In 2004 this publication did a number of articles about the Hoover Chamber of Commerce employee who was fired. The employee said he wore the Ten Commandments pin to show his belief in the right to acknowledge God publicly. His supervisor said it was a political statement.
In 2004 display of the Ten Commandments was a hot topic in Alabama.
No chamber member ever complained about the pin, according to a chamber spokesperson at the time, but the employee was still fired after he refused to stop wearing it.
In the public square
Then U.S. Rep. Spencer Bachus said, “Equating the wearing of a religious symbol with making a political statement is outrageous.”
But the young man was still fired because it is hard to be a Christian in the public square. It always has been and it may always be.
Perhaps that is why Jesus said to a would-be follower in Luke 9:62, “No one, after putting his hand to the plow and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.” Even when circumstances are difficult, the Christian is to rejoice in hope and persevere in tribulation (Rom. 12:12).
The writer of Hebrews urged: “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering for He who promised is faithful” (Heb. 10:23).
Jesus is faithful to us. We can be faithful to Him even when it is hard.
So we applaud you Coach Freeze and Mr. Cathy and all the others who faithfully stand for Christ privately and in the public square.
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