Chasing the Wind

I don’t see how this passes for news. A Houston Chronicle reporter doesn’t like bible studies going on in the courthouse.

Just before 12:30 p.m. almost every Tuesday, Judge James Squier leaves his 312th Court and heads upstairs to the seventh floor of the Harris County Family Law Center.

There, in an associate judge’s chamber, he joins 15 or 20 other courthouse Christians — lawyers, bailiffs and clerks — for Bible study. The group spent about two years combing through the book of Matthew, and another two on Acts. Right now, they’re about a year into John.

“Isn’t that a problem?” I asked Squier recently. He knew I wasn’t talking about the study group’s less-than-blistering pace. I meant the very existence of courthouse Bible study. To me, Bible study sounds like “church,” and the Harris County courthouse sounds like “state.” Aren’t church and state supposed to stay separate?

Apparently it’s non-factual news. Other than media-driven misperception, there is no “separation of church and state.”

I don’t see the purpose of the article, either. Lisa Gray has a large megaphone in the Chronicle, and to print this as “news” is inadequate. It’s personal prejudice against Christians. She’s already well aware that it’s perfectly legal, she just doesn’t “like it”. Since when does the personal prejudice of a reporter get to be news? I don’t like eggplant, but that doesn’t seem to make the news.

I may not like it. I may not think it’s fair. But at the county courthouse, crawling through the New Testament a few verses a week could help you to the fast track.

Before she makes an accusation like “crawling through the New Testament a few verses a week could help you to the fast track” again, perhaps she ought to spend a few months reading the bible with the judge and see what really happens.