How Much of the Bible Have Churchgoers Read?

[MineralMan]

https://lifewayresearch.com/2017/04/25/lifeway-research-americans-are-fond-of-the-bible-dont-actually-read-it/

LifeWay Research: Americans Are Fond of the Bible, Don’t Actually Read It

NASHVILLE, Tenn.— Americans have a positive view of the Bible. And many say the Christian scriptures are filled with moral lessons for today.

However, more than half of Americans have read little or none of the Bible.

Less than a quarter of those who have ever read a Bible have a systematic plan for reading the Christian scriptures each day. And a third of Americans never pick it up on their own, according to a new study from Nashville-based LifeWay Research.

Small wonder many church leaders worry about biblical illiteracy, said Scott McConnell, executive director of LifeWay Research.

“Most Americans don’t know first-hand the overall story of the Bible—because they rarely pick it up,” McConnell said. “Even among worship attendees less than half read the Bible daily. The only time most Americans hear from the Bible is when someone else is reading it.”

[zipplewrath]

1. This doesn't address your question

"Churchgoers" is a vague title. But the population being surveyed isn't anywhere close to that population.

Among many "fundamentalist" or "ecumenical" church attendees, most of them past the age of 25 have probably been "forced" do read it through their bible study groups within their churches. When you get to your more common "protestant" congregations, as well as members of the RCC, it's very likely they've only read what was assigned in some theology based education that they had and often that will be well short of the whole book. Furthermore, they aren't all working from the same "bible". There is an RCC version and a more common "protestant" version. Heck, even the 10 commandments aren't the same between all versions (they number them differently).

Within my own experience, and one of my frustrations with organized religion, was that most "church goers" don't even really have "faith" in any strict sense. They were attending for the sense of community and for the access to moral education for their children. Their "faith" was highly elastic. None the less, those very few with any true sense of faith and adherence to it, were interesting people to know and engage.

[MineralMan]

2. Well, generally it demonstrates that few have actually read the

whole thing. I have, several times, and I'm an atheist. Maybe atheists are more familiar with it than religious folks. I don't know about other atheists, but a couple I know have read the entire thing, OT and NT, at least once.

I've read it in three translations over my lifetime.

It didn't take, though. I'm still an atheist.

[zipplewrath]

3. Not for "church goers"

You took a survey of the entire population and made allusions to a population that might be about 20% of the population at best. And of the 20%, as I explained, it would be unusual for them to have actually read the entire book. Ask how many physicists have read all of Newton's original works. How many biologists have read Darwin's original writings. Furthermore, that'd at least be a population for which one might reasonably expect that they had. Asking the entire population of the US would be pointless. You might as well ask how many people know the rules of golf and then make an allusion to what golfers know about the rules.

You've done this before too. You took quotes way out of context about belief, and made allusions to "faith". You seem to have a desire to denigrate the faith of people. I don't know if it is politically based, which would make sense in this forum, or if this is more personal. But per the rules and intent of this forum, you might wanna be more strict in your references. You are taking other peoples work way out of their intended context. Furthermore, you have repeatedly demonstrated a rather introductory level of understanding of the great theological arguments of history. Augustine, despite his personal failings went well into depth on the many questions you raise. You might wanna read his works, and potentially others who followed him (not always complimentary) with their observations and understandings. Otherwise, your posts are highly confusing to anyone who has conducted even the most elementary level of study of the subject.

[MineralMan]

5. The links are there for anyone to examine.

Your criticism is based on unavailable grounds. I will not elaborate.

On the other hand, I have read all of Newton's and Darwin's works, and I am neither a physicist nor a biologist. I have read the entire bible, too, and I'm an atheist. I found the survey interesting, but do not know the makeup of this surveyed.

I also know your opinion of me. Good luck with that.

[zipplewrath]

6. Yes they are

But a tad like making references to unreliable sources, making references to sources that don't actually support your point is some where between obfuscation and dishonesty. But yes, the astute can go to the links and figure that out for themselves.

