Holy Literature Handouts: Cultural Profiling?

[Neale]

First, another excerpt from The Adventures of Neale:
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Yesterday morning began like any other day in the life of our hero. Displacing around the house, letting the dog out, and driving to campus seemed routine. Even parking by the dorms because the LA parking lot is always full this time of day wasn't a surprize.

The day took a drastic turn after our hero left the sanctuary of his car. Being the only student walking towards campus in the immediate vicinity at the time, he was confronted with the most fearsome of all campus-dwelling foes: The Gideons. [insert dramatic music here]

An elderly man dressed in a suit approached him, extended a small green bible and asked, "Do you want to be saved?" Being the sarcastic college kid he is, our hero began to remark and ask questions of his extreme Aqua-Velva-using attacker, onslaughting him with a barrage of spiritual doubting and ontological theories that would make the most pious of nuns cringe with mental anguish. The Gideon retracted his hand, and then immediately burst into flames from Neale's awesomeness.
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That happened to me yesterday, honestly, every single word of it to the "T." Dispite the Christian majority deep in the Bible Belt of southern Indiana, I found this Bible handout somewhat offensive. These Gideons were stationed everywhere on campus: parking lots, entranceways, walkways, the quad, bench and table farms, gathering places, you name it. No one was safe from their religious agendas.

Basically, my point is that even in a microsociety (i.e. southern Indiana) which is over 99% Christian, from where comes the right and notions of pushing religious ideology on random people? I understand that very few probably found this annual event offensive simply because they were handing out Bibles, but what if they were handing out Q'uarans or Sutras? I don't think that would have flown at my university.

Thoughts? Questions? Comments? Concerns? Song-and-dance routines? Discuss.

 

[Bishka]

Strange enough - this happened at BYU-Idaho a private religious university that I attend. I was shocked by politley declined the Bible.

 

[lunamoth]

Hmmm...I like the Gideon Bible handouts. There are some religious pamphlets I'd be a lot less happy about being handed (Chick tracts come to mind), but I'd be thrilled to get free copies of the Quran, the BoM, the Kitab-i-Iqan, etc.. The little green Gideon versions fit very nicely in my bag to keep on hand for passing moments while waiting in line, etc.

Hey, we get bombarded with ads for cigarettes, booze, sexy lingerie, R-rated movies, and lots of other things...do you object to all that too?

 

[Neale]

Hey, we get bombarded with ads for cigarettes, booze, sexy lingerie, R-rated movies, and lots of other things...do you object to all that too?

No, but then again Marlboro never came up to me and asked if I wanted my eternal being "saved" from something. Last time I checked, Victoria Secret wasn't chalking up points for the afterlife by forcing religious ideology on college students either.


If I wanted a free green Bible, I would have stolen one from a hotel bathroom.


Edit: At my campus, the Bible distributing Gideons come with the package of insane religious fanatics: "ministers" who stand in the "free speech area" of our university and start billowing sermons that could rival those of Johnathan Edwards (the crazy Puritan, not the psychic medium, or the baseball player).

 

[lunamoth]

No, but then again Marlboro never came up to me and asked if I wanted my eternal being "saved" from something. Last time I checked, Victoria Secret wasn't chalking up points for the afterlife by forcing religious ideology on college students

If I wanted a free green Bible, I would have stolen one from a hotel bathroom.

It's interesting that you're a lot more put off by someone caring about your eternal soul than someone manipulating your ego to make you buy their stuff.

 

[Neale]

It's interesting that you're a lot more put off by someone caring about your eternal soul than someone manipulating your ego to make you buy their stuff.

That's completely subjective though as to what the Gideons feel vis a vis what their target's view on the "eternal soul's" wellbeing is. You can hardly equate pushing a religious doctrine on someone to a commercial product advertisement.

Edit: Saved for another post.

 

[lunamoth]

Edit: At my campus, the Bible distributing Gideons come with the package of insane religious fanatics: "ministers" who stand in the "free speech area" of our university and start billowing sermons that could rival those of Johnathan Edwards (the crazy Puritan, not the psychic medium, or the baseball player).

You added this after I replied. That kind of preaching is obnoxious. I've only ever seen polite Gideons who were very pleasant while handing out the Bibles.

 

[lunamoth]

That's completely subjective though as to what the Gideons feel vis a vis what their target's view on the "eternal soul's" wellbeing is. You can hardly equate pushing a religious doctrine on someone to a commercial product advertisement.

Edit: Saved for another post.

You're right. You can only guess the Gideon's motives. You know the advertisers just want to manipulate you to their own ends. But see my last post. I did not realize that the Bibles were accompanied by street corner preaching.

 

[lilithu]

Our young intrepid hero of course has every right to ask questions of the Aqua Velva man with the bible in his hand. But I don't understand why you find his accosting you offensive. To answer your question, it would not bother me if a person were handing out copies of the Bible, Qur'an, Bhagavad Gita, the book of Mormon, Watchtower, Dianetics, or anything else that I have been accosted with. Once I was even offered a copy of Mao's Little Red Book! All you have to do is say no, thank you. If he persists, then yes he's violating your space. But short of that, I mean do you also get offended when someone asks you if you have registered to vote? Or wanna save 20% a month on long distance calls?

