Americans like to believe they live in a free country, where faith and family are sacred.
Then one day they wake up in a courtroom, staring down a single judge whose personal disdain can strip a mother of her God-given right to raise her child in the Christian faith — or cost her the child altogether.
A Maine district court judge has issued a child-custody order that bars a 12-year-old girl from attending church, reading the Bible, associating with Christian friends or participating in any religious activity — even Christmas celebrations — unless her non-custodial father approves.
The father has refused to approve any church.
The order, entered in December 2024, applies during the time the child’s mother, Emily Bickford, shares primary physical custody of her daughter, Ava, who turns 13 in January.
Ava’s father, Matt Bradeen, with whom Bickford was never married, has visitation rights.
Liberty Counsel, the Orlando-based religious-liberty law firm representing Bickford, says the restrictions are the most sweeping anti-Christian custody provisions it has ever seen.
The order prohibits Ava from associating with any member of Calvary Chapel in Portland, where she and her mother had worshipped for 3½ years; attending any church, Christian event, wedding, funeral or hospital visit involving Calvary Chapel members; reading the Bible or any religious literature or being exposed to "religious philosophy;" maintaining friendships with children who later begin attending Calvary Chapel.
Bradeen reportedly objected after Ava told him she planned to be baptized.
He retained counsel, and the case was heard by a Judge Jennifer Nofsinger of Maine’s District Court, who previously served as president of the Maine Civil Liberties Union.
A California sociologist testified as an expert witness that Calvary Chapel and any church that "believes the Bible" qualifies as a "cult" that causes psychological harm to children.
Liberty Counsel founder Mat Staver said the judge’s written decision repeatedly refused to capitalize the word "god" and chastised Bickford for allowing a pastor to pray for Ava.
"The judge found that Emily is a fit parent EXCEPT for the fact that she is a Christian," Staver said.
On Nov. 13, 2025, Liberty Counsel argued the case before the Maine Supreme Judicial Court.
Staver told reporters afterward that a majority of the justices described the order as "hostile toward religion" and an improper "nuclear option" that stripped an admittedly fit parent of all authority over her daughter’s religious upbringing.
The court has not announced when it will rule.
Each year, more than 500,000 American parents become embroiled in contested child-custody proceedings in state courts, according to data compiled by the U.S. Census Bureau and the National Center for State Courts.
While most disputes center on finances, schedules or allegations of abuse, an unknown but growing subset now involve clashes over a parent’s religious practices or political beliefs.
In the end, this is what "freedom" looks like when one activist judge decides your faith makes you unfit: a little girl banned from the Bible, cut off from her church friends, and told Christmas itself is off-limits — all because her mother dares to believe.
If the Maine Supreme Court doesn’t reverse this travesty, the message to every Christian parent in America will be clear: raise your child in the faith at your own peril.
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