"AT GRADUATION, NO TASSLE WITHOUT TUSSLE OVER FAITH" - Tony Perkins, Washington Watch, May 21, 2018; https://www.frc.org/updatearticle/20180521/no-tassel [AS I SEE IT: They say it's "religon" but the real issue is JESUS. Mention Buddha or Mohammed but don't mention Jesus! Whether it's a school graduation or any other public venue, the question becomes will we stand up for our rights while we still can in America or will we slowly but surely allow our freedom to express our faith be taken from us as it has been in so many countries to so many tens of millionis of believes around the world. What we give up today will be lost as well for future generations. If not now, when. If not believers today, then will there even be believers tomorrow? P.S. - Christian youth today should be challenged to do the hard things, the things that are not "politically correct" or popular in today's culture but to do and say things that are driven by Biblical truth. If their faith is not something they stand up for, then it will be a faith they are sure to eventually abandon when pressed by the world. (Rom. 12:1-2) - Stan]
"They said they didn't want to make it a religious ceremony," Sam told Fox News's Todd Starnes. "They told me that if I took out Christ I could say everything else." There's just one problem, he pointed out. Without Christ, not much about the speech mattered. Sam fought to keep the text, explaining that his relationship with Jesus is what impacted his life. The principal didn't budge, insisting that it wasn't "appropriate for the setting." Sam offered to start his speech with a disclaimer, and the answer was the same: no.
"I never felt like that feeling before," he said. "It was terrible." After the ceremony, Sam went to work making sure that what happened to him wouldn't happen to another student. He contacted First Liberty Institute and asked the group to help him change the policy. "School officials should remember that students retain their constitutional rights to freedom of expression from the schoolhouse gates all the way through the graduation ceremony," First Liberty's Jeremy Dys argued.
Unlike a lot of the graduation dust-ups, West Prairie took direct aim at the name of Jesus. To them, that's what's offensive -- not religion, not God. It's a dilemma as old as the New Testament. Peter and John faced this same intolerance when they were told not to preach in Jesus's name. Hauled before the Sanhedrin, the apostles were asked to explain why they were declaring the resurrection of Christ. Peter pointed to the lame man who'd been healed. "If we are being called to account today for an act of kindness shown to a man who was lame and are being asked how he was healed, then know this... It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed."
"Salvation," Peter said simply, "is found in no one else." That's why, to this day, people like these administrators don't want the name of Jesus mentioned. Militant secularists want Him locked up in our hearts and homes, where the world can't see His transformative light. Unfortunately, too many people give in, shrinking back in fear of controversy or offense. This is exactly why we have to fight for religious freedom, so that the power of revival is still possible -- not just in West Prairie, but everywhere!
[italics and colored emphasis mine]
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