By Mark Bennett
The Tribune Star

TERRE HAUTE, Ind.

In a rented room, somewhere in the black mountain hills of
Dakota, Rocky Raccoon found solace on his nightstand.

At least that’s how Paul McCartney sang the sad tale of a jilted guy who’d
just lost a fight and the girl he loved to a rival.

“Now Rocky Raccoon, he fell back in his room, only to find Gideon’s Bible.
Gideon checked out, and he left it no doubt to help with good Rocky’s
revival.”

McCartney crooned those classic lines in 1968 on The Beatles’ “White Album.”
Four decades later, Bibles from The Gideons International can be found in
hotel and motel rooms in 180 countries, distributed quietly and methodically
by a legion of members and volunteers.

That practice began exactly a century ago this month in a Montana hotel, not
far from those Black Hills where the fictional Rocky met his match. Since
then, The Gideons say they’ve circulated 1.3 billion Bibles worldwide,
including 500 million in the past 10 years. They place the books in hotels
and motels free of charge, and replace them every six years. They rely on
donations from churches, individuals, corporations and foundations to
produce the Bibles in 80 different languages.

The survival of such a tradition, between religion and an industry, for so
long is a testament to The Gideons’ determination.

“They’re an amazing organization on several levels,” said Paul Gutjahr, an
associate professor of English at Indiana University and the author of the
1999 book “An American Bible.” Gutjahr also wrote the entry on The Gideons
for an upcoming literary release, tentatively titled “The Oxford Companion
to the Book.”

The nondenominational evangelical group, founded in 1899 in Janesville, Wis.,
is now based in Nashville, Tenn. It labels itself as the nation’s “oldest
business and professional men’s organization.” Gideons International has
260,000 members and “an untold number of supporters.”

“It’s all volunteer, practically,” Gutjahr said, “which is amazing. They’re
just very committed to getting the word out.”

That word is out in the open in the rooms of some hotels, such as the Holiday
Inn-Terre Haute along U.S. 41 on the city’s southside. Bill Burdine, its
longtime area manager, opts to have The Gideons Bible resting atop the
rooms’ nightstands, rather than inside the drawers.

“In this hotel, the Bible is displayed, because that’s my choice,” said
Burdine, in his 46th year in the lodging business. The hotel also adds a
“Travelers’ Prayer” bookmark inside the Bibles.

Each time a new hotel opens, The Gideons arrive, say a prayer in the lobby
and place the Bibles in rooms, Burdine explained. He calls that practice “a
tremendous service.”

In Terre Haute, the Gideons most recently stocked the new extended-stay
Candlewood Suites on Wabash Avenue. On its opening day last month, one of
the finishing touches was the distribution of four boxes of Bibles into its
81 suites. The owner of that hotel and numerous others sees that moment as a
routine order of business.

“We’re more in a habit of it,” said Tim Dora, co-owner of Dora Bros.
Hospitality Corp., which runs hotels in Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and
North Dakota.

Some get taken

Like the local Holiday Inn, the nearby Drury Inn openly displays The Gideons
Bible atop each nightstand. Many get read, said Crystal Houser, the Drury’s
front office manager for the past nine years. “We’ve actually had guests ask
if they can take one, and we say, ‘Sure, we have extras,’” she said. “I just
think it’s great that people still want one.”

Sometimes, travelers simply take the books. “Some of them disappear, and some
of them don’t,” said Sean O’Rourke, general manager of Terre Haute’s
Fairfield Inn for the past 10 years.

The Gideons anticipate that. Their six-year replacement cycle overcompensates
for the number lost to wear and tear. Besides, a guest leaving with a Bible
marks a success, too, The Gideons say.

“That people are still taking these [Bibles] out of hotel rooms shows they
must be making some impact,” said Gutjahr. Spiritual needs appear to be the
cause of such thefts, because Gideons Bibles have little resale value. “It’s
not like you’re taking a Krugerrand out of the hotel room,” he added.

The organization’s Web site, www.gideons.org, cites testimonials of lost
travelers, saved from the brink of suicide and despair by turning to their
bedside Bibles. The Gideons estimate that each hotel Bible is seen by 2,300
people in its six-year lifespan.

They’ve grabbed a few headlines over the decades, though, most often for
distributing Bibles to elementary school students, rather than for their
hotel room tradition. The American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana stepped
in back in the 1990s over The Gideons’ efforts to pass out Bibles in
schools, said Ken Falk, legal director of the Indiana ACLU.

By contrast, though, Falk emphasized that The Gideons’ practice of supplying
Bibles to willing private hotels and motels is something the ACLU would
fight to protect, if asked.

“From a free exercise standpoint, The Gideons have a perfect right to do
that,” Falk said, “and we would support them.”

Acceptance fades in places

Some people object to the mere presence of a bedside Gideons Bible at hotels.
At the Holiday Inn-Terre Haute, Burdine gets one or two complaints a month.
“In my early career, I never had a complaint about one,” he said.

Perhaps the most organized opposition, nationally, comes from the Freedom
From Religion Foundation, a 30-year-old group with 12,600 members, including
162 in Indiana. FFRF sells “Bible warning labels” that members stick on the
books’ covers when they find them in hotels. They oppose, among many things,
The Gideons’ status as a men’s organization, the choice of the biblical
figure Gideon as a namesake, and the placement of Bibles — unrequested — in
rooms.

Changing attitudes about religion and a growing religious diversity have led
some hotel chains to offer more than one religious text. “They’re putting
the Koran and the Book of Mormon along with The Gideons Bible,” Joe
McInerney, president of the American Hotels and Lodging Association, said
last week from his office in Washington, D.C.

But McInerney doesn’t see a “big trend” away from nightstand Bibles.

Still, some hotels may eventually opt to place a note in room drawers to
inform guests that various religious texts are available upon request from
the concierge, McInerney said, “because you have to be sensitive to
everybody’s needs.”

The Gideons, themselves, have been very polite and prompt in Gutjahr’s
encounters with them, and aren’t a “secret society” as they’ve sometimes
been characterized. They simply remain “totally committed,” as he put it, to
their cause of quietly spreading their faith with each nightstand Bible.

“Part of their success,” Gutjahr said, “is they know what they’re about.”

Mark Bennett can be reached at mark.bennett@tribstar.com.

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cutline:

Gideon's: A Gideon's Bible sits on the night stand at the Holiday Inn in Terre Haute. The Bible has been in hotels for 100 years.
(Photo by Bob Poynter, Tribune-Star)