{"id":96269,"date":"2023-09-24T15:13:13","date_gmt":"2023-09-24T20:13:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=96269"},"modified":"2023-09-24T15:13:13","modified_gmt":"2023-09-24T20:13:13","slug":"96269","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=96269","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/redstate.com\/streiff\/2023\/09\/24\/god-hating-group-threatens-auburn-university-with-lawsuit-over-student-baptisms-n2164232\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">God-Hating Group Threatens Auburn University With Lawsuit Over Student Baptisms<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) is threatening to sue Auburn University after some 200 students participated in a spontaneous and unscripted mass baptism at a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/us\/anti-religion-group-threatens-warn-auburn-university-after-200-kids-baptized-campus-absolute-joke\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">&#8220;Unite Auburn&#8221; worship event<\/a>\u00a0Tuesday night.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p id=\"isPasted\"><strong><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">The &#8220;Unite Auburn&#8221; event featured performances by\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/category\/us\/religion\/christianity\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><u>Christian worship<\/u><\/a>\u00a0band Passion and included speakers such as Jennie Allen, a Christian author, and Rev. Jonathan Pokluda, lead pastor of Harris Creek Baptist Church in Waco, Texas.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Following the event, one individual reportedly wanted to be baptized, but a tub was not available for use. Seeking a solution, students began gathering at the lake.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Photographs and video footage from the event showed\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/category\/us\/education\/college\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><u>hundreds of college students<\/u><\/a>\u00a0lining the banks of the lake as students waded into the water to be baptized one by one over a two-hour period.<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<div class=\"ratio ratio-16x9 mb-3\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"mw-100\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/05jnui8sOiQ?si=PqWTgGL6JoJfN-K7&amp;start=22\" width=\"600\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><span data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">\ufeff<\/span><\/iframe><\/div>\n<div class=\"ratio ratio-16x9 mb-3\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/KrLEP2U1M9Y?si=r1ZWPRKAUdelVEtm\" width=\"600\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><span data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">\ufeff<\/span><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>About\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/metrovoicenews.com\/revival-on-auburn-campus-leads-to-spontaneous-lake-baptisms\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">200 students chose to be baptized<\/a>\u00a0from a crowd of over 5,000.<\/p>\n<p>According to the godless twits at FFRF, the First Amendment requires public universities to\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/ffrf.org\/news\/news-releases\/item\/42727-ffrf-warns-auburn-u-over-coach-freeze-athlete-baptism\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">suppress all religious activity<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p id=\"isPasted\"><strong><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">University-sponsored religious activities violate the U.S. Constitution, FFRF emphasizes.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">\u201cAuburn University is a public university, not a religious one. It is inappropriate and unconstitutional for university employees to use their university position to organize, promote or participate in a religious worship event,\u201d FFRF Staff Attorney\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/ffrf.org\/uploads\/legal\/AuburnUniversityAL-UniteAuburn.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Chris Line writes<\/a>\u00a0to Auburn University President Christopher B. Roberts. \u201cThese ongoing and repeated constitutional violations at the university create a coercive environment that excludes those students who don\u2019t subscribe to the Christian views being pushed onto players by their coaches.\u201d<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The FFRF contends, against the corpus of Supreme Court decisions going back a couple of decades, that &#8220;The Supreme Court has held that the First Amendment requires government neutrality between religions, and between religion and nonreligion. When a public university\u2019s staff members sponsor and participate in religious events, it violates this constitutional requirement by clearly favoring religion over nonreligion.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>For reasons that remain unclear, Governor Kay Ivey responded to FFRF as though it was a real organization and not the vacuous, Constitutionally illiterate, and morally stunted bunch of grifters that it is. She pointed out that faculty and staff have the right to free expression of religion.<\/p>\n<p>The revival at Auburn is the latest in a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.campusreform.org\/article?id=21409\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">series of campus revivals that began with Asbury University in Kentucky<\/a>\u00a0and grew to include Texas A&amp;M and Baylor.<\/p>\n<p>Though FFRF tarts up its objections in pseudo-legal gibberish, its real issue is its hatred of Christianity. The event was held outside of school hours. Attendance was voluntary. Baptism was voluntary. University staff attending the event had every right to be there and officiate if desired. The FFRF maligns Auburn football coach Hugh Freeze for coercing students into participation and receiving baptism:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Auburn\u2019s sports programs are full of young and impressionable student athletes who would not risk giving up their scholarship, playing time or a good recommendation from their coach by speaking out or voluntarily opting out of any team religious activities \u2014 even if they strongly disagreed with his beliefs.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\"> Coaches exert great influence and power over student athletes and those athletes will follow the lead of their coaches. Using public university coaching positions to inject religion into its sports programs amounts to religious coercion.<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>That might be true if it happened, but it didn&#8217;t. According to reports, Coach Freeze baptized one student who was a football player. Using FFRF&#8217;s logic, if the student had been baptized in a church anywhere, he would have been the victim of coercion because he might have been aware that Coach Freeze was an &#8220;out&#8221; Christian.<\/p>\n<p>Baptism is a<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Baptism#Practitioners\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u00a0rite central to Christianity<\/a>\u00a0and practiced in varying ways across denominations. Baptism claims the soul of the believer for Christ and enables Salvation. The degree to which these impromptu baptisms result in a spiritual regeneration remains to be seen, but what can&#8217;t be doubted is that Christ claimed a couple of hundred souls. There is only one reason why anyone would oppose this. And that reason has nothing to do with the Constitution, church-state issues, or coercion and everything to do with demonic forces howling over the souls they lost.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>God-Hating Group Threatens Auburn University With Lawsuit Over Student Baptisms The Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) is threatening to sue Auburn University after some 200 students participated in a spontaneous and unscripted mass baptism at a\u00a0&#8220;Unite Auburn&#8221; worship event\u00a0Tuesday night. The &#8220;Unite Auburn&#8221; event featured performances by\u00a0Christian worship\u00a0band Passion and included speakers such as Jennie &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=96269\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,74],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-96269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rights","category-scratch-a-lib-find-a-tyrant"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=96269"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96269\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":96270,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96269\/revisions\/96270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=96269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=96269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=96269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}