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(Cross-posted from my blog.)
How many churched people read their Bibles? How many read outside their daily studies? Or weekly study? Or Sunday message?
I grew up in a mildly evangelical but otherwise not terribly fundamentalist church in white suburbia. This involved Sunday School every Sunday it was on, and since this was before the widespread trend of running that at the same time as the morning service, I also got to spend time in the church service with my parents. So I heard many stories told and re-told in many different ways over the years.
I am also a voracious reader. I was brought up to enjoy reading and being an Introvert, reading was for the longest time the best way I had to disconnect from the world around me (still is). But I didn’t always remember to have a book to read at church during a sermon that was usually too long and boring for a kid to understand.
So I read my Bible.
My first Bible was a Children’s Living Bible. I have no idea where it is; it may well have fallen apart by now (I had a habit of wearing Bibles out when I was a child). The trend for putting section headings through the text hadn’t been made popular yet – as far as I remember, the Good News Bible did that, and that was published later. Or, at least, I never saw a copy of that until later. My childhood Bible, though, had short topic summaries in the header of the pages, generally no more than half-a-dozen words describing what the current page was about. This meant I got to read vast tracts of Scripture without any unnecessary textual interruptions. I actually remember the delight I had the day I discovered that the stories of David were hiding in the books of 1 Samuel and 2 Samual. Explained why I could never find them in the “book of David” (which, of course, doesn’t exist)!
Later, when I was high school, I discovered I had a much better than usual knowledge of the Bible. This happened because what passed for Sunday School for a while when I was thirteen or so was a weekly trivia contest. I and the Pastor’s youngest (who was a year older than me) were streets ahead of everyone else. Including the leaders, who started sourcing older, rarer books to ask their Bible trivia from. Of course, being a teenager, I revelled in the adulation, but never once thought to ask just why my fellow Sunday School attendees were so far behind.
Fast-forward to a year or so ago.
There are two young ladies in my current church who did not grow up in a Christian home and have not been in the position to having gone to church all their lives. They don’t know their Bible at all well and don’t automatically know how a lot of the stories fit together. And they are not huge readers, either. In a way, they are the opposite of me: there are big slabs of their Bibles that they have simply never read (or only read once).
I wondered for the first time today just what is more usual. A comment on this blog postby Fred Clark set me wondering. So much invective by church-goers against other church-goers is based on faulty knowledge not just the other party, but also of their own scriptures. And by “faulty”, I mean how many of them read it instead of just regurgitating the teachings of their pastor? I have railed against church teaching that stays firmly within the canonical scriptures, ignoring not only the archaeological and textual evidence about where Israel and Yahweh came from, but also new ways of looking at Jesus and Paul. However, maybe this is more difficult than I realize if most church-goers do not, in fact, know their way around the Bible.
I don’t have an answer to that.
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This topic was modified 1 year, 6 months ago by
Wade.
I don’t know how many times I’ve read the bible. And I have so much of it automatically memorized. It’s always with me.
I read the bible, front to back, three times. And I read the chronological bible. But I seemed to get more out of the bible doing topical studies. I haven’t read the bible since I left the church three years ago.
That’s a really good question Wade. I talk to people from all over the U.S., many from parts that are very religious. Yet when talking to many of these people, I feel many have low literacy or are completely illiterate. I cannot imagine them reading a whole Bible, but I would bet many of them are in church every Sunday. Sometimes they even proselytize to me.
To their credit, those two young ladies I mentioned, as well as several people in my bible study readily admit their lack of knowledge about the Bible stories. This is why they like studies that involve whole books of the OT.
Wade.
AnonymousAs a P.K., I had a pretty extensive knowledge of the Bible – especially Bible facts/trivia. I’ve read the New Testament through several times, but I never could make it all the way through the Old Testament, although I probably have read just about every book in the O.T. at one time or another. I used to do a lot of Greek/Hebrew word studies, and I often gleaned “spiritual insights” from various Scripture passages. However, since leaving the church 18 months ago, I have hardly read the Bible at all. Unfortunately it just comes loaded with too much baggage/toxic theology attached to it for me. So far I’m doing just fine without reading it. I memorized enough Scripture that various verses will come to me from time to time. I really get stoked when I am able to extract a brand new, healthy, spiritual insight from a Scripture I used to view much differently!
