Bible Reading Research

Interpreting the Research

What has brought about the situation in which fewer than a fifth of professing Christians, and only three percent of the entire adult population, read the Bible every day in a part of the world which has more translations of the Scriptures in its principal native language than most others? (We may also remind ourselves that it is the same part of the world which first gave the Bible to the English-speaking peoples in their own tongue, and in which the modern missionary and Bible Society movements both originated.)

Many reasons have been put forward. Here we offer just some of them:

• Among the population as a whole, the demands upon people's time, and the replacement of a predominantly literary culture by a mainly visual, non-book culture are claimed to be largely responsible. It is said that many homes today do not possess any books, let alone a Bible. Again, the use of icons instead of written directions in public places contributes, so it is claimed, to a reduction in the general level of literacy and the development of an increasingly image-based culture. However, Bible Society research indicates that three-quarters of the adult population claims to have at least one Bible in their household, and the current vogue of fantasy adventure books for both adults and children, would also seem to indicate that book ownership is on the increase, rather than decrease.
  
  
• Within the Christian church, the trend in recent years towards an increasingly people centred, experiential and feelings orientated spirituality is said to have produced a move away from the former emphasis on knowledge and understanding as the basis for faith. In such a spiritual climate, the reading and exposition of the Scriptures has, in some circles, either been significantly reduced or even dispensed with entirely. It is claimed that many now look upon personal Bible reading as merely an "optional extra". In charismatic churches in particular, the emphasis placed upon non-scriptural worship songs and spontaneous "words from the Lord" are also said to have detracted from the the Bible's former pre-eminence.
  
  
• Taken together, both of the foregoing tend to work against not only Christianity, but also Judaism, since both faiths rely primarily on an objective literary revelation rather than subjective mystical or emotional experiences. Indeed, the God of the Bible expressly forbids the making of images (Exodus 20:4) since he can be understood as existing only as Word, and therefore reveals himself to mankind through words, not images (John 1:1 (NIV)).

  In saying this, however, we have no intention of denying that God has also revealed his nature through creation (Romans 1:19-20), nor that in his incarnation Jesus Christ was indeed the Word of God made visible and tangible in the form of a human being (John 1:14 (NIV) and Colossians 1:15).

• The religious diversity arising from the influx of other races into Britain, and the active promotion of pluralism in our schools, colleges and society in the name of "cultural diversity" and "racial tolerance", has detracted from the perception of Christianity as a unique faith, and in particular the conviction that the Bible is God's only authentic written revelation to mankind. In such a pluralistic environment the Bible becomes merely one holy book among many, and is considered to be on a par with the holy writings of other faiths, such as Islam and Hinduism.
  
  
• Three further reasons advanced, more particularly by some evangelicals, are:
  
  
  • The progressive "downgrading" of the Scriptures at the hands of liberal theologians. This began in the nineteenth century and continues unabated up to the present day. It is said to have been responsible for many thinking people (Christian as well as non-Christian) entertaining serious doubts about the Bible's authority and reliability;
    
    
  • The idea, put forward in more recent years, that the Bible contains the Word of God, but is not itself the Word of God, in the way as a fruitbowl may contain apples or oranges, but is not itself the fruit. Discernment given by the Holy Spirit, it is said, is required to distinguish between those parts of the Bible which are the authentic Word of God and those which are merely the receptacle (ie those parts which merely reflect the cultural situation at the time of writing and which, therefore, no longer apply to contemporary society). According to this view, Scripture becomes the Word of God to the reader only as the Holy Spirit shows it to be such.

    (We consider another aspect of this doctrine in connection with Martin Luther's view of the Bible as a sacred ark in which the Word of God is preserved for us when asking of the Bible Whose Word?)
    
    

  • The inference, given by some Bible expositors, that it is only the theologically trained who can properly understand and interpret the Scriptures. As a letter to Evangelicals Now expressed it, the outcome is that, ...the Reformed doctrine of the perspicuity of Scripture is wrested away from the ordinary Christian, who becomes dependent on a 'Priest-caste' of (historically critical) scholars.[Source: Letter from Mr J Barrett, London, in Evangelicals Now, March 1998.]

    (To visit the Evangelicals Now website, please proceed via our Links to Other Websites.)

    Some consider that what has happened is that the pre-reformation believer's dependence on the sacrificing priest of Roman Catholicism has been replaced in some Protestant traditions by a similar dependence on specialist Bible teachers - a dependence, so it is claimed, largely generated by the teachers themselves in order to justify their position and enhance their status and influence.

We hasten to add that, although these may all be valid contributory reasons for the low level of personal Bible reading in England and Wales at the present time, we do not offer them as criticisms of any group or tradition within the Christian Church. They are recorded here simply as observations.