Christian Teacher Feels School's Lawsuit Fears Cost Him His Job
by Jim Brown
August 31, 2004
(AgapePress) - An Iowa middle school teacher has been terminated from his job over his refusal to remove items from his office that symbolize the Christian faith.School officials told music teacher Luke Miller having faith-based posters, gospel tracts, and a picture of the Lord's Supper was an unconstitutional endorsement of religion.
Miller, who has been a teacher for 10 years, says administrators knew about the items in his office for a long time, but chose to confront him about them one week before classes started. He feels the school's decision was not about him, "but it's about God," he says. "I believe they are so fearful of people coming against them with lawsuits about [religion] that they see me, if I'm visible with my faith, as a liability. And so it's about that -- they're afraid to have any form of God in the school, and ... they're pushing God out."
Last year, Miller was told by school officials to take down a Ten Commandments poster in his classroom. After he moved it to his office, he was ordered to remove it from the building entirely. School officials claimed allowing him to have the items in his office violated the so-called separation of Church and State.
The former middle school teacher says he felt he had no choice but to leave his job. He saw the direction things were headed and says, "I just resolved that if it was ever asked of me to take all remaining items that make my faith visible in my office -- if I was asked to take those out -- at that point I would just submit to whatever consequences would happen, because I feel like, at that point, I'm being asked to deny God by my actions."
Miller says unless God leads him otherwise, he will probably leave public education for good. According to him, the situation is unlikely to be any different anywhere else in the U.S.