I think the percentage of Christians who really read and actually study their Bibles is pretty small – maybe 2 out of 10??? The majority are much more likely to simply “regurgitate the teachings/theology/doctrine) of their pastor.”
Wade asked how many ‘churched’ people read their Bibles. Jo thinks the percentage of Christians who really read and actually study their Bibles is pretty small. As a Brit I am amazed that Jo is suggesting 2 out of 10. In the UK I would be very surprised if it was more than 4 out of 100.
What struck me here is the use of ‘churched’ and ‘Christian’, and how one would study the Bible with or without a tutor.
Are we thinking about people who have been indoctrinated by denominational theology; people who have a real faith; or people who ‘follow the herd’?
Are we thinking about the understanding of the Christian FAITH or the Christian RELIGION?
I’ll start a separate Post entitled ‘Christendom’
You know, I’m not even sure whether I originally meant church-goers (a.k.a. pew sitters) or not. I think maybe I did: the original comment on Fred Clark’s blog post that spurred my thoughts was talking about fencing with fundamentalists. The comment poster expressed some annoyance that they wouldn’t even read their own scriptures to verify their loudly-proclaimed points-of-view.
Like you, Jo, I find gleaning new meaning from the scriptures is difficult for me, probably because I know so much of it so readily. This also makes it difficult to read it on my own. I find I prefer to read about the scriptures rather than reading the scriptures themselves. Curiously, I am finding that in the last year or two I have been using my new-found knowledge about how stories work to help examine it. My fellow studyers usually seem to be interested in what I have to say, but I have seen people glaze over, too. :-/
Sometimes the search for understanding and meaning can be a bit lonely.
Wade.
AnonymousPeter – When I said 2 out of 10 I was thinking of the “small groups”/home Bible studies I’ve been a part of. Of course whoever is leading it was well versed in Scripture and there was usually one other person like that in the group. The rest were just regurgitating what they heard other Christian leaders say regarding certain Scripture. But now that I think about it, my “stats” are skewed because only the “more committed Christians” bother to go to small Group/Bible studies in the first place. So those numbers would be quite different when talking about entire congregations or the Christian population in general. I don’t know why I even dared to put numbers out there. The truth is I have no idea! Where is George Barna when I need him?
AnonymousLike you, Jo, I find gleaning new meaning from the scriptures is difficult for me, probably because I know so much of it so readily. This also makes it difficult to read it on my own. I find I prefer to read about the scriptures rather than reading the scriptures themselves.
Unfortunately it just comes loaded with too much baggage/toxic theology attached to it for me.
That describes pretty much exactly where I am. I grew up entirely in fundamentalist culture. My parents read the Bible aloud every night for most of my childhood, and most of the media I was allowed to consume as a child was Christian. They talk about the Bible all the time. I had a Christian education all the way from kindergarten until college graduation. When I was a young Christian, pretty much all I did was read the Bible, read spiritual books, or listen to Christian music. But for the past 8 years or so, I’ve almost never read the Bible. I seem to switch between anger and boredom toward God and the Bible every few years. For the past two years or so, I think it’s been a combination of way too much baggage, anger, and boredom.
Great thread, reminds me of why I started 20 years ago to really read the bible, no just read for the sake of getting through the book, chapter what ever. I realized that I was living my mother and father’s religion. Every thing was based on teaching from ministers, churches, and what my parents thought. I needed to study to show my self approved. I also started reading how the church has evolved. It took heretic to get religion and the belief systems, to where it is today. Without them we would still be under ‘catholic’ rule. Catholic meaning universal, I believe. I read what others were saying, John Shelby Spong has influenced most. Digging in the word to glean insight.
I looked into other belief systems. Wiccan, looked at colors and stones and Chrystals and found that there is power ‘energy’ in this understanding. I looked very deeply into shamanism. I have Cherokee in my veins. This was a heritage I wanted to check out. I found a lot of inspiration and correlation with the christian beliefs. Studying, studying, studying… to show my self approved. I came out of that realizing that we all ‘serve’ the same ‘divine’ being, we just have different ways of believing but if you look deep enough you come to realize, it just words that separate us; remind you of any thing…
The tower of babble! I don’t think that story means suddenly everyone spoke a different language, but rather the words and filters we speak through changed. we understood thing different and described it with different words, same language.
I think most people in the church have read the bible start to finish. However, and that is a Big however, they have not read it to study it, only to get through it and having bragging rights.
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