Indecent Exposure to the Bible

The China Post (CHINA): Despite receiving hundreds of letters calling for the Bible to be classified as an indecent publication, Hong Kong's Television and Licensing Authority (TELA) will not re-classify the Bible. In a statement released today, TELA representatives said, "[The Bible] had not violated standards of morality, decency and propriety generally accepted by reasonable members of the community."

News and Observer (NC): Answers in Genesis, the much anticipated creationist museum opening next week in northern Kentucky, depicts dinosaurs living side by side with humans a couple thousand of years ago. "The evolutionists use dinosaurs to promote their world view; we're going to use that to promote our world view," Answers in Genesis spokesman Mark Looy said. Dinosaur Bending?

Star Telegram (TX): Subscribes to the Star-Telegram will receive a free copy of the Bible with a special December edition only if requested. Initially, the International Bible Society, well-known for placing Bibles in hotel and hospital rooms, hoped to include a Bible in all copies of the special-edition but after readers complained the extra reading material will now be optional.

TIME magazine: In other news of unwanted Bible-gifting, the ACLU filed another lawsuit against a New Orleans school district that allowed Gideon Bibles to be handed out during school hours. Previously the same school district has been sued for coercing students with pizza to attend a course on Christianity over the lunch period.

Columbus Dispatch (OH): State legislatures in Ohio received a reminder this week that guest ministers are not allowed to evangelize or speak on political topics. While the Supreme Court forbids government-sponsored public prayer, in 1983 made an exception for prayer inside the confines of Congressional or state legislative. A federal district in Indiana banned the practice of invoking the name of Jesus in 2005; that decision has been appealed.

Times Leader (PA):In a poll conducted by the Bible Literacy Project, American teens are in desperate need of some Bible-education. The Times Leader reports that "0f the more than 1,000 teens polled, only a third could pick out a quotation from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, and 25 percent didn’t think that the Old Testament’s King David was king of the Jews." The Bible Literacy Project has received attention lately for its insistence that the Bible should be an essential text in the American education system. Meanwhile, the ACLU has filed a lawsuit against a Texas school district for including an elective Bible course that it describes as "basically a Sunday School class within the walls of a public school."

Blogger Watch:

• The Neo-neocon asks: The Jews had forty years to wander through the wilderness before reaching paradise, why not give Iraqis longer than a couple of months?
  
  
• Kevin McCullough of TownHall asks: "Why do liberals desire so much to be measured by biblical standards when it is obvious they do not care about them?"