An Ontario school board’s vote to allow the distribution of Bibles in classrooms has created a rift between those who insist religion has been pushed too far outside the mainstream of society and those who believe proselytizing should never be allowed in a public school system.
“The distribution of these Bibles is causing division in our community and making many of our teachers uncomfortable,” said Rick Pryce, a local Lutheran minister. “This is an issue of justice and it is wrong to divide people along religious lines.”
On Monday, the school board that encompasses Kitchener and the surrounding environs, the Waterloo Region District School Board, voted to let Gideons International in Canada to distribute Bibles to Grade 5 students. The schools gives permission slips to each student who in turn must get parental permission to receive a Gideon’s Bible. The Bibles are then handed out to students in the classroom to take home and are not for classroom use.
“A public school needs to educate the whole child … It seems to me if we want to see students survive in life and make the correct decisions they have to have some knowledge of religious feeling,” said Colin Harrington, a trustee who voted in favour of Bibles being handed out.
“The important message religion has to tell you is about compassion and love and caring for your neighbour and not being simply selfish to one’s desires. The programs in the schools are not cutting it. If you deny the religious experience in your education system you open the door to the demonic experience.”
The board has had a policy in place since 2008 that allows the distribution of “non-instructional religious materials” through the school system. All publications are supposed to be read by the trustees to make sure “such materials are for information [only] and not for the purpose of proselytization.”
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