One Tennessee school district took atheists to class over a religious complaint.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation was livid when an adult led prayer on the field. They filed a complaint last week after a man got down on his knees and prayed over an injured player.
The problem? It wasn’t a coach but a local youth pastor, Eric Dill. Dill reportedly stepped on the field after a player was injured.
“It was almost dead silence about the only thing I could hear on the field was like sniffling and just players getting emotional,” Dill says. When a player asked him to pray, Dill surrendered to the Lord’s will.
“If I believe in a God who answers prayers, how bad (do) I have to hate the kid who’s injured or the player who asked or the players who are hurting not to pray,” Dill says. “I’m going to be respectful and I’m going to be considerate. I’m not going to force my myself or my faith. God doesn’t force Himself on people, but if a student asks me, ‘Eric pray for this,’ especially in something like this, I’m going to pray.”
The coaches “simply joined with their teams in the shadow of what then appeared to be a profound tragedy,” school system attorney Scott Bennett says. “Rather than being an unconstitutional endorsement of religion, this was human compassion at its finest.”
Many local coaches support some form of team prayer, the Times Free Press reports.
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