NASHVILLE, Tennessee — Tennessee residents overseeing an effort to donate Aitken Bibles to the state’s elementary, middle, and high schools held their inaugural luncheon at a Nashville restaurant on Saturday.
American Bible Project founder Stephen Skelton said the date of the event, September 12, held significance.
“This date, September 12 is not chosen by accident. Here we stand at the 238th year of the anniversary of Congress approving the [Aitken] Bible. And, by the way, it shouldn’t escape our attention that when Congress approved the Aitken Bible they not only approved it they then turned around and recommended it. That tells us two things at a minimum. Our founders were men of faith, because, after all, they just approved the printing of the first American Bible. And they knew something about the people of this country that many of us have forgotten today. At our foundation we were a people of faith. After all, it was recommended that all the inhabitants of America read that Bible,” Skelton said.
“That is vitally important for this reason. A lot of times in life if you remember where you came from you can remember where you should be going. As you get on in life you think of the way your father and mother raised you and hope that they raised you in the right way. You make the right decisions based on that. I think the same is true of our country.”
And that, Skelton said, “Is what the battle for the future of America is all about.”
“It’s whether we are going to continue to raise generations of our country with little to no knowledge of the Bible’s vital role in the founding of our country,” Skelton said.
“Just the history of it. We are going to put the Bible back into school, where it never should have left.”
As The Tennessee Star reported this week, Nashville physician Ming Wang is also involved in the project.
“We are not putting this Bible in schools as a piece of religious teaching,” Wang said this week.
“This is a piece of a historical document to show the students what our Founding Fathers were thinking at the time [of the American Revolutionhttps://www.biblesinschools.com/" target="_blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background: 0px 0px; color: rgb(165, 58, 0); text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.3s ease-in-out 0s;" data-wpel-link="external">According to BiblesinSchools.com, the Aitken Bible Historical Foundation is a nonprofit that manages the American Bible Project.
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Chris Butler is an investigative journalist at The Tennessee Star. Follow Chris on Facebook. Email tips to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
