Photo Credit: News 24
Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin, who never misses an opportunity to promote Christianity, used this 4th October — known as the Bring Your Bible to School Day — to release a video encouraging students to bring their Bibles to school. The Republican Governor spoke in honor of this event, which is sponsored by Focus on the Family, and promoted the student's right to bring their Bible to school on this date.
According to Patheos, the Governor stated the following:
"Hi. This is Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin. If you go to school in Kentucky, I want to encourage you to be aware of a date, October the 4th, in an event that is coming up. It began rather quietly four years ago, 2014. Bring Your Bible to School Day was something that was launched. About 8,000 children participated across the country. Last year, three years later, about a half a million did the same thing; including many of you from right here in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. The Bible is an amazing document. Has an incredible amount of history, knowledge, wisdom, guidance, things that our Founders understood and took to heart as they set this entire nation in motion. I want to encourage you to take part in this day at your school. You can learn more by going to BringYourBible.org. BringYourBible.org. This is your constitutional right, not just on October 4th, but every day. We are Kentucky."
In this very last sentence of the Governor's speech the whole paradox of this event and his encouragement is summed up. If every student has the right to bring his Bible to school, not just on October the 4th but every day, and this is a student constitutional right, why organize a special event and even name October the 4th as Bring Your Bible to School Day? What motivated the Governor to promote this event and encourage students to bring their Bibles to school on this date? He promotes the idea that our Founding Fathers used biblical principles to draft the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights. He claimed that the Bible is really the founding document for our nation’s history and thus it deserves its own date and event. But there is a problem with this claim: it has no historical backing.
Moreover, the Governor used his speech to urge all students to bring a Bible to school on October 4th, not just Christian ones. Would he would ever tell all students to bring a Quran if there was a similar day for Muslims? He restrained himself from crossing the line by calling for students to accept Jesus. But this already sound like a strong religious message and it’s not supposed to be part of a Governor's speech.
