When America was founded, the language of the newly established constitutional republic spoke volumes of the foundational tenets that undergird its revolutionary development. The societal moorings of such a fledgling nation owed much credit to the homage and allegiance paid to the Scriptures by the pioneering men and women who sought to bring about a New World. Seen in the great orations of the statesmen and impassioned leaders of the colonial period, the thematic shadows and vocabulary of the Bible took center stage (Bauerlein & Bellow, 2015). Without question, America was a nation shaped by the Bible’s laws, moral principles, and holy expectations. Unfortunately, as pointed out by Dreisbach (2015), “after three and a half centuries of common standing in America….biblical literacy has undergone a precipitous decline” (p. 37). This decline, as reported by several research groups, has continued in its downward trend as the shift of societal secularization continues to ensconce itself further within the framework of a pluralistic, post-modern era. Now reaching epidemical stages, a panacea for the precipitous decline of biblical literacy must be provided.
Diagnosing the Decline
If glancing face-value at the statistical results of biblical sales across the globe, one could easily be deceived into thinking that the Bible suffers little from readership and comprehension. Do not be deceived. While the Bible maintains best-selling numbers in physical and digital sales, the results reveal an exponential decline in biblical literacy. In this case, sales do not equal and/or authenticate biblical comprehension and/or readership. Furthermore, modern research can be deceiving, especially when it celebrates an uptick in Millennial readership. This is done by the Barna Group (2016) when a reported percentage of 44% of teenagers (13-17 years of age) are reading their Bibles three or four times a year, and the underlying consensus of the report is that “teens have a deep respect for the Bible and care about its relevance to the world in which they inhabit” (para. 1). Closer scrutiny of these findings reveals that only 3% of the teens surveyed report a daily biblical readership. Thus, when contrasted with other research, biblical literacy can easily be attributed to a drop in biblical readership (Smietana, 2017). However, the lack of readership alone is not the sole reason for the epidemic of biblical illiteracy.
The less discussed reality of biblical illiteracy is the pattern of biblical ignorance among those who would profess to be reading their Bibles regularly. This, as expressed by Michael Lemay (2012), has produced a “scourge of biblical illiteracy” (p. 224). This biblical ignorance owes much to the religious syncretism that has undermined the absolute truth of the God-breathed Scriptures (II Tim. 3:16, King James Version). Professing Christians captured by modern and post-modern philosophies and influences have begun reading the Scriptures through a subjective lens which, in turn, has led to systematic abuse in translation and interpretation (Lemay, 2012). Because of this, merely advocating for the increase of biblical readership would not be enough to reverse the decline in biblical illiteracy since, as will be discussed, the way the Bible is being read plays into the destructive realities of biblical illiteracy.
Textual Fragmentation
Biblical literacy can best be described as one’s ability to correctly read and understand the Bible in a way that corresponds to authorial intent. As such, being biblically literate is not so much having the ability to read the Bible, but engaging the Bible in such a way that comprehends the overarching metanarratives woven throughout its many stories and themes. This idea is what lends to the most disturbing result and a central causative agency that lends toward the decline of biblical illiteracy. While people are reading the Bible less, those who are reading it are reading it in such a way that the Bible is being divorced from authorial intent, and the metanarratives of the Bible are being compartmentalized into disproportionate and disjointed stories and belief systems. “Such biblical illiteracy,” Tom Steffan (2006) writes, “leads to a fragmented understanding of the Bible. Believers only minimally exposed to the Bible find few unifying themes that tie pertinent characters and truths together. They often find little consistency between the two Testaments” (p. 80).
In other words, within the greater whole of Christendom, the Bible, once viewed as a living document, is being dismembered and rejoined in ways that would make Mary Shelley’s (1818) literary Frankenstein appear almost human. As a result of this biblical fragmentation, the Bible becomes nothing more than a fragmented, arbitrary document filtered through societal norms and religious bias. As a result, it is usurped as the objective authority that governs the holistic whole of the human being. Furthermore, this usurpation of biblical authority propagates the rise of myriad anemic doctrines, and religious pluralism birthed out of freakishly fragmented theological disciplines.
Weighing in on the endemic of post-modern pluralism, James K. Smith (2012) states that “theology….is intractably fragmented, owing to the fact that we have gradually abandoned the goal of attempting to establish an ‘objective’ reading of the Bible and have, as a result, stranded theology in the quagmire of a thousand different frameworks” (pg. 62). These frameworks of theology have produced a Christian community that is “so fragmented by biblical illiteracy and denominationalism that it is becoming a contradiction to what the ‘Church’ is supposed to represent” (Davis, 2008 p. 307).
