Going Back to 5th Grade by Jerry Hinkle

     I was quite shocked to hear that the Miller, South Dakota School Board's decision to allow the men of Gideons International to distribute New Testament Bibles to 5th graders in their school has been as newsworthy as social media is making it. Perhaps it's because the ACLU is protesting the decision. I don't know. I've heard that the Gideons distributed these same Bibles at Georgia Morse Middle school earlier this year, but have heard no official confirmation of the same!

     One of my hobbies is playing "Are you smarter than a 5th grader" on Facebook. A good deal of the time, I am in fact smarter, other days, not so much. I can tell you one thing. Today's 5th Grader is expected to know all matter of things. From the Dewey Decimal system to the biology that I was struggling with in High School.

     They also have a subject that I never did during my 5th grade term, a subject called "Cultural Studies". This subject covers a lot of ground, from fairy tales, and Mythology from the Ancient Greek, Norse, and Egyptian cultures. They study Hinduism and Buddhism as well. American Religion is still of limits to them. Why is that?

     Some say it's because of a Constitutional separation of Church and State. Funny thing about that is that I've read the Constitution and that phrase never comes up-not once. It seems that the Supreme Court had to go outside the Constitution to a letter Thomas Jefferson wrote referring to a "wall of separation" between church and state. This wall was created, not to keep religion out of the state, however, but to keep the state out of religion.

     It seems to me if the school can teach them how the rest of the world worships, or used to worship, the least they could do is is include the Jewish-Christian God for comparison sake. Of course since I have not been blessed with children of my own, I'll just sit back and pray that the right thing is done by the children of this nation. The ACLU may not like the decision of the Miller School Board, but unless they have a child in that district, they need to let it be. If the parents have a problem, they are quite capable of going to the School Board on their own behalf. Perhaps the ACLU and other like minded groups could have someone passing out a booklet on their beliefs right beside the Gideons. Instead of censoring free speech, they need to join in the discussion-respectfully.

 God be with you and do the best you can!