A Christian ministry's plan to distribute copies of the New Testaments with the Saturday or Sunday newspaper in the U.S. has faced opposition from an unlikely quarter, Christians themselves.
The International Bible Society – Send the Light is planning to distribute Bibles with 11 newspapers during 2007 and 2008, which will cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, reported AP on Tuesday. However, a senior figure in one of the newspapers involved in the project told AP he had received complaints from Christians who said that the Bible distributed could be thrown away.
"I expected that we'd get some criticism, but I thought it would be coming from people who were not Christian or not religious at all. Many of the complaints we got were from people who were Christian and didn't like the idea," said Bob Ray Sanders, the Star-Telegram's vice president and associate editor.
Despite the objections, the Christian ministry based in Colorado is still continuing with the project. The outreach, known as 'City Reachers,' is targeted at newspaper subscribers in the U.S. with the first city being Kansas; where it aims to distribute more than 200,000 bibles at a cost of more than $400,000 in November 2007.
On its website, the ministry emphasises the importance of the Bible, stating that it is a sourcebook for knowing right and wrong in a 'confused society.'
"It is a sourcebook for everyday living. We find standards for our conduct, guidelines for knowing right from wrong, principles to help us in a confused society where so often "anything goes," which was declared on the website.
In 2006, the International Bible Society and the Send the Light announced a merger between the two ministries creating one of the world's largest translators and distributors of Scripture while becoming a leading global distributor of Christian literature.