Textual Malpractice
This symptomatic fragmentation has also found its way into the pulpits of modern American churches and, in an effort to relativize and abbreviate textual truth for the sake of an appealing sermon, exegesis is being overtaken by eisegesis, and the results become, as mentioned before, disjointed and dismembered parts torn from the unified whole. Like a surgeon that utilizes blunted and rusty scalpels, so also are supposed practitioners of the Word of God making jagged cuts that show little regard to the anatomical whole of authorial intent.
This blunted edge of contextual and exegetical malpractice has produced generational heirs to a systemic spread of doctrinal positions, shallow beliefs, and untenable viewpoints that cannot be substantiated, either textually or principally, thus resulting in a further fragmented and divisive culture that often sacrifices Scriptural objectives for either a hyper-pharisaical position that will make disciples “twofold more the child of hell” (Matt. 23:15) or the materialistically obese reality of a spiritually-emaciated Laodicean culture (Rev. 3:17). “Nowhere in the total curriculum of theological studies” Walter Kaiser (1998) writes, “has the student been more deserted and left to his own devices…” (p. 18).
As a result, myopic leaders are producing myopic congregations that teeter between the sacred and the secular, unable to find the equilibrium of a pneumatological-oriented theology that comprehends the totality of an objective biblical framework. The only remedy for the fatalistic decline in biblical illiteracy is a church that is grounded in a theological and hermeneutical paradigm of both “dynamics and doctrine” (Wilson, 2016, p. 2). Simply put, no other religious entity outside of the Apostolic-Pentecostal church can respond with such efficacy to the Babel-like fragmentation of the Word of God caused by the rapid decline of biblical illiteracy.
The Church’s Response to Biblical Illiteracy
In response to the rapid decline of biblical illiteracy, it is essential to utilize the foundational tenets realized within the monotheistic and monogamous mandate communicated in the Shema (Deut. 6:4-9). Quoted in part by Jesus in the New Testament (Mark 12:29-30; Mat. 22:37; Luke 10:27), the Shema’s influence was further picked up by the Apostle Paul ( Gal. 3:19-20; Rom. 3:27-31; Eph. 6:4). Since its inauguration in the Torah; the Shema stands out as an essential conceptual foundation upon which the endurance of Tanakhic writings could be secured thus serving, within the scope of textual and oral preservation, a template for transmission.
Template for Transmission
Serving as the distillation of the entire collective of God’s articulated covenantal responsibilities (Merrill, 2006), the Shema laid the foundational basis for which Torah literacy would successfully undergo generational transmission. Echoing the sentiments of Joshua 1:8 that “this book of the law shall not depart from out of thy mouth,” the Shema was a clairvoyant command whose purpose served as more than a monolithic call to exclusive monotheism. It was a call that sought to ensure the preservation of a distinct cultural future that was undergirded by a people chosen by God as the standard-bearers of truth and the forerunners of a salvific schema whose designs preempted the dismal fall of humankind.
The longevity and success of the Torah could only be secured through a generational transmission made possible by teaching, an intensive Hebrew verb that means to teach incisively (Baker & Carpenter, 2003). The illusion of the word implies that the recipients of the Torah were to engrave its words and concepts upon future subsequent generations as the engraver etches words into stone or granite. This would occur through several various means. First, parents would communicate the deliverance narratives, covenantal obligations, and various other words of the Law to their children (Deut. 6:7), which, in turn, would lend toward a continual discourse and dialogue regarding the Words of God (6:7b) that was further etched into the hearts of their children through a vigilance of heart, mind, and praxis (6:8-9). Such practices promoted an attentiveness to preserving and protecting God’s Word. Later Talmudic interventions would develop over time that consistently ensured Tanakhic transmission, such as priestly instruction (Deut. 31:9-13), the development of the sing-song cadence of Torah virtues realized in the Psalter, and the liturgical education that was propagated through the communal gatherings, scribal systems, and various Torah revivals that occurred throughout the history of the Jewish nation. In many ways, the Shema and its subsequent developments throughout the history of the Jewish nation weave together a threefold cord that seeks not only to preserve God’s word but to ensure that the future generations maintain a Scriptural vigilance of heart, mind, and praxis, thus lending to a solid sense of biblical literacy.
