City of Elkhart Promotes Faith-Based Event
MyElkhart311 is an official mobile app for the city of Elkhart, Indiana. The purpose of the app is to streamline engagement and department workflow and for the city to keep its residents updated on parks and facilities, culture and entertainment, news, and special events. On Friday, August 7, the city sent a notification to app users that “Cover Me,” a faith-based film, would be shown on private property in the city on Sunday evening.
This type of government promotion of religion raises red flags. NIA President Troy Moss called the MyElkhart311 phone line to inquire about the notification. Trina Harris, 311 coordinator, said she’s in charge of promoting community events and she triggered the notification. She defended the notification by pointing out that she promoted “Sing,” a secular animated film voiced by Matthew McConaughey, Reese Witherspoon, Seth MacFarlane, and Scarlett Johansson the week before at a private business that was sponsored by the Elkhart Public Library.
Moss went to the movie screening to assess the event. Right off the bat, he was greeted with music from the first film they would be showing. “Cover Me,” by Jaci Velasquez, has lyrics like “I will cry to You, my God my King. I will cry for mercy, to You I sing.” We weren’t off to a great start.
But the most shocking thing about the evening happened just before the movie “Cover Me” began. As Mark Smith, executive producer of Cover Me, interviewed Carla, former human relations commissioner for the city of Elkhart, she confessed to government employees using their official capacities to distribute copies of “The Story of Jesus for Children” to coworkers and community members. “Mayor Miller’s goal wasn't to be the most grand mayor Elkhart ever had,” Carla said. “His goal was to touch every family with Jesus.” As she said this, audience members cheered. Carla continued, “At the end of his terms, he went to all the churches and said, ‘You are the community; take this film and give it to your congregations. And give them more and they’ll give them to their neighbors until everyone in Elkhart county has a “Jesus” film.’ And so that’s what we did. We all took them home to our families, then our neighbors, then people would call and say, ‘Hey, I didn’t get one’ and take them to their homes.” Dave Miller was mayor of Elkhart from 1999 to 2007.
On top of all that, while “Cover Me” was starting, representatives of the movie came around and handed sheets of paper into each car. These sheets asked audience members to buy into the program and become part of the movement. The entire event was a sales pitch. Smith was targeting religious people to take the program idea back and sell it to their churches. It’s a movement! Buy the program, and the movie, and the book, and the soundtrack, and the novelty coronavirus masks which are only available for people who sign up tonight at this event!
The second movie shown that night was “The Story of Jesus for Children,” which can can be viewed here: Jesus film. This is the material Carla mentioned passing out to people in Elkhart in her official capacity as a city employee.
The 311 Coordinator, seemed to understand the concern about government promotion of religion and said she would be more careful in the future. We will continue to keep an eye on this app and the promotions the City of Elkhart puts on their website.
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