People were up in arms about Obama telling their kids to work hard and stay in school but I haven’t heard a peep about this case in Kentucky where a football coach took about 20 players to a revival at his church and almost half were baptized. The woman who’s suing thought her son was going to see a motivational speaker and get a free steak dinner. My guess is that if the coach had been a Muslim and almost half the players joined his mosque, things would’ve gotten ugly pretty fast.
The school superintendent (a fellow church member) tried to play it off by saying it was a voluntary activity but one of the students commented that the coach said it would bring the team together. To me, that sounds like if you’re a team player, you’ll hop on the bus and get right with God. And almost half of them did. The article doesn’t say how many of the others had already been baptized, but I’m thinking it was quite a few.
I know from my own experience growing up Southern Baptist that the pressure to walk the aisle starts early. My friend Jo was the first to get dunked in 2nd grade and everybody seemed to go like dominos after that. At 9 years of age I found myself being the only one in my Sunday School class who hadn’t accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as my personal savior. It was an old-time, hellfire and brimstone preacher who was filling in that finally got me to walk to the front of that church. I wasn’t sure whether I believed in God or not but I didn’t want to burn in the pits of hell either.
And even without the scare tactics, a revival is very alluring. The whole purpose is to get as many people as you can to either dedicate or rededicate their lives to Christ. People are singing and crying and laughing and hugging and the pressure to conform and become a part of the group becomes enormous. Well, for most people it's appealing. To me it's just terrifying. I couldn't think of a worse way to try and lure an introvert into your church. But these were team players who wanted to please their coach. And he took advantage of that.
I think it's time for these arrogant assholes to realize that we live in a democracy not a theocracy. Just in my small circle of acquaintances, I know Agnostics and Atheists and Buddhists and Jews and Catholics. And I think they would be horrified if a public school teacher took their children to be baptized in a different faith. The one thing that people like this coach can't seem to understand is that freedom of religion also includes freedom from religion as well.
Amen.
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