The Good Book is making for bad blood in Waterloo Region. The region’s public school board is under fire from critics demanding that it stop distributing Bibles. In response, supporters of the program have leapt to the board’s defence, arguing that the board’s policy is perfectly fair because it is extended to all faiths, not just Christian. So what should the Waterloo Region District School Board do?

Whatever this community can’t agree on, it should acknowledge this is a complex issue; reasonable people of good will can reach different conclusions. Opponents of the Bible giveaway maintain that the public school board is a secular institution that should assiduously avoid involvement in any religious matters. For them, the board’s policy crosses the line that must separate church and state in Canada. Moreover, even if most people in Waterloo Region support the policy, to use that as an argument would be trampling on the rights of minorities.

In response, supporters of the Bible program see it as an important opportunity to let children, with parental consent, learn about the faith that shaped Canada and is still adhered to by more Canadians than any other.

The board can’t satisfy everyone. For now, its policy should stand. It is fair. It is open not just to Gideons International, which distributes Bibles, but to any other faith group that wants to give out its sacred texts. No member of Gideons appears in a classroom. There is no proselytization in the schools. There is no indoctrination going on. No one in a classroom is being exposed to Christian doctrine. Indeed, while some people are offended by the Bible giveaway, it is difficult to see how any real harm has been caused. The board merely acts as a communicator and distributor, sending a letter home to parents telling them of the Gideons’ offer of a free Bible, then giving a Bible to those whose parents have freely chosen to accept one. And remember: The board is willing to do the same for other religious groups that ask.

That said, the board has more work to do with this issue. If other groups step forward asking for help in distributing their religious material, particularly of a more interpretive kind, the board might find itself with a huge administrative headache. It might see staff and trustees spending valuable time vetting complex religious materials.

Moreover, what if the board decides at some point that it cannot distribute religious materials which it finds objectionable? Could it wind up at the Ontario Human Rights Commission defending itself against a complaint that it was unfairly discriminating against a specific group? Even now, the board could be vulnerable to such action. While its policy treats all groups equally, do Christians have an unfair advantage, a privilege that comes from the fact that they are numerically the largest faith in Canada? The board’s critics would say so.

In the coming days, the board’s lawyers should provide clarification on these matters. If the board is racing toward a legal train wreck, it might want to stop the engine.

This is also a time for the board to consult with the community at large, to hear and weigh the public’s views with care. Specifically, the board should talk with representatives from Interfaith Grand River, a group that includes members of this area’s diverse faith communities. The board could, for instance, use Interfaith Grand River as a way to communicate with other faith groups and tell them how the board could facilitate the distribution of their sacred texts.

Religion can be bitterly divisive. Must it always be so? Rather than treating this as a contest where one side loses and the other wins all the marbles, can people in this region listen to each other and use this issue as a way to increase tolerance, mutual understanding and respect? Rather than recoiling from religious texts as we would pornography, could we not see them as age-old, ageless repositories of wisdom, compassion, a basic morality founded on doing good that all humans share, as well as expressions of absolute awe at the magnificence of creation?

Perhaps the time is coming when we have to stop the board distributing Bibles. Yet wouldn’t it be more valuable to give children the opportunity to read not just their own copies of this sacred work but the Qur’an, the Bhagavad-Gita, the Vedas, the Hebrew Bible, the Tao Te Ching and other books that other humans call holy?