A math teacher who was reprimanded by the school board for talking about God in the classroom received tons of support from his students who lauded him for his courage to talk about God.
According to Christian News, over 50 students showed their support by gathering outside the Santa Rosa High School in Texas and chanting the name of their algebra teacher Charles Zeissel, all the while carrying signs that supported his advocacy for God.
"If speaking the word of God is wrong, then I don't want to be right," one sign reads. Another reads, "A good teacher is like a candle. It consumes itself to light the way for others."
School officials reportedly approached Zeissel last week over concerns that he was talking to his students about God, and that he was reciting Bible verses in class.
Santa Rosa Independent School District Superintendent Heriberto Villarreal explained to KGBT-TV that "board policy does not allow the promotion of religion during class time."
Students were worried that Zeissel might have been disciplined, suspended, or even fired for sharing his Christian faith, but Villareal clarified that all Zeissel received was a reprimand.
The policy of Santa Rosa High School is quite different from the one implemented at Harvard College, one of the first institutions of higher learning in America. In its 1642 laws, the college required its students to place Jesus Christ at the forefront of their studies.
"Let every student be plainly instructed and earnestly pressed to consider well the main end of his life and studies is to know God and Jesus Christ which is eternal life (John 17:3)," its founders declared. "And seeing the Lord only gives wisdom, let everyone seriously set himself by prayer in secret to seek it of Him (Proverbs 2:3)."
"Everyone shall so exercise himself in reading the Scriptures twice a day that he shall be ready to give such an account of his proficiency therein, both in theoretical observations of the language and the logic, and in practical and spiritual truths, as his tutor shall require, according to his ability; seeing the entrance of the word giveth light, it giveth understanding, to the simple (Psalm 119:130)," the laws state.