Andrew Motion, the Poet Laureate, has been lamenting the state of British student’s knowledge of both the Bible and classical mythology. (Listen here)
The Poet Laureate said: “I’m not trying to give them a dusty and bitter pill to swallow here, I’m just saying that these stories achieve archetypal status because they tell us recurring truths about human nature that is a pleasure and an important thing in and of itself.”
Every preacher will recognize the picture Motion paints of a decline in knowledge of the Biblical stories. A decline in church attendance is obviously partly to blame, but that isn’t the whole story. Changes in the curriculum for religious education in schools will also have played a part, but these changes were probably necessary given the diversity to be found in British society. In any case, the decline in knowledge of the Bible isn’t just to be found in secular Britain. I’m certain that the grasp the average British church-attender has of the Bible is much lower now than would have been the case until even fairly recently.
And the fault for this lies squarely with the church.
At the risk of sounding like a boring old fart, we have been neglecting the systematic teaching of the Bible in our churches. Hardly surprising that congregations know less about it than they once did. Whereas ‘Bible quizzes’ and the like were once common feature of Sunday School lessons, now they hardly feature at all. The stories of the Old Testament are routinely skimmed over or ignored — it’s almost as if the church has forgotten that the Christian faith has a content which must be taught if it is to be learnt.
That’s one reason I’m excited to be a part of the “Wales Training Network” of the Methodist Church. A commitment to learning was once a significant part of membership of the church, and I’m convinced it could be so again.
I grew up in a very working class community, with no tradition of formal education. (I’m the first in my family to have been to university) But learning was respected and, even though money was often short, books were a significant part of the Christian experience. I remember as a teenager how at the Bible study group I went to with my father there was regular sharing of what members had been reading since the last meeting.
Getting the church reading again would be a first major step in deepening the discipleship of church members. And if we get the church paying attention to the “recurring truths about human nature” that are found in the Bible, then we have some chance of sharing the joy of that more widely.
But if we’re content for there to be Biblical illiteracy in the church, we can hardly be surprised to find it outside.
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
fatprophet 02.18.09 at 7:06 am
In our circuit there is a great emphasis on using the lectionary readings and I would have to say many of the sermons I hear are based on the gospel reading. When one of the old testament stories crop up in the lectionary it is very rare I hear people use them in any way.
I think part of the problem I have noticed is that some Sunday School resources seem to be tied into the lectionary readings so again the stories of Moses and Noah and company are not generally considered.
I agree too about reading books - we read loads when I first joined the youth group which broadened both knowledge and experience because some of the stuff we read led us to visit churches of other denominations including those with a real pentecostal viewpoint. I think one book that really opened my eyes was ‘Nine O’clock in the morning by Denis and Rita Bennett’. This was stuff I had never really come across in reading the Bible or Sunday School.
Rachel 02.18.09 at 8:45 am
I agree wholeheartedly with this post, Richard, and with the comments of Fat Prophet concerning the Lectionary.
I have made one of my personal priorities the taking up of any opportunities to go into local schools to deliver what the schools still themselves seem to call “assemblies”. The expectation seemed to be that I would deliver some form of general moral instruction (be friends; set targets!) but I have increasingly re-envisioned my role as that of the Christian storyteller. I was fortunate to come into ministry before my youngest cleared out his toys, and so have access to the various props, puppets and dressing-up gear which make such a task so much easier and, hopefully, more memorable. I have always found it possible to negotiate my way out of being bound by any scheme the school are using for their collective worship (there are only so many stories that fit with the theme of setting goals!). It’s also a ministry which, given the right conditions, I have been able to pass on to lay people. And it has been very well received - I’m safer with stories than the Trinity (see post below!!!)
I have more recently been using the same storytelling techniques in worship “before the children go out” - which I find best described by the lovely phrase - worship for the child in us all. I have been surprised by the number of adults in the congregation who have found OT stories such as the call of Samuel or the healing of Naaman (last Sunday) completely new to them
Kim 02.18.09 at 8:57 am
From one old - older! - fart to another, well roared, Richard!
Interestingly we just had a Bible quiz at our January Church Meeting - with two Methodist observers (Sketty Methodist, Richard’s old church, and my own Bethel URC now regularly exchange observers at our major meetings) - and with chocolates for the winning team (the Word is sweet!)! Mind, URC Church Meetings aren’t exactly attended by the world and his wife.
