At the University of Texas at San Antonio, some atheist students set up a table offering to exchange adult magazines in exchange for Bibles. The program was modeled after one done in Austin, Texas, and this in turn was modeled after police exchange programs offering things like toys in exchange for guns. Some Christians were very unhappy.

According to XBiz:

“We consider the bible to be a very negative force in the history of the world,” student Ryan Walker said. Walker is part of a student group that calls itself the Atheist Agenda. [...]

The group ... has raised the ire of several religious organizations on campus. “In my opinion, there are no atheists. There are fools,” Pastor Rick Hawkins of UTSA’s Family Praise Center said. “So, that would be foolish propaganda. I don’t know one believer that would take his Bible and turn it in for pornography.”

As the report notes, several students had in fact exchanged Bible for pornography. There’s something ironically appropriate about Rick Hawkins forming a conclusion about this without bothering to research the matter. Once again, ideology and wishful thinking win out over reality.

These atheists should probably get together with German Protestant students who have created a erotic calendar based on scenes from the Bible:

Nuremberg pastor Bernd Grasser said: “It’s just wonderful when teenagers commit themselves with their hair and their skin to the bible.”

“There’s a whole range of biblical scriptures simply bursting with eroticism,” said Stefan Wiest, 32, who took the racy photographs.

Anne Rohmer, 21, wearing garters and stockings, posed on a doorstep as the prostitute Rahab. “We wanted to represent the Bible in a different way and to interest young people. Anyway, it doesn’t say anywhere in the Bible that you are forbidden to show yourself nude.”

I doubt people will trade the calendars for adult magazines. However, distributing the calendars in exchange for Bibles would be an interesting idea, I think. Religious leaders would have less cause for complaint, but the atheists’ points may be made even better. American Christians could use a good dose of the attitude of German Christians like Rohmer.

 

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