Saturday, January 17, 1998

Doesn't anybody read the Bible anymore? Christians are turning to other books for illumination

By Matthew Brady / Knight-Ridder Newspapers

They fill aisle after aisle in Christian bookstores: inspirational tomes neatly ordered like paper soldiers of truth in the battle for human souls.

Their colorful jackets sell hope and happiness with such titles as "Experiencing God: How to Live the Full Adventure of Knowing and Doing the Will of God" and "What Matters Most: Four Absolute Necessities in Following Christ."

These books and a multitude of others exist not to contradict the Bible, but to support, explain and apply it.

Yet the fact that such books are needed highlights an inherent obstacle to Christendom's holy book.

It's just plain hard to understand.

"The Bible really is a foreign book to many people," said Lonnie Kliever, professor and chairman of religious studies at Southern Methodist University. "It's very difficult to study the Bible. It's very easy to use the Bible as a kind of anthology of inspirational sayings, like a dictionary of great ideas. That's not the real character of the Bible."

A 1996 survey indicates that the average American owns, respects and swears allegiance to the Bible -- but just doesn't read it.

In the survey, conducted by The Barna Group, 80 percent of respondents said they consider the Bible to be the most influential book in human history. More than 90 percent of households surveyed own a Bible, and three out of four own more than one.

But 19 percent of those surveyed said they never read it, and 26 percent said they rarely read it.

What Americans are buying, and presumably reading, is a plethora of books about the Bible and Christian life.

Family Christian Stores, with 198 locations nationwide, recorded double-digit sales growth in 1997.

Christian fiction led the growth, followed by books on Christian living, charismatic Christianity and devotional life.

The danger is that some Christians may substitute, rather than supplement, the Bible, some observers say.

"I think a lot of people do that," said Tim Way, senior book buyer for Family Christian Stores. "It's an easy habit to get into. The other books give you sound bites, whereas the Bible is the full thing."

Way said that even a quality book about the Bible is no substitute for the real thing.

"When I'm reading a book, even though that book is about the Bible or about biblical principles, I'm reading someone's opinion," he said. "I have to weigh that against what the Bible reads."

But even Bibles are becoming laced with opinion and interpretations.

Taking a cue from the success of Christian devotional books, Bible publishers have created hybrid products called specialty Bibles.

This category includes Bibles designed for women, men, youths, children and even specific ethnic groups, such as African-Americans. They include the complete text of the Bible, augmented with special study guides and insights sprinkled throughout.

Modern translations also tend to blur the line between God-inspired text and human interpretation. "The Living Bible," a paraphrase written by Ken Taylor, was first published in 1971 and has 40 million copies in print. And more recently, "The Message," "a contemporary rendering" of the New Testament by Eugene Peterson, has sold more than 5.1 million copies, according to Publishers' Weekly.

Unadorned "text Bibles," as they are called, are sold mainly to churches to place in pews, according to Family Christian Stores.

Kliever said that surrounding the Scriptures with human interpretations is nothing new.

'The Bible has never, ever spoken for itself to its readers," he said. "Otherwise you would never have any need for preaching. You would never have any need for liturgy. You would never have any need for theology. The Bible has to be interpreted and applied."

What is new is the "decline in the influence of preachers and teachers," Kliever said. The books and specialty Bibles give believers access to a variety of interpretations of how to live the Christian life.

At one time, the power of interpretation was wielded mainly by the Roman Catholic Church.

It published the Bible in Latin, limiting accessibility and, therefore, interpretation.

In the 1500s, Martin Luther translated the New Testament into German and distributed it to the masses against the wishes of the Roman Catholic Church. Although not the first German translation of the Scriptures, it caught on and was widely distributed.

Giving the people control over their theology caused repercussions even Luther was not prepared to accept, Kliever said.

"If you just give the Bible to the peasant, to the king, to the wife, to the husband, to the farmer, to the teacher, people are going to be buzzing all over the place with their own interpretations -- every man a pope," Kliever said. "That's why we have literally hundreds and hundreds of versions of what it means to be a Christian, because the Bible was taken out of the hands of authority and into the hands of the laity."

Kliever said such diversity is not necessarily a bad thing.

"I like to say, 'A wise person makes up his mind for himself, but only a fool makes up his mind by himself,' " he said. "When you isolate yourself from the community of discourse, then you are at the mercy of your own ignorance, your own superstition, your own bias."

(c) 1998, Fort Worth Star-Telegram

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