Gideon Bible Reflects How Hotels Have Fallen Behind the Times

Gerald L. Zelizer

Since 1898, when three traveling salesmen in Wisconsin decided "to win men and women, boys and girls for the Lord Jesus Christ," the Gideon Bible has been standard fare in hotel rooms for the bulk of American business travelers, vacationers and weekenders.

Regrettably, its exclusive reign in most places more accurately describes religion at the beginning of the century than at its end.

A lot has changed on the religious canvas, but this aspect of hotel decoration has not kept up. For example:

• Detroit has one of the largest Muslim populations in the United States. Yet, both the Ritz Carlton and Hyatt Regency Hotels place only the Gideon Bible in their drawers.
• Middlesex County, N.J., has seen one of the highest influxes of Indians and Pakistanis in the Northeast. Their religion is generally Hindu or Muslim. Yet, neither the Sheraton nor the Clarion Hotels in Edison, N.J., stock the sacred religious literature of Muslims or Hindus.
• Major hotels in the metropolitan New York region, with a Jewish population equal to that of Tel Aviv, generally provide only the Christian version of the Bible.

Nationally, the policy is the same in most chains, with a few exceptions.

Marriott Hotels -- partly owned by Bill Marriott, a Mormon -- supplements the Bible with the Book of Mormon, while the St. Regis in New York City provides prayer rugs for its Muslim guests and a statue of Buddha in one suite.

Adherents of diverse religions would welcome even more diversity. For example, Ibrahim Hooper, national communications director of the Council on American Islamic Relations, says such alternatives would "symbolize recognition of Muslim concerns."

Certainly, America is still fundamentally a country of Christians, but far less so. There are as many Muslims in the United States as Presbyterians -- 3.5 million. When immigration laws for Asians were liberalized in 1965, immigration from India increased annually from a few hundred to 25,000 a year.

Consequently, a Hindu population of 70,000 in 1977 has burgeoned into almost 1 million today. Buddhism may be the fastest-growing Eastern religion, with an estimated 750,000 American adherents. Jews, whose Eastern European immigrant ancestors in 1900 could hardly read English, now read it so well that they prefer translations of their own sacred literature.

And what of the newest religious phenomenon going into the millennium -- those who seek religion, but without the rigid doctrine that flows from most revealed religious texts?

Gideon's ubiquitousness cannot be blamed on its 130,000 emissaries worldwide, who fervently volunteer to circulate their Christian message discreetly. They have accomplished what they set out to do, distribute their Bibles, which cost on the average $1.20 apiece, at the rate of 1 million every 8.5 days in 76 languages in hotels, motels, hospitals, prisons, military bases, schools and universities.

Nor is the hotel industry intentionally discriminatory. It regards itself as faithfully assisting the 96% of the populace who profess belief in God with a volume that seemingly deepens that faith.

Certainly, no other religious group besides the Gideons is clamoring at the housekeeping department of hotels to provide the free distribution of its own sacred literature.

Deborah Bernstein, director of public relations for Sheraton Hotels, explains that "the Gideon Bible is a brand standard in America. ... Outside the U.S., we have religious material appropriate to that particular country and culture."

So how might the inspirational literature of U.S. hotels better serve this smorgasbord of believers?

Muslims may read the prophets of earlier Bibles, but their only perfect revelation is in the Koran. To Jews, there is no Old Testament superceded by a new, only one Testament consisting of the Five Books of Moses, the Prophets and the Writings. The closest equivalent in Hinduism is the Bhagavad Gita, and for Buddhists, Buddhism in Translation, by Henry Warren. And dabblers in New Age, some of whom simultaneously adhere to more classic religions, might also want to turn to the writing of their "high priestess," Marianne Williamson.

If the hotel industry is serious about serving the current market, then it should understand that what is standard is no longer representative of today's traveler of faith.

Comparable literature of other religions should be available, at the very least, at the front desk. At the same time, other religious entities should collaborate in freely providing their own sacred texts as easily as do the dedicated Gideons.