Minding the Gap: Bible and Bible Reading

For a change, the Bible made it into Church News a couple of weeks ago. You would be excused for thinking that this ought to be normal in church news papers! Well, the Bible Society in this country decided to check the state of the our familiarity of the bible by carrying out a survey. And, according to the findings of Taking the Pulse: is the Bible Alive and Well in the Church Today? by the Bible Society, there is a widening gap between the clergy and the congregants' perceptions of the place of the bible in their lives and in the society. The Bible may be ranked as a bestseller, but there is a problem when it comes to the constituencies for whom this sacred text is very important. In this case, the churches are the traditional denominations with the Black-Led Churches apparently not on the radar screen of the Bible society.

The findings are very interesting - depending on your reading optics. While 78% of church goers believe the Bible is divinely inspired and 34% that it is free from error, 98% of church leaders believe the Bible is divinely inspired and 47% that it is free from error. This is real scary stuff: I need to check what my colleagues are teaching in their biblical studies modules. The report further noted, as is expected of a Bible Society categorization, Liberal, Catholic, Methodist and URC leaders are the most skeptical when it comes to the Bible’s authority, while at the same time expressing dissatisfaction with the congregations' understanding of the Bible.

It may have been this report that propelled a private member’s motion at the recent Anglican Synod. According to a Church Times report (Feb 15, 2008), the “Place Bibles in Every Church” was a private member’s motion that expressed dismay that in many churches one could not find a bible even though the legal requirement stipulated the need to have one in every lectern. So if there is an issue about reading or understanding the Bible, a more fundamental problem is that one cannot be located in Churches! The mover went on to argue that all he is concerned about is making “the scriptures available”. No, this is not a scene out of the medieval church history. This is today. I guess the Bible Society missed that about the bestseller. And what was the motion?

“That this Synod, believing in the importance of Scripture, desire that anyone entering a church building or attending a church service should have easy and unfettered access to one of the versions of the Bible referred to in the note by the House of Bishops on Versions of Scripture dated 9 October 2002 or one of the versions of the Bible that may be used by virtue of the Prayer Book Versions of the Bible Measure, and would request all dioceses to take steps to give effect to this desire in their churches.”

And there were not lack of supporters for the motion: from Bishops to lay members, speakers noted among other things: the missed evangelistic opportunities; the need for inclusive versions, for various translations; to nudge people that bibles are available and are there for them to read (not to collect dust and for spiders to spin webs); how the bibles were chained to the lectern” so it was important that a bible be available in churches etc.

Providing bibles in every church will be the easy part: getting people into church will not be so easy; and the more difficult bit will be around how we read the Bible, what we make of what we read and how these are interpreted. After all, divinely inspired texts did not drop out of Cloud 9, nor were the writers and interpreters (past and present) disembodied spirits. The Bible is a produced text - taking sides to generating versions of reality. How will the 98% of Church leaders who believe the bible is divinely inspired and the 47 % who hold the view that it is free from error wrestle with this as they interrogate the sacred text, remains a huge challenge.

In the meantime the gap will continue to widen and come 2020 we may find the i-Bible more accessible and hopefully we will then be better able to understand what is meant by a produced text laced with codes, ideological interests and colonial entanglements.

copyright jagessar 2008