Fear the Gideons!

I was staying in a hotel last week and, looking around my room as I always do (even more so since the arrival of cheap spycams), I actually found myself skimming through the first few pages of the complimentary Bible I found in my bedside table. 

I'm not a religious person at all but it occurred to me that I have seen hundreds of Gideons' Bibles in hotels but had never actually opened one up. Until now. Curiosity had finally got the better of me.

The frontispioece told me that The Gideons are ‘an association of Christian business and professional men and their wives who believe that the Bible is the inspired work of God’ and that they ‘place Bibles in hotel bedrooms where a succession of readers can find the word of God.’ 

What an oddly specific way of spreading the word. But they do it a lot. And not just hotels - they also distribute to hospitals and other medical offices, schools (usually in first year) and colleges, military bases, as well as jails and prisons. The Gideons have distributed over two billion Bibles in the past but are now scaling back operations.

Gideons International’s executive director Dan Heighway attributes the drop to a backlog of inventory from overproduction in the past. The initial concept was to catch the thousands of travelling salesmen who lived their lives moving from hotel to hotel. That lifestyle is all but vanished these days thanks to the internet. And the number of hotels accepting Bibles has dropped about 20% over the past decade, according to hospitality industry studies. Therefore, according to Heighway, the Gideons are in a period of 'refocusing and rebalancing' the ministry. 'I think in any human organisation you have what I’m going to call ‘mission drift,'’ he explains. 'In many ways we’re mission true, but we felt God leading us to ask the question, "Are we putting so much emphasis on Scripture distribution that we’re drifting from our core?"'

The Gideons' Bible has become a pop icon, even mentioned in lyrics by bands like The Beatles and Jethro Tull. And they're easy to identify because of their logo - an old fashioned stone jar or amphora  with big handles on both sides. It looks like a silhouette of King Charles. Only his hair’s on fire as there’s a flame emerging from the top. Apparently it symbolises a jar with a flaming torch of the kind that ‘Gideon used during his night attack’. 

Night attack? I’ll admit that I don’t know the Bible at all well but I don’t remember hearing about any night attacks at Sunday School. Apparently, it relates to Gideon's victory over the Midianites as described in Judges, Chapter 7. But is someone who commits night attacks really the best patron for a society that deals exclusively with lonely people in hotel rooms in unfamiliar towns and cities? 

And it gets worse … 

Once you're past the preface, the Guideons' Bible has a handy ‘Where to find help when …’ section. Among the subjects listed are: 

Afraid or fearful. 

Anxious or worried. 

In danger. 

Depressed or discouraged. 

Feeling inadequate. 

Lonely. 

Needing sleep. 

Troubled. 

So now I’m all alone in a strange room in a strange town and I’m being reminded of all the things I'm unhappy about or scared of by a society based around a bloke that apparently attacked people at night. 

Great. 

I double-locked the door and shut the windows overnight. Just to be safe. 

You never know.