Also for several years now our spring-summer Exploration Group (about a dozen people) turns into a book group: we read and discuss five books, usually novels (this year we’ll be reading Melville’s Billy Budd, Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, Jean-Dominique Bauby’s The Diving-Bell and the Butterfly, Kent Haruf’s Plainsong, and John Boyne’s The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas). A tentative experiment has turned into a promising annual event.
Reading the Bible in church is clearly not enough - even when we do include a reading from the Old Testament (there are not only a lot of Arians around, there are a lot of Marcionites too). What we need to do is to turn our churches into “cultures of learning” as such. And Richard is bang on - and my Exploration Group demonstrates - that this has got nothing to do with class or formal education (though government education policy, which reduces pupils and students to economic units, will continue to be inherently undermining of a literate society).
It is now almost thirty years since Alastair MacIntyre (in After Virtue), after applauding the monastic movement of the early Middle Ages, wrote about “the new dark ages which are already upon us”. It seems to me that an essential task of today’s exilic church, remembering that “enlightenment” is a sound biblical principle, is to oppose the triumph of barbarism by resisting it in our own congregations.
Thanks, Richard, for this timely post. And every blessing with your work with the barbarians up north!
Tony Buglass 02.18.09 at 9:29 am
I seldom use the lectionary. One reason is that, having spent over 20 years in rural circuits with a lot of churches in my section, I get more miles per sermon by taking one around for a few weeks. The advantages are that more folk get to hear a particular topic expounded, and I get to spend more time on other things than sermon construction. I accept the danger of only dealing with my favourite themes, but since I use the church year as a guide, I reckon I’m doing what the lectionary wants, but adapting it to my context.
The other thing I have done for many years is to introduce each Bible reading with a couple of sentences to give a context - especially with OT readings, where the book has a place in history, and the story or prophetic oracle may only make sense against that background. I think it is very important that our congregations not only know the stories in the Bible, but the story behind the Bible. Feedback suggests that folk appreciate this very much. I commend it to the house…
Beth 02.18.09 at 10:11 am
From an English academic’s perspective, I agree with this wholeheartedly. My students often have real difficulty digging in to the literature they study because so much of it is infused with Biblical references and resonances. That said, we can’t assume that students turn up to University already well-versed (ha-ha) in the Bible. I think English lit courses need to run an introduction to the use of Scripture (and the Classics) in literature… I may think of doing this with my students, in fact.
Kim 02.18.09 at 10:31 am
To add to the mix, here is T. S. Eliot in his 1935 essay “Religion and Literature”:
“… I could fulminate against the men of letters who have gone into ecstasies over ‘the Bible as literature’, the Bible as ‘the noblest monument of English prose’. Those who talk about the Bible as a ‘monument of English prose’ are merely admiring it as a monument over the grave of Christianity… [T]he Bible has had a literary influence upon English literature not because it has been considered as literature, but because it has been considered as the report of the Word of God. And the fact that men of letters now discuss it as ‘literature’ probably indicates the end of its ‘literary’ influence.”
And:
“It is our business, as readers of literature, to know what we like. It is our business, as Christians, as well as readers of literature, to know what we ought to like. It is our business as honest men not to assume that whatever we like is what we ought to like; and it is our business as honest Christians not to assume that we do like what we ought to like. And the last thing I would wish for would be the existence of two literatures, one for Christian consumption and the other for the pagan world. What I believe to be incumbent upon all Christians is the duty of maintaining consciously certain standards and criteria of criticism over and above those applied by the rest of the world; and that by these criteria and standards everything that we read must be tested.”
Olive Morgan 02.18.09 at 5:44 pm
Years ago - it feels like a lifetime ago - we used to teach the Scripture Examination in our Sunday Schools, and there is a Superintendent Minister today who attributes my teaching her for the Scripture Examination to her initial call to RE teaching and then to the Ministry.
We no longer have such exams and our morning services are often all-age worship services in whicj no age group is offered in-depth Bible teaching. We have found it difficult to get many people to commit to the 34 week Disciple courses but perhaps the newer short Disciple courses (or even the BeADisciple online courses) will be a way of getting people to study the Bible more.
quizout 05.18.09 at 7:06 pm
The youth at our church learn scripture through Bible quizzing. But this is not the same type of quizzes as one would have in Sunday school.
Bible quizzing is a competitive team sport to help teens have fun while learning the Bible. They memorize whole chapters (and often whole books) in preparation for a quiz.