Familial Transmission
Rich with Hebraic foundations, “the family,” writes Joseph Atkinson (2014), “had followed a long trajectory within salvation history, starting from being the ‘carrier of the covenant’ in the Abrahamic covenant to becoming the ‘sphere of eschatological activity’ when it reached its teleological conclusions in Christ. However, due to the phenomenal growth of the early Church….Christianity’s acceptance as the state religion….the importance of the family began to recede” (p. 2). Before adopting Christianity as a state religion, the family served as the focal point for biblical (Tanakhic) education (Hezser, 2001). This is further established in that, in many of the significant events between Israel and God, a responsibility for familial transmission took center stage.
The first Passover, eaten in sobriety and haste, was expected to continue in each subsequent generation to come and, “when your children shall say unto you, what mean ye by this service,” (Ex. 12:26), an opportunity and means would present itself to tell the story of God’s great deliverance from the land of Egypt on the eve of the Passover. These hallowed feasts and festivals developed within the Hebraic home a “rhythm of family life….penetrated by the appointed times of holiness” (Atkinson, 2014, p. 93). This natural rhythm of life allowed for teachable moments that occurred organically and, in turn, successfully etching God’s words and works into the hearts of the children. In this context, “education is not an artificial construct that is imposed upon the child, but rather it grows out of the concrete experience of the child and waits for the moment when the child is psychologically engaged with the subject” (Atkinson, 2014, pp. 96-97). Even today, hinged upon the events of the first Passover, orthodox Jewish families undergo the ritualistic search for leaven within the home on Passover’s eve. With candles lit and not a word spoken between the blessing and the finding of the leaven, families engage in a delightful yet somber search to find and remove the leaven from the home. Believed in Jewish tradition to have originated via searching Jerusalem with candles in Zephaniah 1:12, the search for Chametz (leaven) became an activity in the home that reinforced the narrative of God’s Word and an awareness of the importance of purity and obedience in the home.
The success of Scriptural permanence rested within the familial responsibility to develop a natural cadence in the home where, as noted before, the familial structure was to impress upon future generations the words of God as an engraver etches words into stone or granite. The heartbeat of securing the Tanakhic culture of the nation depended upon the consistency of patriarchs, matriarchs, mothers, and fathers, teaching the commandment of God “when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up” (Deut. 6:7). Furthermore, God’s laws were to be written upon the posts of the doors and gates of the home and fastened, via phylacteries, upon their hands and upon their foreheads further establishing the necessity of God’s words to govern man’s mind and man’s strength. Likewise, today the Bible must serve as the cornerstone of the familial construct and its narratives, moral guidelines, doctrines, and overall unified theme spoken, discussed, and taught organically by parents who, in turn, are consistently developed, aligned, and instructed within the local framework of the church.
Ecclesiastical Transmission
The church, an organic entity that enjoys a global community, first finds precedent within the framework the Tabernacle erected during the wilderness journey of Israel (cf. Acts 7:38). As the tribal encampments were divinely structured to correspond to the centrality of the Tabernacle (Num. 2:2), so also is the modern home to be divinely structured to correspond to the centrality of the local church that also envisions the mobility, not of sacred space, but of sacred vision, mission, and the bulwarks of the Spirit-led Christian faith. From this vantage point, the church serves as the bridge that brings the priestly (ministerial) and familial together, thus establishing the Pauline paradigm of the Body of Christ (Eph. 4:11-13) and, as an extension of this environment, helps to ensure that “we henceforth be no more children tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the slight of men, and cunning craftiness…” (4:14).
As a worshipping community of Spirit and Truth (Jn. 4:23), the church serves as the authoritative frame within which the spiritual and educational constructs of the Word of God are embodied and the fountainhead through which biblical interaction, discussion, and education are fostered. It is, or ought to be, a living classroom where biblical education is enmeshed in the experiential power of the Holy Ghost and where discipleship, as it was in the days of Jesus, responds to the “come and see” (Jn. 1:39) invitation that promises both knowing and experiencing. Thus, the church carries with it a distinctive purpose to facilitate, equip, and engage the individual and the family in a more robust understanding of the Word of God that lends toward the immediacy of biblical literacy and transmission.
