There is something about the name Jesus Christ that drives the non-believer mad. Any reference to the name (or to a quotation) of Jesus arouses in the non-believer a dissonance that cannot be aroused by any other source. I thought about that dissonance – a feeling I used to experience regularly – when I received a call from a distressed co-worker who, unlike me, does not have the benefit of tenure.

That untenured co-worker was distressed because his supervisor had told him that some people were offended by the use of Bible verses in emails sent using the university email system. The university system had been altered to include a function that allowed people to add a personal signature. That signature appears automatically at the bottom of every email they send.
Some employees had chosen to add a Bible verse below their name and to save it using the signature function.

The problem, according to the employee who contacted me, was not that some people were offended by the Bible verses. The problem was that there was a proposed ban, which was, according to his understanding, to apply only to Bible verses. This was surely done to preserve the so-called “wall of separation” between of church and state.

This “wall” is mentioned nowhere in our Constitution and is generally used as a device to impede the free exercise of religion, which is mentioned in our Constitution.

For more, read here.

Mike Adams is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Criminal Justice at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington [email protected]