What America Believes About the Bible
Late 20th century and (thus far) early 21st century Americans are surely the most prodded, probed and polled people in history. Pollsters contact, calculate and communicate Americans’ views on every topic imaginable (and some that, frankly, I couldn’t imagine), from political persuasions to sexual positions. Thus, it should come as no surprise that statistical studies are regularly conducted about religious beliefs and practices in general, and specifically about how Americans view the Bible.
An oft-cited Gallup Poll asks respondents to choose which of the following views comes closest to their own: (1) “The Bible is the actual word of God and is to be taken literally word for word”; (2) “The Bible is the inspired word of God but not everything in it should be taken literally”; (3) “The Bible is an ancient book of fables, legends, history and moral precepts recorded by man.”
Since this issue comes at the end of a year celebrating BR’s twentieth anniversary, it may prove instructive to look at results from two decades ago and compare them with recent trends. In November 1984, 40 percent of Americans selected option #1; 41 percent, #2; 12 percent, #3; with 6 percent expressing no opinion. In response to the same questions in early May 2005, the statistics were 32 percent, 47 percent, 18 percent and 2 percent.
Expressing alarm at the decline (even more pronounced over four decades than two) in the number of Americans who read the Bible “literally,” an AP religion reporter editorializes: “Liberal-minded university and seminary professors have labored long to lure Americans away from reading their Bibles as strictly literal history. They sometimes complain that few pay heed. But Gallup Poll data suggest the professors have indeed had an impact.” Many conservative Christians and traditional Jews would share such sentiments. After all, the Gallup organization is widely recognized for its development of sampling techniques and its increasingly sophisticated methods of interpreting the data thus gleaned.
Before even attempting to assess any possible significance in the change of percentages over twenty years, I think we need to look closely at the wording of each of these choices. In my opinion, all three are flawed.
Regarding option one, I for one don’t know anybody who takes “everything” in the Bible “literally.” I remember listening to a radio evangelist years ago who declared, “When the Bible says you are the salt of the earth, it doesn’t mean that we are literally the salt of the earth.” To which I might respond, Amen, brother. Outside of the Eva Gabor character on the classic television sitcom “Green Acres,” is there anybody who thinks the prohibition against “casting pearls before swine” is intended primarily as a warning about jewelry and pigs?
My point, succinctly put, is that it is not possible to take everything in the Bible literally, nor does any fair reading of the text expect us to do so. Now this may be obvious to everyone, but I don’t know that the implications of not reading “everything literally” have been sufficiently thought through. For example, if we can all agree that “salt of the earth” is not to be taken literally, then why isn’t this also the case for the “pillar of salt” into which Lot’s wife was turned? Can we understand the “days” of Genesis 1 as something other than 24-hour periods and still read that text “literally”?
With respect to option two, it should be observed that “inspiration” is by no means a transparent term and that, for many, it is the “author” who is inspired or “breathed into” (a literal translation of the Latin inspirare) rather than the text. The wording of the third option strikes me as particularly unfortunate, since in everyday parlance “fable” and “legend” are terms loaded in the direction of lack of truthfulness, seriousness and trustworthiness. As I see it, their placement before “history” and “moral precepts” can unnecessarily elicit a negative reaction to this choice.
In short, it strikes me that none of these options, as worded by the Gallup pollsters, is satisfactory. I’m not sure how I would answer the poll. None of the responses captures my own feelings about the Bible or those of the many friends and colleagues with whom I discuss such matters. I am therefore disinclined to read too much into or out of these statistics.
From personal correspondence with those responsible for periodically administering this poll, I know that they are not about to change its wording. Were they willing to do so, I would suggest the simplified query in the box at upper right.
No matter what qualms I may have about the phrase “literal belief in the Bible,” Gallup is far from alone in using it or similar phrases. Although according to the Gallup Poll cited above (only) 32 percent of respondents agree that “the Bible is the actual word of God and is to be taken literally word for word,” an ABC News Poll from early 2004 found a much larger number, over 60 percent of Americans, who believe in the “literal truth” of the Genesis account of Creation and an almost identical number who accept as historical the story of Noah and the global Flood. An even higher percentage (64 percent) take literally the account of Moses’ parting of the Red Sea as narrated in the Book of Exodus.
