That would be the Bible, in Hong Kong, according to Fox News:
The Good Book isn’t clean enough for Hong Kong.
Residents of the city are calling for an “indecent” label for the Bible, saying the text contains passages that are too gory for young eyes, Reuters reports.
At least 838 complaints had been registered Wednesday with the city’s Television and Entertainment Licensing authority after an anonymous Web site, truthbible.net, said the Bible “made one tremble” with its sexual and violent content, including rape and incest, the news agency reports.
If the Bible is labeled indecent in Hong Kong, people over the age of 18 will be the only ones able to purchase the book, and it would have to be sold with a warning label wrapped around the book.
The Web site truthbible.net already includes an English-language warning: “Legal Disclaimer Warning: This Web site contains Bible material which may offend and may not be distributed, circulated, sold, hired, given, lent, shown, played or projected to a person under the age of 18 years.”
But the prospect of the underage Bible ban has local ministers scoffing.
“If there is rape mentioned in the Bible, it doesn’t mean it encourages those activities,” Reuters quoted Reverend Wu Chi-wai, Protestant minister, as saying. “It’s just common sense … I don’t think that criticism will have strong support from the public.”
As one wag at Stand Firm (where I saw this item) said, “Actually, this might be the best possible way of getting teenagers interested in reading it…”
Seriously, though, this does make one wonder about the future of Christianity in Hong Kong. The faith is, to the extent possible, rigidly controlled elsewhere in the People’s Republic of China, save for the underground church that refuses to be regulated by the government. This may well be the start of a crackdown on the church in the name of “decency” in a city that was promised, when it reverted to Chinese sovereignty in 1997, that it would be able to retain its distinctive culture. Presumably that would include freedom of religion.
