Christianity has not been untouched by this. For years, researcher George Barna has been tracking American's attitudes, beliefs, and practices when it comes to the Bible and has been sounding the alarm: our level of Bible understanding is dismal. Which leads to the question: what happens to Christianity when people can't, or won't, read their Bibles?
Let's draw two crucial distinctions. The first is the diference between reading the Bible and knowing the Bible. While 96% of evangelical Christians typically read the Bible during a week, this doesn't necessarily translate into Bible understanding or integration. Consider, according to Barna:
- The most widely-known Bible verse among adult and teen believers is "God helps those who help themselves" - which is not actually in the Bible, and actually conflicts with the basic message of Scripture.
- When given thirteen basic teachings from the Bible, only 1% of adult believers firmly embraced all 13 as being biblical perspectives.
- Less than one out of every ten believers possesses a biblical worldview as the basis for his/her decision-making or behavior.
Take, for instance, the book of 1 Corinthians. There was a reason 1 Corinthians was written, and it was not to give us the verse "I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow" (3:6) or so that we would have a nice passage on love (chapter 13) to read at weddings! Instead, 1 Corinthians actually has a message, a purpose for which it was written, which was to address the specific controversies and problems that were dividing the church at Corinth, a port and commercial city where sexual immorality was widespread. The "Love Chapter" falls at the end of a discourse on spiritual gifts - apparently the church was divided over which gifts were to be most highly esteemed. Paul intends to show them "the most excellent way" - that if the exercise of gifts is not accompanied by love (agape love, not marital or erotic love), they are worth nothing. Read this way, 1 Corinthians 13 takes on a whole new light: it wasn't written for weddings at all!
Does that make it wrong to employ that scripture for that purpose? Well, no, but the point not to be missed is that once we start "applying" scripture indiscriminately, there's really no check on that. This is exactly how Jesus has been appropriated by all sorts of groups that want nothing to do with Christians but everything to do with Jesus' teachings - based on a particular verse they pulled out of the gospels. Read just the Sermon on the Mount and you can make Jesus pro-peace, pro-poverty relief, pro-works righteousness, anti-public prayer, anti-national defense, and anti-Individual Retirement Accounts, if you select just the right verses.
So, we have a great need to teach people how to read the Bible, because the method matters. But a second distinction needs to be drawn, and that is the difference between being unable to read and being unwilling to read. The inability to read is what we know as illiteracy, and can be remedied through instruction. But our kids aren't illiterate. What we're up against instead is the tendency towards a-literacy. An aliterate generation can read, but chooses not to.
And why don't they read? Too many distractions, less time, busier schedules, a more demanding amount of homework (much of it of dubious value), amateur sports leagues, video games and iPods - all of these are culprits. But an added consideration when it comes to the Bible is that Bible reading may not be considered necessary. Why read the Bible when there's no truth to be had there? If my interpretation is as good as yours, then there's no need to store it or think on it; I'll just turn to it when I feel like I need it. It's the McChurch phenomenon extended to personal devotions.
It's not impossible to minister to an aliterate generation, but the modern church, which is grounded in assumptions of literacy, is ill-suited for it. Indeed, it can be argued that Protestantism itself was founded on the proposition that the Church ought to follow the Bible and that individuals had the right and obligation to read scripture for themselves in order to hold the Church in line. Aliteracy is a great challenge for the Church because it leaves the Church fairly foundationless. Who gets to decide what is true, but even more, what is important and necessary and deserving of the church's time and attention if there is no written Rule to follow? Should a church evangelize, educate, advocate, fund-raise, caretake, respite, build, progress, conserve? The answers are grounded in one's theology of the Church, which ought to be drawn from the Bible. But if the Bible is irrelevant, or doesn't make sense, or believed to contain myriad meanings, then that theology will be formed from something else.
At least in a culture that was unable to read (first-century Gentile Christians, medieval commoners, for example), there was a willingness to defer to those whose job it was to read and understand. This was not necessarily a good thing. The lack of accountability that comes when only a privileged few can read the Bible led to egregious corruption in the medieval Church. The dissenters who did try to keep the Church within scriptural bounds were silenced with punishment. But the opposite extreme, in which everyone weighs in with a subjective interpretation, is also unhealthy. How many of us have sat in a small group where the discussion proceeds this way: "Let's go around the circle and everyone tell what this verse means to them"? Eight varying interpretations later, the group moves on to the next verse, and so on, as if the purpose of the passage was to to facilitate collective navel gazing. Verses, passages, and books of the Bible do have a meaning, but it is the one meaning that the author intended. That scripture is "living and active" does not mean we can yank it out of context and claim that the meaning of a particular passage is "what it means to me".
It is that terrible habit of Bible reading, I am afraid, that has led to the sort of Biblical anarchy we have today. Nothing means anything, your truth is as good as my truth, and "experiencing" God or the Holy Spirit's presence is held to be the be-all-to-end-all of religious life. I read of one church that dispensed with its Christian Education program for children in order to bring them into the adult service so that they, too, could participate in the speaking in tongues and giving prophetic words. Huh? Meanwhile, "more than half of all adults (53%) believe that if a person is generally good, or does enough good things for others during their life, they will earn a place in Heaven" (Barna) and "more than two out of every five adults (41%) believe that when Jesus Christ lived on earth He committed sins" (Barna again).
The answers are complex, particularly because churches haven't been effective in teaching people how to read the Bible, only in urging that they should. That's another way of saying that if tomorrow every Christian suddenly started reading the Bible, the problem wouldn't be solved. We need a conversation and a re-examination of what the Bible is and how it is to be used in our everyday lives. Is it the "Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth" (B.I.B.L.E.)? Is it God's rulebook for our lives? Is it the answer to all of life's problems? Is it a history book, a science book, a textbook? Until we can articulate what the Bible is for, it will fail to warrant the attention of non-readers.
Our attempt at this, such as it is, is the class "Stumped by the Bible?" which will be offered for the first time beginning this Saturday. For $20 and three weeks of your time (a parent must attend with their kid), you'll get an overview of the Old and New Testament, a handy mnemonic for remembering the major events of the Bible and their sequence, a method called the "B.I.B.L.E." method (no, not basic instructions before leaving earth) for reading it, a brief sketch of how the Bible came to be, and a handy reference guide called "Turning Your Bedroom Into a Bible College." Call or e-mail us to register. We'll make a Bible reader out of your son or daughter yet.
