
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, March 28, 1992                   TAG: 9203300180
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-11   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

A BIBLICAL TALE IN CARROLL COUNTY

I DON'T CLAIM to know much about either the Bible or Carroll County, and I know none of the people mentioned in Paul Dellinger's news article "Evangelist demands book ban," which appeared on March 21. Still, the story seemed to have the elements of a biblical tale.

In Marion Goldwasser we see a teacher with loving concern for the education of her charges. That and the esteem in which she is held by her colleagues show her as one with qualities not unlike those of the protagonist of the New Testament.

Evangelist J.B. Lineberry, with his authoritarian and self-righteous personality, is ready to use the power of the state to impose his moral code on the rest of the community. He would fit well with the Pharisees and priests who were threatened by Jesus' appeal.

From the statements of Principal Harold Golding, we hear an administrator who wants to solve the problem by mollifying the influential plaintiffs, so his own career is not troubled. Here is our Pontius Pilate.

Our country's founders know the damage that religious zealots could do. They did not, and we do not, want our best people persecuted by bigots pretending to act in the name of God. DAVID M. BERNARD BLACKSBURG

by CNB