Last week’s column included a reference to a legislative proposal for daily mandated Bible readings in public schools, House Bill 162, which said the reading must come from “the King James version, the new King James version, or the revised standard version of the Bible.”
That sounds specific but it’s actually not. Nor is it likely to be welcomed by all Christians. (The bill failed to pass in the last session.)
I thought of this as I looked up at my bookshelf to my copy of the King James and, next to it, a version of the Bible called “The Way” (which I’ve read more often), written in more modern English, which I was given back in the 70s and now is relatively obscure.
There are multiple versions of the King James (first published in 1611, ordered up by the king in part because he thought an older Bible was insufficiently supportive of his divine right of rule), and it has been revised from time to time over the centuries since. What the bill means by the “revised standard version” is unclear, because there are many versions. Many Protestant churches use the New International Version (1978), or the English Standard Version (2001) or the New Living Translation (1996). But some Protestant churches have been known to use others as well.
The Bibles of the Catholic Church (Idaho’s second-largest) typically include 73 books rather than the Protestant 66. The Douay-Rheims Bible has been described as “the Catholic equivalent of the King James Version,” but the New American Bible is thought to be more popular, while some prefer the Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition.
Many Orthodox Christians like the Orthodox Study Bible (2008), while the Septuagint (LXX) is considered a basic text.
Many more options are available, of course. Such as: “One of the most significant developments in the digital age has been the creation of Bible apps. Among the most popular is YouVersion , commonly referred to as the Bible App. Launched in 2008, this app provides users with access to hundreds of Bible translations …”
Of course, many people of faith fall neatly into none of these categories, which brings us to the large variation in people of faith even, yes, in Idaho.
Put aside for a moment the significant numbers of Idaho’s atheist, agnostic and “none of the above” people - estimated as high as 40% of the population in one 2023 study, though that seems high - and look just at religious groups in the state.
According to the Association of Religion Data Archives, about 70 have a presence in Idaho, and more report no local adherents but do cite "congregations."
The largest by far, unsurprisingly, is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (which uses the Book of Mormon as a key text), whose members account for 47.6% of all religious adherents in the state. The next largest is the Catholic Church (21%). From there, the numbers by denomination are much smaller.
Non-denominational Christian churches accounted for about a tenth of all adherents, but those churches cover a wide range of approaches. The Church of Christ and Assemblies of God together add up to just under 6%, but others, the dozens of other Christian organizations, are all small in size and many vary a great deal in how they worship. The variety may come as a surprise: In Idaho, there are congregants of the Church of the Brethren, Salvation Army, Serbian Orthodox Church in North America, Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, Ecumenical Catholic Communion and the Coptic Orthodox Church, among others, alongside the better-known Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians and more.
Remember too the adherents of non-Christian faiths (whose rights specifically were defended by the nation’s founders) are found in Idaho as well. There are Muslims (six congregations estimated), and Hindu, Reform Judaism, Baha’i Faith, Theravada Buddhist, Vajarayana Buddhist, and Mahayana Buddhist.
So whose Bible, and which strand of faith, among so many choices, gets the state’s seal of approval?
Select any one, as you must under the terms of this kind of legislation, and you’re demolishing freedom of religion: The right of everyone to believe and worship (or not) freely, as they see fit, with none advantaged over another.
It’s not freedom of religion, but its destruction, that the new religion advocates are trying to push.
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