Saturday 13 April 2013

Gideon teacher fired for Bible given to curious student

Gideon teacher fired for Bible given to curious student, A respected Gideon and long-time substitute teacher was fired for a Bible given to a student in the Phillipsburg, N.J., school district. According to an April 12 article on the Christian Post, Walter Tutka was fired for allegedly breaking two official policies of the school system: distributing religious materials and discussing religious materials in a way that is not neutral.

His attorney, Hiram Sasser, explains that his client was only responding to the intellectual curiosity of a student when he was fired. With the support of the Liberty Foundation, Tutka has filed a discrimination complaint with the EEOC.

Although the substitute teacher is a member of Gideons International, a group dedicated to distributing Bibles, he was not acting in that capacity when he gave a student a Bible. A middle-school student had asked for the background of a phrase that the teacher had used when they were in line. Tutka had jokingly told the boy, who was last in the line, that the “first will be last and the last will be first.”

A few days later, the boy inquired about the origin of the phrase, and the teacher informed him it was in the Bible. The phrase appears in Matthew 19:30 and Mark 10:31. It is commonly used as an axiom in many cultures.

The student inquired about the phrase again on another occasion in the lunchroom at which time he just pulled his little Gideon Bible out and showed him the verse.

After the student said he did not have a Bible, the teacher offered to just let him keep his New Testament. Walter Tutka was suspended and later fired.

1 comment:

  1. What a shame. America has fallen so far, from reading the Bible in school everyday, along with our pledge to the flag. Now many public schools don't even allow a Bible to be displayed. Maybe if we had Bibles around the schools, we wouldn't need to fear all of the shootings that have been happening in the past few years. Years ago, there wasn't an absence of guns, but we never heard of a school shooting. Things sure have changed, and NOT for the better.

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