Family Council

School Will Let Arkansas Student Share His Faith Following Calls from Gov. Sanders, Religious Freedom Advocates

Oct 3, 2025Jerry CoxReligious FreedomEducation, Religious Freedom, Religious Liberty, Update

An Arkansas student who was muted and removed from a public school Zoom call while sharing his faith has been invited back to school.

Zion Ramos is a junior at Arkansas Connections Academy, an online public school. On September 23, Zion wanted to spend two minutes discussing his faith during a school “social time,” which is a daily period set aside for students to talk on Zoom about any topic they choose.

Zion chose to talk about his Christian faith. But while Zion was speaking, a public school teacher reportedly muted him without warning or explanation and removed him from the Zoom call.

After the incident, our friends at First Liberty sent a letter to school officials in Arkansas explaining that the school had violated Zion’s freedoms of speech and free exercise of religion, and Arkansas Governor Sarah Sanders instructed the state Department of Education to open an investigation into the situation.

On Thursday, First Liberty announced that Arkansas Connections Academy has invited Zion back and guaranteed he will have three minutes to share his faith with classmates.

This is great news. Federal courts have ruled time and again that public school students and teachers do not lose their First Amendment freedoms at the schoolhouse doors.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s 1980 Stone v. Graham decision went so far as to say “the Bible may constitutionally be used in an appropriate study of history, civilization, ethics, comparative religion, or the like” in public school.

Other court cases have affirmed that as long as students do not disrupt the learning environment, they are free to pray, discuss religion, share their faith, and engage in other forms of constitutionally-protected speech at school. That means students are free to talk about their faith at school the same way they may talk about other topics. That’s also part of the reason why groups and activities like Fellowship of Christian Athletes, See You At The Pole, and Bring Your Bible to School Day are constitutionally protected at school.

Arkansas has passed some of the best laws in the country affirming students’ religious liberties at school.

State law lets students enroll in elective courses to study the Bible academically at school.

This year lawmakers passed Act 400 by Sen. Mark Johnson (R — Little Rock) and Rep. Alyssa Brown (R — Heber Springs) — a good law that affirms public school students’ and teachers’ religious liberties.

Act 400 identifies and upholds religious freedoms that are already protected by state and federal law — such as the right to pray, discuss religion, or read the Bible during free time at school — and it helps make sure that religious expression is treated equally to other types of speech at school.

We appreciate Arkansas’ lawmakers taking steps to protect religious liberty at school, and we want to thank Governor Sanders for taking Zion’s situation so seriously. We also appreciate Arkansas Connections Academy’s decision to do the right thing and invite Zion back to share his faith.

When it comes to religious liberty, public schools have been a battleground for more than 60 years. The free exercise of religion is a fundamental right. It’s important that we continue to stand up for it at school.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.

Family Council Joins Coalition in Urging U.S. Supreme Court to Uphold Religious Liberty

Oct 3, 2025Jerry CoxReligious FreedomReligious Freedom, Religious Liberty

On Monday, Family Council joined 31 other organizations in an amicus brief urging the U.S. Supreme Court to let people of faith live and operate according to their religious convictions.

The case, Miller v. Civil Rights Department, centers on Catherine Miller. Ms. Miller is a Christian, and she owns a bakery in California.

The California Civil Rights Department filed a complaint against her in state court after she declined to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding. Although Ms. Miller won at the trial court level, the California appellate court ruled against her. Now she is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to hear her case.

Catherine Miller’s situation is very similar to Jack Phillips’ case in Colorado.

In 2012, Jack Phillips declined a request to bake a custom cake for a same-sex ceremony. Colorado’s Civil Rights Commission targeted Phillips’ Masterpiece Cakeshop under the state’s anti-discrimination law. It took six years of litigation and court hearings for Jack to finally win his case in 2018. The U.S. Supreme Court eventually ruled 7-2 that Jack could not be forced to violate his deeply held religious convictions.

In 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that artist Lorie Smith and her studio, 303 Creative, could not be forced to create artwork that violated her religious convictions about marriage.

Arkansas has enacted some of the best protections for religious freedom in the country, but it’s essential for our federal government to uphold and respect the free exercise of religion as well. That is why we hope the U.S. Supreme Court will hear Catherine Miller’s case and support every American’s right to live and operate according to their deeply held religious convictions.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.

The Quiet Revival of Gen Z: Guest Column

Oct 3, 2025John StonestreetChristianityChristianity

Back in April, The Bible Society of the U.K. issued a report describing a “quiet revival” across England and Wales. “Church decline in England and Wales has not only stopped,” read the subheading, “but the Church is growing, as Gen Z leads an exciting turnaround in church attendance.” Though the report has its fair share of critics, it launched an essential conversation.

Last Sunday, James Marriott continued that conversation with an article in the U.K. publication The Times entitled “Full-fat faith: the young Christian converts filling our churches.” Marriott, who labels himself “a dry and desiccated materialist,” described what he called “a comeback for Christianity.” At least part of this comeback is, Marriott thinks, due to a widespread and growing disenchantment with atheism. Once, he wrote:

[I]t was widely held that the world was soaring ineluctably along an arc of enlightened progress. We were all destined to become richer, more democratic, more just, more rational and more secular. But those optimistic beliefs have been sorely tested in difficult recent years. Anyone tempted to simply dismiss the idea that religion could ever revive may not grasp how dramatically the cultural and economic landscape inhabited by young people has changed.

Instead of the utopia that was promised, the post-9/11 reality included economic disruption, Covid, wokeness, and thought police. As a result, many young people are rebelling to a more traditional form of the Christian faith. According to Marriott:

If you’re young, the establishment is obviously secular. Nowadays, it is precisely Christianity’s marginal status that lends it glamour and charisma, comparable perhaps to the appeal of exotic-seeming eastern religions in the 1960s. 

Last week, I spoke about the “quiet revival” in the U.K. with podcaster, author, and apologist Justin Brierley. He was among the first to identify what he called “the surprising rebirth of belief in God.” For example, according to a recent poll of non-Christian, Gen-Z students, 75% said they’d consider attending church if invited. And though church attendance is typically higher on Easter, this past Resurrection Sunday broke records all over Europe. According to one poll, the number of 16– to 24-year-olds in the U.K. attending church at least once a month jumped from 4% in 2018 to 16% in 2024.

There’s still much to learn about this phenomenon, and it remains to be seen how sticky this new-found faith will be for these young people raised in such highly secular environments. It’s fascinating how, merely a decade ago, we were focused on the rise of “the Nones,” who often claimed the church had let them down. Today, we are talking about the rise of the religious who were let down by secularism.

One more factor worth mentioning, as Marriott put it (perhaps channeling John Calvin)— humans are inescapably religious:

I suspect the supernatural side of life—not much catered for in secular rationalist democracies—is a constant of human nature, even if only for a minority. It has more room for expression now. If man is a religious animal, God may never really be banished.

Indeed, secularism as a worldview is simply not big enough for the God-shaped hole in the human heart. As more young people realize this, the Church has an incredible opportunity to help them find the One who can. You can hear my entire conversation with Justin Brierley about the “quiet revival” on a special bonus episode of the Breakpoint podcast.