This Sunday morning we had a speaker from the Gideons at our church. I grew up in the Chicago area and remember when I was in junior high school there were a couple of guys standing on the sidewalk surrounding the school. As my friends and I began walking home one of those guys started walking towards. We wondered what kind of child molester was going to attack us. Instead he gave us these nuclear orange New Testaments. Everyone was pretty freaked out, but relieved that it was just some guy giving out stuff. None of my friends were particularly religious and they did not appreciate being scared to death to be given something they didn’t want. When they got a suitable distance away they threw their Bibles on the ground. I tried to explain that the guy was just being nice and I felt bad and picked up the New Testaments and carried home 6 nuclear orange books.
I appreciate what the Gideons try to do by making Bibles available to people, but there are a few things I think that they need to deal with in today’s world. First of all is finding a more readable translation of the Bible to use. I can barely read the King James Bible and I grew up reading it. Also, don’t scare the crap out people you’re giving the Bibles to.
4 comments:
What does Nuclear Orange mean? I know the different cover colours mean different things...green for doctors, blue for airline pilots, etc.
Not sure about orange, but the Gideon website says this:
The pocket-sized New Testaments with Psalms and Proverbs are distributed in a variety of colors by Gideon members to defined groups of individuals (dark green for servicemen/law enforcement personnel/firefighters/EMTs, white for medical personnel, red for school children 5th to 12th grades, light green for college students, etc.).
Really? The colors are significant? I remember when they came to my high school and I took an orange one to be polite, even though at the time I was hostile to Christianity. They also came to my college after I became a Christian and I took one again to be polite, while other people were just short of spitting on the guys. I appreciate what they are doing also, but it is definitely not the most readable version for most people.
Orange Bible on the right
At Baylor, I think they only gave light green ones (probably in deference to the burnt orange college down the road.)
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