For decades now, Horace Turner (a.k.a. “Bible Man”) has been making appearances at public schools. In 2012, a school district in Alabama was threatened with a lawsuit to stop the proselytizing… and the board voted to do nothing; in essence, they dared the Freedom From Religion Foundation to sue them.

Bible Man couldn’t deflect the unwanted attention this time around. The Grundy County Department of Education in Tennessee has promised that Bible Man will no longer be allowed to “lead religious classes” at a local elementary school.

According to FFRF’s Rebecca Markert, the problems were numerous and appalling:

Mr. Turner has a history of leading overtly religious assemblies in northern Alabama. In the past, these assemblies have included “baby Jesus” displays, sermons proclaiming that “Jesus died on the cross for our sins,” bible readings, discussions about the meaning of bible stories, and distributions of religious literature. To our knowledge, the glaringly religious content has not changed. “Bible Man” assemblies unabashedly promote Christianity over other religions and religion over nonreligion. … … while some Christian evangelizers come as wolves dressed in sheep’s clothing, this world comes dressed as a wolf. “Bible Man’s” overtly religious and proselytizing messages are explicit.

For most parents in the area, I’m sure that’s a feature and not a bug, but it’s a major problem when students are led to believe their teachers want them to learn whatever Bible Man is telling them. It’s not the school’s job to teach kids religious nonsense parading as fact.

Looks like, in this case, the district saw the writing on the wall and ended the program before losing a lawsuit.

(Image via Shutterstock)



