Re: Time to review Bible giveaway — Nov. 18

The Record’s editorial board, and many of those who have written letters about Bibles and our Waterloo Region Board of Education, don’t appear to have all the facts.

The Gideons International does not distribute Bibles to our Grade 5 students. They distribute material intended to convert Grade 5 students to the Gideons’ particular brand of Christianity.

“The Little Red Answer Book” includes portions of the Bible, along with several dozen pages of additional information that culminates with a form the children can fill out to record their conversion to evangelical Christianity.

This is not about providing our children the opportunity to study a holy book from one of the world’s major religions; it is about, in the words of the Gideons International mission statement, “winning . . . boys and girls to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.”

I believe that this clearly violates the Waterloo Region District School Board’s policy that states that religious “material should be provided for informational purposes and not for the purpose of proselytization” (that is, attempting to convert people to another religion). However, the majority of trustees felt otherwise.