Just Read It

I came across this brilliant article yesterday which confirms all my personal feelings and suspicions about Christianity in America. To cut to the chase, it’s really bad. Lots of people (although, I’m sure I can say with confidence, none of the readers of this blog) while self identifying as Christian, in fact are not able to articulate or affirm basic Christian doctrine.

Let’s just gape in open mouthed wonder at a couple of examples about the general population of self described Christians:
“Two-thirds admitted that everyone sins a little bit, but still insisted that most people are good by nature, which directly contradicts scripture…”
“Seventy-four percent said the ‘smallest sins’ don’t warrant eternal damnation, in contrast to Jesus’ brother, who when writing at the Holy Spirit’s inspiration taught that even one infraction of God’s law is enough to sink someone.”
“A full 60 percent agreed that ‘everyone eventually goes to heaven,’ but half of those surveyed also checked the box saying that ‘only those who believe in Jesus will be saved.'”

And then, of course, it gets worse in the so called the evangelical category:
“Seven in ten evangelicals—more than the population at large—said that Jesus was the first being God created. Fifty-six percent agreed that ‘the Holy Spirit is a divine force but not a personal being.’ They also saw a huge increase in evangelicals (28 percent, up from 9 percent) who indicated that the Third Person of the Trinity is not equal with God the Father or Jesus, a direct contradiction of orthodox Christianity.”

The author of the piece concludes with a plea for Christians to dust off their bibles and at least try to remember the names of the first five books. If you’re not sure whether or not John the Baptist is Jesus’ brother, or one of the twelve disciples, it would be so great if you just began to try to read the book and maybe familiarize yourself not only with the particulars of the gospel, but with the beauty of one of The foundational texts of this crumbling civilization.

I, myself, just for fun, of course, and not because I needed to, sniff, took a semester of remedial bible for English Majors in college, taught by an atheist who nevertheless loved the King James Bible. In one semester we had to read the whole thing–a big paperback KJV with no pictures or footnotes or maps or anything, just words. So Many Words.

And that’s part of the problem, isn’t it. The bible is full of words, complicated words that communicate hard theological concepts, ancient history, fantastical images. There are no memes, no little self playing video clips to help the eye leap over the difficult prose. We aren’t used anymore to words so much as images and impressions that move us emotionally one way or another.

But God so loves words that he Self Identifies as one, the Word. And that means literacy, reading, sticking with it, allowing your emotional and intellectual life to be shaped and formed by this ancient and difficult text.

Fortunately for you, just to bring this back around to myself, I have a little book coming out very soon, well in time for your Christmas shopping, if you’re looking to treat yourself. It’s not very big or consequential, but it’s meant to be a little kick to help you crack open that dusty irrelevant book and read it yourself. Next week we all get to see the cover and I am So Excited. If you long to read a whole small book by me (and really, why wouldn’t you, especially since it’s not nearly as long as the bible and so much easier to read, cough, but on a lot of the pages I do tell you to go read the bible too, or rather, instead of) then watch this space.

But for heaven’s sake, even if you never get around to reading another book About the bible, read the bible itself! Find a good church where the words, the Word, is exposed, explained, laid bear so that your mind and heart and grasp onto the depth of its riches. It really does matter about, say, the nature of the Trinity, or the details of the incarnation. If Jesus isn’t fully God, he can’t save you. And if he can’t save you, you’re stuck mucking your way into eternity yourself, which you aren’t strong enough or good enough to do. Don’t delay! Read the Bible!