We are left to ponder how these numbers relate to another set of figures from another Gallup Poll, this one from November 2004, in which 38 percent of respondents held that “human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process” and 45 percent sided with the view that “God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so.” If 60 percent of Americans consider themselves literalists in the matter of Creation, then it would appear that almost half of the first 38 percent has to be part of this crowd, but, at least according to my understanding of the term, “literalists” they are not. Such individuals are often spoken of as “old-earth creationists,” who agree with the scientifically accepted age of the earth, but still affirm that theirs is a literal reading of the Bible and that, for the most part, they reject evolution.
A related issue is “Bible literacy”: Popular consensus has it that, as trumpeted in one headline, “Bible Illiteracy Rampant in America: Many Quote It, Buy It and Revere It, but Few Read It.” The statistical evidence here is split. First, we observe, in agreement with polls conducted by Gallup and other organizations, that one or more Bibles have found their way into almost all American homes (fewer than 10 percent of American families are without one). So it is true that “many buy it.” But the number of those who say they read the Bible at least once a week, although it has dropped from almost 50 percent fifteen years ago to 37 percent today, is still substantial. And the percentage of those who read the Bible at least occasionally, although again showing slippage over two decades (from 73 percent 20 years ago to 59 percent now), is hardly inconsiderable. Thus, it does not seem accurate to say, at least on the basis of self-description, that “few read it.”
Gallup pollsters, in common with other national pulse takers, detect a high degree of what is termed biblical illiteracy in America. But it does not appear to be a result of declining readership: “Bible illiteracy” has, according to Gallup pollsters, “hardly budged” since the mid-1930s, in spite of the vast increase in college graduates and other measures of general educational advances.
Is this in fact the case? I submit that, in the absence of well thought out, even commonsensical questions, we simply don’t know. My primary objection to the surveys I have seen on this subject is that the questions asked do not seem to presuppose a well-developed understanding of what a biblically literate person should indeed know. This is nowhere more evident than in the (to me) obvious disparity in the levels of knowledge being probed. In one Gallup survey from the first year of the 21st century: “Fewer than half of Americans can name the first book of the Bible [the answer Genesis is conveniently provided], only one-third know who delivered the Sermon on the Mount [we are helpfully informed that it was Jesus, not Billy Graham as many apparently think], and one-quarter do not know what is celebrated on Easter [the Resurrection, correctly characterized as the foundational event of Christianity]. I am mildly disappointed that a majority of Americans don’t know that Genesis in the first book of the Bible, I am somewhat concerned that the Sermon on the Mount could be attributed to someone other than Jesus—although I am more interested in people’s carrying out the teachings—and I am truly shocked that any Christian doesn’t know what Easter is all about—knowledge that I thought was widespread above and beyond Bible readers (as for Christmas, we probably shouldn’t go there). But I’m not convinced that any of this really tells us about the overall state of biblical (il)literacy. To be honest, much of this strikes me as just slightly above the level of biblical trivia.
Now, it is certainly the case that I am leaving myself open to the charge of pedantry, carping and nitpicking. But when dozens of people pen hundreds of questions to ask thousands of individuals, the results of which are intended to be read by millions—I think close examination is not only possible, but necessary.
One final thought: Many observers of survey results contend that only literalists are “serious” readers of the Bible. Thus it is that one source can characterize the 60-plus percent who accept the “literal truth” of Creation, the Flood, and the Exodus as “reassuring figures and a positive sign” and equate a “literal” reading with a “compelling” one. I strenuously object to any such exclusive characterizations. For me, serious readers of the Bible are characterized by their willingness to interact directly with the biblical text (whether in the original language or in translation) and to be open to its words whether read for the first or the hundredth (or thousandth) time; in short, by their capacity to let the Bible speak to them. If the Bible speaks “literally” to some, I am happy to accept them as serious readers and to consider them as possibly “biblically literate.” But I would insist on according the same status to those who read the Bible in a variety of other ways. Just as I listen to the text and to its exposition by others, I expect the same from those who disagree with me—and those who happen to be in agreement.
Late th century and (thus far) early 21st century Americans are surely the most prodded, probed and polled people in history. Pollsters contact, calculate and communicate Americans’ views on every topic imaginable (and some that, frankly, I couldn’t imagine), from political persuasions to sexual positions. Thus, it should come as no surprise that statistical studies are regularly conducted about religious beliefs and practices in general, and specifically about how Americans view the Bible. An oft-cited Gallup Poll asks respondents to choose which of the following views comes closest to their own: (1) “The Bible is the actual word of God […]
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