[MineralMan]

7. See my edits of the post you replied to, and then carry on as you wish.

That survey company has a strong bias.

[zipplewrath]

9. And yet

I found the survey interesting, but do not know the makeup of this surveyed.

And yet you felt free to apply it to "church goers". Kinda says it all.

[MineralMan]

10. Please find another hobby.

Thanks.

[zipplewrath]

13. I might advise likewise

Daily exposure of your ignorance isn't helping anyone, even yourself. Truth is, it mostly serves to hurt others. Is that really your goal?

[Thomas Hurt]

4. If I am being cynical...

organized religion is a man made and managed social organization and network. They are around 95% about man, not God. What I mean by that is that organized religion is a going concern managed for the purposes of gathering wealth, power and adherents. Their primary goal is to compete in their resident culture and ultimately to control and dominate that culture.

[zipplewrath]

8. actually

if we wanna talk in metaphorical percentages, "95%" of people who participate in organized religion do it for reasons relatively disconnected from issues of faith or theology. They are interested in the sense of belonging, of the concept of community, and of the need to teach lessons of morality for which they feel unsuited themselves to teach. Quite honestly, this isn't all that much different than illiterate parents that send their children to school to read. Innumerable parents don't understand their children's high school mathematics, but know it is important. I can't tell you the number of engineers that I know whose parents, wives and children don't really understand anything about what they do or how they do it. People know that morality is important and don't be surprised that they will look for "outside" help to teach it.

I'm not surprised that the majority of the population of the US hasn't read the whole bible. By this day and age, with the collapse of almost anything representing a "liberal arts" education (liberal in the academic sense, not the political one) there are almost no "universal" texts that we all read and study. God's to honest truth if I were to require a set of text to be study by "everyone" the bible probably wouldn't be on it. You might want to study "about" it, but not the text itself. I could probably put together a list, but a bit like the Benoit College Mindset List, it would be changed and updated regularly.

[uriel1972]

11. Study about it but not read it?

That would be counterproductive, I would think. Like studying Shakespeare without ever reading his work... Pointless much.

[zipplewrath]

12. Sorta

AS I've said before, tons of people "study" Newton without reading the original works. Hawking used to joke that thousands of students had his major published thesis on their shelves, but never really read, much less understood it. Darwin, Einstein, Laplace, and more are rarely actually studied in the "first person". Pick the yoga instructor at random and ask them the fundamental or original works of which they have read. I took a whole course in school about the bible. We read alot of it, but we read even more ABOUT it than we did the actual text.

One has to understand the nature of faith in order to understand this phenomenon. Is it really that surprising that people rely upon those more studied and talented in the topic to educate and lead them than the authors of the fundamental texts? You probably studied Euclidean geometry. Did you ever read his works, or did you rely upon the more studied and learned to guided you through the ideas? Yes, there are folks that study something and ultimately work their way BACK to the fundamental texts, but not everyone. Most folks in this forum have little understanding of faith, much less have read the fundamental texts of western Christianity. It doesn't stop them from opining at length however. Is that any different?

[uriel1972]

16. uh Faith is belief without evidence...

what your flavour of belief is,is another kettle of fish.

I don't need to read every article of a particular belief to see that faith in itself is foolish and dangerous... to the point of being criminally negligent in my mind at times.

I'm not going to argue over the fine points of the Filoque(sp?), I don't need to know the Hindu or Shinto origin myths to see that faith in itself is a major impediment to human happiness and progress.

Don't need to be a plumber to know the drain is blocked.

[zipplewrath]

23. So is belief

Belief is basically a conclusion in absence of any real logical discipline. At its best, it is an extrapolation from past experience, occasionally known as anecdotal argument. I tell my engineers all the time, I don't care what they believe, I want to know what they can calculate. Belief is great for organizing and prioritizing ones efforts and analysis. But it is not a replacement. Even professional gamblers "know the numbers". Gamblers know there is no actual real "hot streak", there are just variations in probabilities, and some of them can be detected (which is what counting cards can be all about).

