A number of Island schools have allowed Gideon Bibles to be handed out to Grade 5 students for many years now. However, one parent’s recent complaint makes you wonder about the appropriateness of religious proselytizing in the schools, in this day and age.
The gesture, to spread the Good News to students (with parents’ permission) is probably harmless, but public schools are not the place to preach just one faction of religion above all others. And as good-hearted as the Gideon people are, this is in fact a form of religious superiority. Children from all walks of life attend school, but not everyone believes in what the Gideon people believe - and not everyone believes in tenants of the Christian faith. At the very least some may not appreciate a religious group trying to “influence” their children.
Then again, religion is an important part of many people’s lives, and there are many who support the efforts of the Gideons International of Canada in handing out Bibles to impressionable youth. Hopefully those same people won’t be upset if some hypothetical situation arises in which, say, a Muslim group offers to hand out copies of the Koran, or a Jewish group wants kids to read the Torah, or if the monks staying at the former Lobster Shanty in Montague want to teach youth about Buddhism.
It might be a good idea to offer religious studies classes in the public school system, similar to what UPEI has offered for many years. It would be a good opportunity for youth to learn the tenants and the history, as well as the similarities and differences, of all the important religions.
David MacDonald