The Bible in American Life: A Report

Introduction

In 2011, the Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture began an interdisciplinary study of the Bible in American life. We are particularly interested in how people use the Bible in their personal daily lives and how other influences, including religious communities and the Internet, shape individuals’ use of scripture. Employing both quantitative methods (the General Social Survey and the National Congregations Study) and qualitative research (historical studies for context), we hope to provide an unprecedented perspective on the Bible’s role outside of worship, in the lived religion of a broad cross-section of Americans. Such data will help scholars seeking to understand changes in American Christianity. The study will also be invaluable to clergy and seminary professors seeking more effective ways to preach and teach about the Bible in an age saturated with information and technology. 

Purpose of the Study 

There is a paradox in American Christianity. According to the General Social Survey, nearly eight in ten Americans regard the Bible as either the literal word of God or as inspired by God. At the same time, other surveys have revealed—and recent books have analyzed—surprising gaps in Americans’ biblical literacy. These discrepancies reveal American Christians’ complex relationship to their scripture, a subject that is widely acknowledged but rarely investigated. 

This lack of understanding of how, where, when, and why Americans use the Bible is frustrating for a variety of people. Clergy devoted to teaching parishioners about Christian scripture and how to apply it to their lives often find an audience quick to revere the Bible but slow to read it for themselves—at least in a fashion beyond reading into it what they want it to say. Seminary professors struggle to help the next generation of ministers convey the Bible’s relevance and meaning in a world where online sources compete with the traditional authority of the church. Social science and humanities scholars attempt to understand the relationship between religious beliefs and practices of individuals, on the one hand, and congregational or denominational teachings that are sometimes at odds with those beliefs and practices, on the other. All three of these—clergy, seminary faculty, and university professors—struggle with the dearth of research on Bible reading as an aspect of lived religion. 

This project seeks to provide the first large-scale investigation of the Bible in American life. The project is driven by the recognition that, though the Bible has been central to Christian practice throughout American history, many important questions remain unanswered in scholarship, including how people have read the Bible for themselves outside of worship, how denominational and parachurch publications have influenced interpretation and application, and how clergy and congregations have influenced individual understandings of scripture. These questions are even more pressing today, as denominations are losing much of their traditional authority, technology is changing people’s reading and cognitive habits, and subjective experience is continuing to eclipse textual authority as the mark of true religion. Understanding both the past and the future of Christian communities in the United States depends, even if only in part, on a serious analysis of how these cultural shifts are affecting Americans’ relationship to the Bible.

Read the report here