How to increase Bible engagement
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Sept. 8, 2023


As someone who spent my adolescent and young adult years in some
form of Evangelical Protestantism (Christian Reformed to JW to
Independent Fundamental Baptist to Charismatic/Pentecostal), and as
someone who majored in biblical studies as an undergrad for a
couple of years, I thought I knew the Bible from the cover to
cover. So it was quite a shock for me earlier this year to find out
how little I knew about it, while I was taking Bible survey classes
at CLI.

According to the American Bible Society's "State of the Bible"
survey in 2022, there was an "unprecedented drop" in Bible
engagement during the early part of last year. This is when the
survey's definition of Bible engagement is "reading the Bible
outside church settings at least three or four times a year." Even
under this shallow bar, the engagement dropped by 11 percent
between 2021 and 2022.

Part of the problem is the lack of disciplined approaches to
Scriptures. Within the Evangelical world, devotional materials
abound. There are apps one can use, complete with many "Bible
reading plans" and automated reminders. Yet, they tend to follow a
typical pick-and-choose approach in which disjointed, short
passages of biblical texts are assembled for a quick, on-the-go
devotional.

Evangelicals tend to think of the Bible as an "infallible and
inerrant Word of God" in a way that every verse and even every word
is authoritative in its own, even when read devoid of its context.
While this may lead believers to memorize a few famous verses, it
still leads to low biblical literacy. Worse, it leads to
fundamentalism and extremism. When the "Word of God" is reduced to
easy soundbites, all the nuances and literary riches are lost and
understanding is diminished.

Some even treat the Bible like a deck of oracle cards, there is
actually a word for this: bibliomancy. They are often the same
people who accuse practitioners of tarot reading guilty of
divination; yet, I see them taking random verses from the
Scriptures and proclaiming, "Thus saith the Lord."

Bringing back traditional scriptural reading plans will do a lot of
good, although this has been quite foreign to churches outside the
liturgical traditions and the historical Mainline denominations.

The Revised Common Lectionary (RCL) is a triennial cycle through
the Bible that is linked to the liturgical calendar of the Western
church. It is typically followed by the Catholic,
Anglican/Episcopal, Presbyterian, and Lutheran churches, as well as
by some other Protestant denominations. Because it is used by the
ministers of these churches in constructing sermons each week,
there are a number of good study materials online to aid the
preachers.

Another great tradition one can tap into while reading the Hebrew
Scriptures in particular, is the Jewish lectionary known as
parashat ha-shavuah. This is an annual cycle that journeys through
the entire Torah (the Pentateuch: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus,
Numbers, and Deuteronomy), as well as readings from the Prophets
and the Writings that are thematically associated with a given
week's Torah portion. Again, since this is used by Jewish
congregations around the world each week, there is a wealth of
commentaries and study materials online.

Lectio Divina is another practice that has become more popular
among some Christians in recent decades. Once part of the Catholic
monastic tradition, it was "rediscovered" by the
(Post-)Evangelicals who joined the Emerging Church movement during
the first decade of this century. This method emphasizes
contemplation, rather than study, of the Bible.

These three ways of engaging with the Bible are rooted in
traditions, the traditions that predate the era of fast-paced media
consumption. Re-engaging with one or more of these will both enrich
one's spiritual life and counteract the growth of Christian
Nationalist extremism in our society. Furthermore, progressive and
moderate Christians need to increase and strengthen their biblical
literacy now more than ever in modern history; if they do not
engage with the Bible, the Bible becomes the exclusive property of
those who seek to impose fascism dressed in the package of
Christianity.


=> https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu Revised Common
Lectionary
=> https://www.presbyterianmission.org/devotion/daily/ Daily
lectionary (PCUSA)
=>
https://mcgrathblog.nd.edu/how-to-practice-lectio-divina-praying-with-scripture
How to practice Lectio Divina
=> https://www.hebcal.com/sedrot/ Weekly Torah portion
=>
https://goodfaithmedia.org/unprecedented-drop-in-bible-engagement-among-u-s-adults/
Unprecedented drop in Bible engagement among U.S. adults
=> https://www.ucc.org/what-we-believe/worship/sermon-seeds/ Sermon
Seeds (United Church of Christ)
=> https://www.workingpreacher.org Working Preacher (Weekly RCL
commentaries from Luther Seminary)
=> https://www.jtsa.edu/jts-torah-online/?genre=commentary JTS
Torah Online (Jewish Theological Seminary of America)
=> https://reformjudaism.org/learning/torah-study/torah-commentary
Torah Commentary (from the Union for Reformed Judaism)

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