I agree that one does not need to read "every article". Alternately, one of faith shouldn't necessarily be criticized for not reading "every article" either. Especially one that has no intention of attempting to become an "amateur theologian". However, if one is going to be a critic of theologians, one would think that they should at least have read the fundamental works of the same.

[Mariana]

36. Your definition of "belief" seems to be mistaken.

Here's what Merriam-Webster says. Nothing here suggests there must be an "absence of any real logical discipline". Please see especially definition 3, which directly contradicts that idea:

1: a state or habit of mind in which trust or confidence is placed in some person or thing

2 : something that is accepted, considered to be true, or held as an opinion : something believed

3 : conviction of the truth of some statement or the reality of some being or phenomenon especially when based on examination of evidence.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/belief

The words "belief" and "faith" are not synonyms.

[zipplewrath]

38. Define the difference

You're splitting hairs in many ways. None of them involve anything approaching "proof" in anyways. They involve accepting assertion without substantive demonstration. The difference I suspect you are alluding is that belief often can accept being proven wrong, belief often will be resistant to the same.

[marylandblue]

41. See definition #3 especially after the word "especially"

[zipplewrath]

44. Not exacly scientific

Most people of faith would claim that. Heck, you have the whole "intelligent design" crowd that claims exactly that.

[edhopper]

18. There is a huge difference

between understanding evolution or the laws of thermodynamics without reading Origins of the Species or Principia Mathematica and believing the Biblical stories are all true and really happened. Or accept the strict word of the Scripture without reading the bible.

[zipplewrath]

24. And that would be?

What is that difference?

Basically many people of "faith" believe things based upon their own perceptions as guided by leaders who have studied the issue way upon their ability to understand. "Climate Science" is in roughly the same category. We tend to follow the lead of those vastly more knowledgeable than us based upon a fundamental understanding of how they came to that conclusion.

[edhopper]

28. If you don't understand the difference between

accepting Climate Change, Evolution or the Third Law of Thermodynamics, and Noah's Ark or a 6000 year old Earth. I can't help you.

[zipplewrath]

35. I understand

It isn't clear that you understand.

[marylandblue]

42. Protestant Christianity set up this problem for itself

Last edited Sat Sep 22, 2018, 11:50 AM - Edit history (2)

They said "sola scriptura" and said everybody should read and interpret the Bible for themselves, nothing mediating between you and the word of God. Once they did that, they set up an impossible task for average people, yet they claim to do it. Perhaps they don't realize how much they don't read enough or how their interpretation "by the Holy Spirit" is actually from a theologian.

[zipplewrath]

43. Dead on

For all the faults, and they are disastrously numerous, the RCC for a long time thought the bible should only be read by basically the clergy, or at least people who truly studied. About the time that literacy became more common in western Europe, it became more problematic because people could read the bible and form their own ideas. Of course the clergy were no saints, and often not scholars either. But the hoi polloi weren't any better.

[Permanut]

14. The point I take from this survey..

is that Christians apparently become Christians without reading the instruction manual. Seems kinda backwards.

When I consider joining an organization, I want to know all about it up front, then make a decision.

Thanks for a thought-provoking post, MM.

[MineralMan]

15. Well, the Bible is a slog to read through.

I'm not surprised that most don't read it. They depend on their religious leaders to tell them the important stuff. However, it's likely that some of those leaders haven't read the whole thing either.

[Permanut]

17. Got that right..

With all the begettin' and smitin' and rebukin' and chamberin. The begats were the most difficult to get through, because they were totally irrelevant to me.

[zipplewrath]

25. There are more "modern" translations

I'm dubious it will change your perception much. Goodness knows they've never been all that influential on me. But much like Shakespeare or Dickens, it can be vastly easier to understand if one isn't slogging their way through a huge language difference. Truth is, that is a major obstacle to reading the "fundamental" documents of Christianity at all. They are all written in something of a "dead" language one way or another. We are all reading translations. The bible consists of documents written hundreds of years apart by a wide variety of authors, all of whom spoke significantly different languages or dialects. To truly study that would take a lifetime in many ways. Which is why it is reasonable for most people to rely upon others to do a such and condense their understandings into "modern" texts to be studied.