Ministerial Transmission
The remedy for the epidemic of biblical illiteracy rests heavily upon the workmen charged with the admonition to “….rightly divide the word of truth” (II Tim. 2:15). In this admonition, orthotomounta (rightly dividing)is intentionally brought alongside the ergatēs
(workman) to provide the metaphorical framework that speaks of a diligent trade, such as masonry and carpentry, that requires exactness and precision. As such, Scripture expressly admonishes the episkopos (bishop) to be competent and skillful in communicating truth (I Tim. 3:2) and, as Timothy was admonished by the Apostle Paul, make sure one “hold fast the form of sound words” (II Tim. 1:13a). Simply put, the ministry must not engage in an eisegetical gymnastic that wrests from scripture authorial intent in order to frame homiletical orations that tickle the untrained ear. Those that engage in such practices handle the word of God deceitfully (II Cor. 4:2), a tactic that closely mirrors the subtle cunning of a particular serpent’s tongue (Gen. 3:13).
It is crucial then that both didasko (teaching) and kerygma (proclamation) are rescued from a subjective (II Pet. 1:20-21), post-modern hermeneutic by ensuring a “mutual indwelling of scholarship and spirituality, so that our biblical interpretation will be at once the best work of which we are capable and, more than that, the result of an ongoing divine teaching” (Westphal, 2016, p. 29). The clarion call for a “clear and comprehensive theology that acts to prevent, on the one hand, reversion to a wooden rationalism and, on the other, an unscriptural extremism” (Wilson, 2016, p. 21) is desperately needed if one is to confront the woes of biblical illiteracy and what James K. Smith (2012) considers to be the fall of interpretation.
Biblical literacy in the pew owes much to biblical literacy behind the pulpit. If one is to propagate the straight cutting (II Tim. 2:15) of biblical exactness, it must be demonstrated and taught by those charged to “preach the Word” (II Tim. 4:2a). As the health and wholeness of the human body depends upon the surgeon’s comprehension of its anatomical whole, so also does the body of Christ depend upon the exactness and precision of those who wield the zao (living) and energes (active) “two-edged sword” (Heb. 4:2) of God’s Word.
Conclusion
The lack of comprehensive literature regarding the subject of biblical illiteracy is disappointing yet a reflection of the epidemic. As such, it has become undeniably clear that both the church and the world need a comprehensive undertaking that sets biblical illiteracy firmly within its sights. Utilizing the Shema’s template as the construct upon which the Church can respond to biblical illiteracy, one is able to envelop the core of religious institution as realized in the threefold cord of family, church, and ministry. Indeed, the endurance of a biblical culture that engenders to “hold fast the form of sound words” (II Tim. 1:13) depends upon the galvanization of each of these three divine institutions to “teach them diligently….when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down when thou risest up and….bind them for a sign upon thine hand….frontlets between thine eyes” (Deut. 6:7-8).
References
Atkinson, J. C. (2014). Biblical & theological foundations of the family: the domestic church. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press.
Baker, W., & Carpenter, E. E. (2003). The complete word study dictionary: Old Testament. Chattanooga, Tenn.: AMG Publishers.
Barna Group, Ltd (2016, August 26). Top 10 findings on teens and the bible. Retrieved from https://www.barna.com/research/top-10-findings-teens-bible/#.V8Gwga0om_4
Bauerlein, M., & Bellow, A. (2015). The state of the American mind: 16 leading critics on the new anti-intellectualism. West Conshohocken, PA: Templeton Press.
Davis, Forrest. (2008) A view from the pew: the church vs. institution. Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse
Hezser, C. (2001). Jewish literacy in Roman Palestine. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck.
Kaiser, W. C. (1998). Toward an exegetical theology : biblical exegesis for preaching and teaching (1st paperback ed.). Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Books.
LeMay, M. D. (2012). The suicide of American Christianity : drinking the “cool”-aid of secular humanism. Bloomington, IN: WestBow Press.
Merrill, Eugene (2006). Everlasting dominion: a theology of the old testament. Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers
Shelley, M. W. (1818). Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. London, Printed for Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor, & Jones.
Smietana, Bob (April 25, 2017). LifeWay Research: Americans are fond of the Bible, don’t actually read it. Retrieved from https://lifewayresearch.com/2017/04/25/lifeway-research-americans-are-fond-of-the-bible-dont-actually-read-it/
Smith, J. K. A. (2012). The fall of interpretation: philosophical foundations for a creational hermeneutic (2nd ed.). Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Academic.
Steffen, Tom (2006). Reconnecting God’s story to ministry: cross-cultural storytelling at home and abroad. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press
Westphal, Merold (2016). Spirit and prejudice: the dialectic of interpretation. Archer, Kenneth., & Oliverio, William (Eds.) Constructive pneumatological hermeneutics in pentecostal christianity: New York, NY: Springer Nature
Wilson, N. (2016). Apostolic pentecostal theology: advanced (1st edition. ed.). Sacramento, CA: Insignia Books.