 

[Neale]

That kind of preaching is obnoxious. I've only ever seen polite Gideons who were very pleasant while handing out the Bibles.

I don't know if they're directly associated with the Gideons, but they seem to come when the Gideons do. My argument isn't with the Gideons themselves, so much as it is with blindly handing out Bibles, or any other religious literature, to everyone at a university.

 

[lilithu]

Hmmm...I like the Gideon Bible handouts. There are some religious pamphlets I'd be a lot less happy about being handed (Chick tracts come to mind)

I don't mind them, with the exception of Chick Tracks and a few other very confrontational pamphlets.

What are Chick Tract/ks?

 

[lilithu]

That's completely subjective though as to what the Gideons feel vis a vis what their target's view on the "eternal soul's" wellbeing is. You can hardly equate pushing a religious doctrine on someone to a commercial product advertisement.

Edit: Saved for another post.

I agree with Luna (as usual). And I fail to see the relevance of your objection here. So what if it's subjective? (As if whether or not you want 2 for 1 tacos on Tuesday nites is an objective question.) The point is that all he is doing is offering something which you are free to decline. So why does the fact that what he's offering is religious make a difference in the perceived offensiveness of his offer?

Would it matter to you if he were handing out Qur'ans instead of Bibles? Would that be less offensive? What I'm trying to get at is whether your antipathy is for Christianity specifically or religion in general.

 

[lilithu]

:areyoucraWait a minute. Someone handed you a communist handbook and you refused the offer? ARE YOU CRAZY! I totally would have bought that from you just to say that I have a copy!

Why do you assume I declined? That was in college and I carried that around with me through several moves, finally giving it away in grad school. I pretty much used to say yes to anything, provided that I didn't already have a copy and they weren't asking money for it. Still have my Hare Krishna version of the Gita. They make a good translation.

It's not that hard to get a copy of Mao's book. I bet they sell them on Amazon. Tho I guess that's not as cool as getting one from a communist proselytizer in Berkeley, CA.

 

[lilithu]

I'm glad you asked! Read and enjoy!
http://www.chick.com/default.asp

:cover: My eyes my eyes!!

Seriously, that is some hate-filled twisted stuff.

 

[Neale]

...The point is that all he is doing is offering something which you are free to decline. So why does the fact that what he's offering is religious make a difference in the perceived offensiveness of his offer?

Would it matter to you if he were handing out Qur'ans instead of Bibles? Would that be less offensive? What I'm trying to get at is whether your antipathy is for Christianity specifically or religion in general.

My point, again, isn't with him doing his job of handing out the Bibles. My concerns come from him asking if "I wanted to be saved." I put another literature reference in there just to prove that it wouldn't fly at my university, or any in the Bible Belt if people handed out Q'uarans, or copies of Dianetics and audited people.

Pretend that the following hypothetical comparison isn't cool for a moment: If a bunch of people came to your school and handed out literature about demons and were asking the students if they wanted to be "unbewitched" and exorcized from such demons which actually exist as a universal, gospel truth (in their minds), would you find that offensive at all?

 

[ayani]

i'm ok with it. i kind of admire the men and women who stand around offering their little bibles. it must take some guts and conviction to do so. and they usually remind me of my grandfather. so i take a bible, and might flip through it later. there's some good stuff in the new testament, and i can always read something i didn't notice before.

 

[lilithu]

My point, again, isn't with him doing his job of handing out the Bibles. My concerns come from him asking if "I wanted to be saved." I put another literature reference in there just to prove that it wouldn't fly at my university, or any in the Bible Belt if people handed out Q'uarans, or copies of Dianetics and audited people.

Pretend that the following hypothetical comparison isn't cool for a moment: If a bunch of people came to your school and handed out literature about demons and were asking the students if they wanted to be "unbewitched" and exorcized from such demons which actually exist as a universal, gospel truth (in their minds), would you find that offensive at all?

I would find that hilarious, and it would definately be something that I'd want to check out.

My point, again, is why is it offensive that he's asking if you want to be saved? I wouldn't be offended if someone believed that purple penguins from Jupiter were coming to rescue only a few of us off this planet before they demolished it and asked if I wanted a seat on their spaceship. If it's something that you don't believe in then what is the big deal?

I hope that you can recognize that from the guys perspective, he has found something good that he wants to share with you. You may not agree with him that it's good but why get mad at him for it?

 

[lamplighter]

I'm glad you asked! Read and enjoy!
http://www.chick.com/default.asp

Wow thats...... I don't know if I should laugh histericly or be disgusted....
People hand this stuff out and don't get punched in the face?

 

[ayani]

Wow thats...... I don't know if I should laugh histericly or be disgusted....
People hand this stuff out and don't get punched in the face?

ugh, i don't know. never been handed one of them. it's both funny and disgusting, if you ask me.

some of them are down-right racist, anti-semitic, utterly misinformed, etc.

 

[lamplighter]

If I was Christian I'ld be upset at the image those people portray to others. It certainly doesn't warm up others to christianity with that kind of propganda. Also you guys get pocket sized green gideon bibles? Well I feel leftout, all I've gotten are the large red hard back variety.