Being promiscuous is "what being a 'slave' means," the book said

May 10, 2024

Elementary school students in Louisiana were given books equating premarital sex to slavery and urging them to convert to Christianity, all because a local church was given permission to come on school property and target children.

All of this happened in early April at Lessie Moore Elementary, part of the Rapides Parish School District, in Pineville. Members of Journey Church in the same city were apparently given the green light to distribute literature on school property, which they did shortly after students were finished with breakfast one day—which is to say, during school hours.

Making matters worse, the book they distributed was “The Life Book.”

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You may be more familiar with the organization behind this book, Gideons International, the same ministry that puts bibles in hotel rooms. Perhaps aware that no one’s reading those bibles (or the miniature versions of them), Gideons began publishing The Life Book in 2009 specifically to attract teenagers. Rather than bore kids with Bible verses, the book offers hip, cool summaries of Bible stories—or at least what a bunch of adults think kids would find hip and cool—along with advice on dealing with teenage issues. It includes “annotations” from different fictional kids so you can see their “reactions” to what’s printed.

There’s also this note in the opening section, intended for parents, from “Uncle G.” (The G stands for Gideon.) He’s from the “hood.”

Elsewhere in the book, we’re told that Uncle G. spent time in a detention center and got “all dirty playing in the abandoned lot next to where we lived.” The backstory for the fictional character sticks to every stereotype imaginable.

It needs to be reiterated that this book is intended for teenagers. Even the ministry’s website says its mission is to place the Gospel “in the hands of every teenager in America.” That’s why it’s so troubling that an elementary school, one which only houses kids through third grade, allowed church members to hand out this book to kids probably no more than eight years old.

That’s partly because there’s a section of the book discussing (gasp) sex which includes Bible verses urging people not to be “slaves” to sin… along with the thoughts of one of the fictional teen annotators:

So many of my friends think they are ready for sex. But what do we really know? Are we ready for babies, STDs, and for broken hearts? I have a really good friend who thought she and her boyfriend were ready for sex, so they went ahead and had it. She thought it was love, but found out pretty fast that it wasn’t. She gave up her heart to a guy who didn’t really care, and dumped her a few weeks later. But then she figured that since she had already had sex once, it wasn’t a big deal to do it again... and again... and again. That is what being a “slave” means—she couldn’t stop herself even though she hated herself more and more every time she had sex with another guy. That’s why I think God saves sex for marriage — Tay

Besides the broken Purity Culture mindset that implies pre-marital sex is always terrible, always ends in heartbreak or disease, and always leads to sluttiness, it’s disturbing that these Christian writers think being a “slave” means having the ability to make your own decisions (even if you come to regret them). In that same section, “Uncle G.” tells kids “that even thinking about sex is too far” because “I was a teenage boy once and I know how their minds work.”

This book was handed out to kindergartners.

It’s such a disturbing section that even one of the fake teens annotating the book was wondering what the hell they’re talking about:

What is all this talk about slaves and sanctification? Are we still talking about sex? —PB 

Now the Freedom From Religion Foundation is getting involved.

In a letter from legal fellow Hirsh M. Joshi, the group asks the district to stop outside groups from distributing their literature on school grounds. The letter notes that the district seemed to recognize the problem pretty quickly and that administrators “instructed students to turn the bibles in later that day”—but the concerns are obvious.

Here, the school allowed one church group to push, present, and distribute one narrow interpretation of Christianity onto young students who are particularly impressionable. Even “The Life Book” website only contemplates its literature going to high school students. Instead, a religious text was given to these young students with the hope that they read it as truth—like everything else they get from school. That is jarring.

… Presumably, the school did not screen or otherwise view the nature of the literature being distributed on its campus. Giving a pass to churches on account of them being churches demonstrates a real bias that no other outside group would have.

The letter says that, according to the parent who raised concerns, kids were already talking about “The Sex Book” before it was snatched back by adults.

The district needs to make a decision. Are all outside groups allowed to distribute literature to students? Because if that’s the case, FFRF has material to give away. So do Satanists. Or are they going to prevent third-party distributions altogether?

The smart move would be to reject the distributions entirely since it’s clear they’re not being vetted.

By the way, the day this distribution occurred, April 9, coincides with a Facebook post made on the school’s page in which Journey Church is explicitly thanked for participating in a “Together Tuesday” event. Church members are shown mingling with students.

Maybe all of that was secular. But given the book giveaway, it’s hard to imagine there was no mention of religion during their interactions.