[edhopper]

29. Exsept when those others not only tell you what it says

but what the allegory, stories and quotes specifically must mean according to God with no room to disagree.

Taken the word of a Preacher and a Scientist are completely different.

[zipplewrath]

33. I was refering more to theologians

They are rarely "preachers". Quite the opposite, they are often the basis for various organized religions. Martin Luther being the most obvious example.

[edhopper]

40. Theologians

disagree on almost every aspect of the Bible. There is no self correcting mechanism, as there is in Science.
So it comes down to accepting whatever version of Bible interpretation they like, and doing so without studying the Bible thmselves.
Accepting scientific theories and laws is very different. They don't equate at all.

[zipplewrath]

45. It's different

However, as with scientific theories, the vast majority of people basically accept what they are "told". It's where the problem with "junk science" comes in. I've lived through a generation of "it's bad for you/it's good for you now" to know that there are a tremendous number of people who just presume that what they are told is fact. There was a famous problem with "arson science" that was horrendously wrong, but accepted by fire departments and to a great degree by the courts.

People rarely study back to the original work, or fundamental documents, that with which they otherwise put their confidence, or "faith".

[Major Nikon]

19. The instruction manual provides guidance on how to sell your children into slavery

It also directs parents to take disobedient children to the village elders to be stoned to death.

It's probably best Christians don't read the instruction manual, otherwise they would be doing that and other stupid shit like playing with venomous snakes and drinking poison.

[Mariana]

39. Of course most Christians become Christians without reading the instruction manual.

The religious indoctrination of the children of Christians almost always begins long before the children learn to read.

[trotsky]

20. I grew up in a Lutheran (ELCA) church.

I read the Christian bible (NIV), cover-to-cover. It was required for our confirmation classes - we had to fill out study guides for each book.

And I have to say, like many atheists I've talked to, reading the ENTIRE bible helped guide me to atheism.

No wonder so many churches don't really want their congregants reading the whole thing. Just listen to what the pastor or priest tells you it says.

[MineralMan]

21. I grew up in a Presbyterian church,

and did the same thing, but with the KJV translation.

At age 19-20, I became an atheist.

Apparently, reading the whole Bible leads people in that direction?

[Major Nikon]

22. Or to other religions

The ranks of Unitarians are filled with former Christians

[zipplewrath]

26. I love the unitarians

The "faithful" that are often in a better position than most to throw theological "thought bombs" into Christianity.

[ghostsinthemachine]

27. My Mom, church, bible study, circle

Every week of her 85 year life. Couldn't remember any of it. A few verses, yeah, but for the most part, no way.

[bitterross]

30. Generally, only the same 10-20 passages over and over for most people.

I find most people have read very little of it. Which is one of the reasons they do not understand what an evil, narcissistic, vengeful, sociopath of God they are worshiping.

I know where I grew up in the South the same passages got read over and over again each year at certain times of the year. Very little effort was every made to actually educate people and familiarize people with the passages that didn't relate to major events like Easter, Christmas, etc. If there wasn't a Charelton Heston movie about it we didn't learn much about it.

[MineralMan]

31. Many churches also have Bible study groups.

However, attendance at those is usually only by a small percentage of the congregation.

[Runningdawg]

32. Consider I was born into

an evangelical cult but my mother couldn't read....

[samnsara]

34. Im atheist but i listened to the whole thing on tape..took a long time..

..could hardly get thru numbers or whatever the hell book that was about begetting and begotting. Listened via "Thomas and the Bible"...and OMG was it violent esp towards women......

[MineralMan]

37. Wow! I don't think I could do that.

I'm a blazing fast reader, so it takes a far shorter time to read it on the page. I couldn't possibly listen to it being read aloud.