HELENA, GA – In many ways it was simply the last straw for Fred Meade, senior pastor of the First Baptist Church of Helena.

“I’ve never been comfortable with the content of James chapter 2,” Meade told THO in a phone interview. “But when I heard John Kerry quote from it in the last presidential debate to support his pro-abortion stance, well, that was it for me. I just could not stand the thought of having something in my Bible that has come out of the mouth of a liberal senator from Massachusetts. I went directly to my bed stand and tore that chapter right out of my leather-bound King James Version.”

Little did Meade know that his actions would create a ripple effect across the nation.

“I emailed a pastor friend of mine in Dallas the next day, telling him that I had finally gotten rid of James chapter 2 for good,” Meade said. “I guess that inspired him to do the same, and then he e-mailed a few people to tell them about it. Then those people must have ditched the passage and e-mailed a few more. Before I knew what was happening I’d gone and started this whole big movement. Or I guess you might call it a re-movement.”

Meade began getting e-mails from other Christians all over the country thanking him for his leadership and letting him know that they too had physically removed the passage from their Bibles. Many went as far as removing the entire book of James.

The incident in question happened when Democratic Presidential Candidate John Kerry quoted from James 2 in the third and final presidential debate in a response to moderator Bob Schieffer’s question about Catholic archbishops who have discouraged church members from voting for candidates who, like Kerry, hold pro-choice views.

“There's a great passage of the Bible that says, ‘What does it mean, my brother, to say you have faith if there are no deeds? Faith without works is dead,’” Kerry said in the debate.

Since the days of Martin Luther, who did not believe the book of James to be part of the inerrant Word of God, protestants have had trouble with the book, which seems to fly in the face of the widely held Christian belief that salvation is attained by faith in Jesus Christ alone.

While neither Meade nor anyone else can come up with a reliable estimate of just how many Christians have removed James 2 from their Bibles, the movement has gotten attention from at least one prominent Christian figure.

“Let’s be honest. None of us have ever liked that book one bit. I challenge anyone out there to even tell me the last time their pastor preached a sermon from the book of James,” said Rev. Jerry Falwell, who has come out to publicly support ditching the passage in light of Kerry’s comments. “Then you get a soulless liberal like John Kerry, who uses his ‘faith’ only for political gain quoting from James to support his abortion agenda. I say be gone vile passage!”

Kerry Campaign Spokesman Joe Lockhart seemed amused by the news of the movement.

“So you’re telling me John Kerry has the power to do away with any passage of scripture just by quoting it?” Lockhart said. “Let’s see, that stuff about divorce would be good for us to get rid of and that whole thing about knowing you and forming you in the womb needs to go, too. If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a press conference to schedule.”