Dear Editor:
According to one letter writer, junketing independent Baptist pastors got permission from the ethics committee of the U.S. House and Senate to give a facsimile of an early American Bible to each of our federal legislators in person.
I think that the writer's reason for telling us that permission was asked for prior to distributing the Bibles was to promote the myth that Christians are on hostile ground wherever they turn and that they have to watch their step.
We were told that these guileless pastors wanted absolutely nothing from the legislators. Of course, that's not really true. Common sense tells us that the independent Baptists believed that the likelihood of favorable future action by members of the U.S. House and Senate was increased by personal contact and the offering of a gift.
The trip was a dramatic public relations ploy. It was an obvious attempt to improve name recognition and cultivate good will for the independent Baptists who live in the shadow of the far more well-known and powerful Southern Baptist Convention.
Christians deem to feel entitled to these little lies. Their implied testimony is that their god is a liar. Maybe they are right.