Todd Starnes from Fox News recently reported on a charter school in California that decided to purge books…not just any books though. According to this report, the school decided to remove all books from their library that were “written by a Christian author or had a Christian message.” Nothing like a library that tells you what you are going to read.
A parent who happened to be visiting the school discovered this book purging. According to the Pacific Justice Institute who is helping correct this issue, a parent of one of the students was told, “…the library would no longer be carrying those [Christian] books.” In fact, the Pacific Justice Institute reported that their client actually took some of the Christian books from the library after the library decided to give them away.
According to the report, one of the books that was purged from the school library was a book titled, “The Hiding Place” written by Corrie ten Boom. Ten Boom was a Christian who actually prevented many Jews from being sent to Nazi concentration camps and saved countless lives.
When questioned about this purging, the school superintendent said this:
We are a public school, and as such, we are barred by law from purchasing sectarian curriculum materials with state funds. We only keep on our shelves the books that we are authorized to purchase with public funds.
So now it really gets interesting. Who decides what is sectarian curriculum. Todd Starnes makes an interesting point here. He asks what about the work of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.? Should that be purged? After all, he is a pastor. Should all his writing about the civil rights movement be purged because he has Rev. in front of his name?
And why should any library purge material in the first place? What a way to silence those who disagree with your beliefs…just remove all their writing from your shelves. Let’s not engage in open dialog about differing points of view; let’s just remove their arguments from our library shelves.
I always thought educational institutions were places for open debate and discussion. I suppose when you believe the light of truth will expose the errors of your beliefs, it’s just easier to win the debate by just silencing your critics.
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