It is the best-selling book of all time. It is perhaps the most often quoted and yet least-read work in print. Its author is held to be by many none other than God, himself. It is the Bible, the sacred text of Christianity.
According to Gallup polls and publishers’ surveys cited by the Religion News Service and published Saturday in The Washington Post, about 92 percent of Americans own a Bible. The average household has three. Despite the pervasiveness of the Good Book, fewer than half of Americans can name the first book of the Bible (Genesis). Only a third know that Jesus – not Billy Graham, as many of those questioned responded – delivered the Sermon on the Mount. And one-forth have no idea what is celebrated on Easter, a holiday that recounts the foundational event of the Christian religion, the Resurrection.
Everyone knows from segments on the Tonight Show, periodical news reports on geography or American history surveys that, as a whole, American people are actually quite ignorant of the world around them. What is disturbing, though, is that Americans flaunt their ignorance on matters they collectively consider important. Few people have any idea how Social Security works, but they think it should be reformed. The labels Medicare and Medicaid are tossed about interchangeably when average citizens refer to two distinctly different health-care programs. And two-thirds of Americans say the Bible holds the answers to the basic questions of life while they obviously have no idea what the Bible actually says.
Beyond debates of whether God – in whatever form or by any name – even exists, religion can be a liberating, fulfilling aspect of many people’s lives. But it can also be a very dangerous element in political, ethnic, social and military conflicts. One need only look to the strife between Jews and Muslims in the Middle East or the ongoing feud between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland to see how religion mixed with politics can lead to death and devastation. Certainly no one is implying that similar violence will erupt on the streets of D.C. as it has in Jerusalem and Belfast, but the fact that people are willing to kill each other over religion shows the power deposited in sacred texts like the Bible.
Widespread ignorance of what those pages actually contain can allow someone to usurp and abuse the true meaning of religious scriptures, leading to justifications for nearly anything. A limited, uncritical reading of the Bible permits lines of thinking which are anathema to the values of modern society. The Bible’s verses have been used in support of the enslavement of blacks and the denial of women’s rights. The Bible has been used to justify homophobia, bigotry and genocide.
The misuse of the Bible to support these wicked purposes only occurs out of ignorance. Oppressing blacks, women, Jews, gays, Muslims and indigenous peoples, among others, is supported only by passages in the book and not by the entirety of the work. The message of the Bible is one of God’s love for all creatures – not just a chosen few.
It is no wonder Americans do not read their Bibles; the King James Version, compiled at roughly the same time as Shakespeare’s plays, remains the favorite version by a 5-to-1 ratio. This popularity presumably comes as a result of the beautiful phrasing of the language because almost no one would consider the King James Version easy to read. On a deeper level, though, the fact that Americans purchase in great quantities a book they find to be too confusing to bother reading belies one of the greatest problems with modern American society.
Proper use and comprehension of the English language has almost become a forgotten art. True, people no longer sprinkle their speech with pronouns like thee or thou, but just as Shakespeare is understandable with a little diligence in reading and a healthy dose of actual thought, grasping the concepts in the King James Version Bible is not impossible.
With the ascendancy of the Christian Right in national politics and in an era when presidential candidates cite the Bible nearly as frequently as their policy proposals, knowledge and understanding of the Bible is critical. Texas Gov. George W. Bush referred to the Bible as the source of the quotation upon which he bases his compassionate conservatism – God helps them that help themselves. Benjamin Franklin actually devised that particular phrase nearly a thousand years after the Bible was written. Conservative politicians routinely cite the Ten Commandments as essential to American morality, yet it often seems they forget the Commandment that forbids adultery. However, they can afford to run the risk of breaking that little taboo when 60 percent of Americans cannot even name half of the Commandments, much less put them in order.
Obviously not every American is Christian, but no other religion’s seminal text has so intertwined itself in the fabric of American society. With that in mind, huge portions of Americans need to educate themselves. Referring to what the Bible says without having actually read it is intellectually irresponsible. With more than enough copies to go around, reading the Bible before citing it as a moral authority should not be too much to ask.
-The writer is Hatchet opinions editor.
