{"id":137,"date":"2007-11-29T17:52:11","date_gmt":"2007-11-29T21:52:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/?p=137"},"modified":"2011-02-26T01:01:25","modified_gmt":"2011-02-26T06:01:25","slug":"clemson-vs-the-aclu-over-church-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2007\/11\/29\/clemson-vs-the-aclu-over-church-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Clemson vs. the ACLU over “Church Day”"},"content":{"rendered":"

As reported in the local paper<\/a>, Clemson University (a state run school) is in “correspondence” with the ACLU over head football Coach Tommy Bowden’s annual “Church Day,” in which the team visits a church every year.\u00a0 The ACLU contends that Bowden was violating the separation of church and state by his actions, stating he had<\/p>\n

abused his authority as Clemson University’s head football coach by imposing his strong personal religious beliefs upon student-athletes under his charge.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The University investigated and determined that the function would be allowed to continue, as it is on a voluntary basis.<\/p>\n

Why should a military Christian care?\u00a0 The ACLU cited much the same “undue influence” of which military officers are accused when they interact with their subordinates on religious issues.<\/p>\n

The ACLU has demonstrated that it\u00a0would like to see\u00a0leaders be unable to interact with their followers on\u00a0anything regarding\u00a0religion.\u00a0 While there are legitimate concerns that must be addressed\u00a0in\u00a0such\u00a0relationships (for example, the voluntary nature of Bowden’s event), the ability to have interaction on religious topics is central to not only\u00a0Constitutional free exercise but also voluntary spiritual development–not just of the leader, but also of the followers.<\/p>\n

The ACLU wanted the event to cease; what would that have done to the players who wanted<\/em> to participate?\u00a0 What about the spiritual development of Christian players who benefit from a mentor?\u00a0 Those who do not wish to participate are already free not to; they gain nothing by the event being prohibited.\u00a0 On the other hand, those who want to participate stand to lose much if the event is banned.\u00a0 Those who wish to participate must be allowed to do so.<\/p>\n

In this case and others like it, the ACLU and similar\u00a0organizations would like to deny\u00a0people (both leaders and followers) who desire<\/em> to participate the ability to do so.\u00a0 Whether in college football or the military, such denial of free exercise is unConstitutional and must be opposed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As reported in the local paper, Clemson University (a state run school) is in “correspondence” with the ACLU over head football Coach Tommy Bowden’s annual “Church Day,” in which the team visits a church every year.\u00a0 The ACLU contends that Bowden was violating the separation of church and state by his actions, stating he had abused his authority as Clemson […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[12,4,1049,2,10,1515],"class_list":["post-137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government-and-religion","tag-aclu","tag-churchandstate","tag-clemson-university","tag-military","tag-religion","tag-tommy-bowden"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}