Bible Distribution Ruled Unconstitutional

The following is an excerpt from a Christian Post article by Lawrence Jones:

A federal judge has ruled a Missouri school district's policy permitting Bible distribution unconstitutional, but an attorney representing the district has vowed to appeal.

The case against the South Iron School District was filed two years ago by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of four sets of parents who are Christian. An appeals court ordered the district last August to temporarily halt the handout of Bibles to fifth graders by Gideons International, known for its widespread distribution of the Holy Book in hotels nationwide.

The school district in Annapolis then altered its open access policy, permitting Gideons and other groups – including the Red Cross, Missouri Water Patrol, and Girl Scouts – to give away Bibles or other literature before or after school or during lunch, but not in classrooms.

But U.S. District Judge Catherine Perry ruled Tuesday that both practices violated the Establishment Clause and granted a permanent injunction against any Bible distributors.

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Biblical Illiteracy In Politics And Life

The following is an excerpt from the speech given by Stephen Prothero at the Pew Forum's biannual Faith Angle Conference on religion, politics and public life. Stephen Prothero, chair of the Department of Religion at Boston University, discussed the issue of religious illiteracy in the United States.

Prothero is the author of Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know - And Doesn't. Prothero says the United States is one of the most religious countries on earth, but Americans know little about their own religion or the religions of others.

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So instead of seeing religious illiteracy as a religious problem for religious people, I'm looking at it as a civic problem and I'm looking at it from two angles. The first is the domestic angle, where we have politics now where we used to have one religious party and now we have two religious parties, in the sense that Democrats have now joined Republicans in deciding that it's smart to talk about God and it's smart to talk about faith because that's the way you get elected.

And the way that the Republicans, over the last generations, were able to attach to the good words like God and family and values and the Democrats seem to be attaching to less good words or less resonant words like rights and reason, things like that. It didn't seem to be such a good strategy for the Democrats in a country with 96 percent of the citizens believing in God to be the non-God party against the God party. So basically we have a politics where politicians on both sides are being encouraged to talk about religion, about their own faith, but also to connect their public policy initiatives to religious ideas, particularly to biblical ideas and Jewish and Christian ideas.

So Hillary Clinton now, when she talks about immigration, she's quite likely to talk about the Good Samaritan story and to say why don't I think that an immigration bill, where we have to turn in people who come over the border illegally, why do I think that's wrong? Well, because the Good Samaritan story. You know, we're supposed to treat foreigners in a good way. We're supposed to treat them like our neighbors, according to the Bible.

In this kind of politics, it seems to me that it's imperative for citizens to know something about religion. How can you engage a politician who is rightly or wrongly invoking the Bible or invoking religion for political purposes on issues like gay marriage or abortion or the environment or poverty or euthanasia or capital punishment or war?

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China Hosts Controversy As Well As 2008 Olympic Games

Bible Controversy Reflects Grim Reality of Christian Persecution in China - - Christian Freedom International Urges Christians to Pray for China's Persecuted as 2008 Olympics Draw Near

SAULT STE. MARIE, Mich., Dec. 27 /Christian Newswire/ -- As China prepares to host the 2008 Olympic Games, a recent debate of whether athletes will have personal access to Bibles during their stay in Beijing sparked international controversy.

An announcement stated that the country intended to ban Bibles for security reasons, as well as all religious symbols in the Olympic Village -- a report that came on the heels of China's official pledge to encourage religion during the 2008 Games.

The news outraged human rights groups as well as U.S. politicians, including Senator Lindsey Graham, who contacted the Chinese ambassador for an explanation of the Bible ban, and House Representative Thaddeus McCotter, who introduced a resolution condemning the attack on Christianity.

But representatives from China have dismissed the report as an unfounded rumor, claiming that the government has not imposed any such rule and will guarantee religious freedom during the Olympic Games.

While the U.S. Olympic Committee has received confirmation that visiting athletes, journalists and tourists will in fact be allowed to bring Bibles into Beijing for personal use, the mere possibility of the ban's existence has been seen as yet another attempt by the Chinese government to suppress religious freedom within its borders, despite its repeated claims to the contrary.

Although the "underground" church in China has grown by the millions in recent years, the printing and distribution of Bibles in the communist nation remains severely restricted. Reports also indicate that more than 100 foreign Christians have recently been expelled from the country in a 90-day period -- one of the government's largest assaults on Christianity since 1954.

Christian Freedom International (CFI), a Michigan-based nonprofit organization dedicated to assisting persecuted Christians, is encouraging all believers to pray for the persecuted church in China.

As the international community keeps a watchful eye on a country still defending itself against a long history of religious and human rights abuses, even as it prepares to welcome the world to the 2008 Olympic Games, CFI is challenging Christians everywhere to remember those in China who routinely suffer harassment, torture and even martyrdom for their faith.

Under the direction of CFI president Jim Jacobson, a former White House policy analyst, CFI has "smuggled" thousands of Bibles into China since 1996. But with less than half of all Chinese Christians currently owning a copy of the Bible, and as the country's "underground" church continues to grow in record numbers, the demand for Bibles remains overwhelming.

To learn more about CFI's Bible deliveries in China, or to learn more about Christian persecution worldwide, visit www.christianfreedom.com.

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Bible Banned From San Diego Superior Court

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