While I had to chuckle a bit at the level of importance Pew puts on some elements of religious history - i.e. knowing Jonathan Edwards lead the Great Awakening is hardly foundational - the overall conclusion of the study is correct: Christians know little about what or why they believe. "Worse yet" is that Atheists and Agnostics know more about Christian beliefs than Christians.
Now this is hardly surprising to me. A simple look at society can tell you why they know more. In America, Atheists and Agnostics are Atheist and Agnostics for a reason. There is no societal pressure to just say you are Atheist. There is little tradition - family or otherwise - in their lives
What I would find statistically interesting is if you compared knowledge levels of people who are Atheists to those who are Christians but grew up in Atheist (or at least nominally Christian) homes but actively chose to become Christians on their own.
But what this Pew study fails to address is what I have been saying for years Pew should be studying - which is the inconsistent teaching of theology in Churches.
There are 31,173 verses in the Bible. I have read all 31,173 verses in the Bible - on more than one occasion. I spent years studying not just the 31,173 verses in the Bible, but also the cultural contexts in which they were written, the communities written to and/or from, and how the entirety of the Bible fits together - even when it seems to contradict.
But as I step aside as a Biblical scholar, and put on the modern Anthropology scholar hat on for a second (read: pop-culture enthusiast), there is a stark problem with the modern church. They don't actually teach the entirety of the Bible. And I find the more a church "claims" they teach the Bible, most often times the less that church actually covers the whole Bible, but rather just vehemently focuses on the Scriptures that are important to them.
What Pew should do is a long-term, in-depth study on the amount of scripture that is used in sermons because I bet out of the 31,173 verses in the Bible - less than 3,000 ever get touched on by the majority of churches combined.
What the church really teaches is theology - but theology that is based on historically held beliefs, societal pressures, and more recently crappy worship songs more than actual biblical understanding.
In the coming days I am going to start a mini-series titled: Why I Hate Church Theology. I'm going to be far more biblical than I usually am on this blog. But I think even if you are Atheist or Agnostic you will appreciate the discussion.
For a preview of where we are going with this, let's answer a few true or false questions:
- The Bible says God changes His mind?
- The Bible says our eternal life is based on what we do?
- The Bible has a narrative of a woman who is praised as being moral for spending the night with a man she is trying to get to marry her?
- There are 7x more verses talking about taking care of the poor than about sexuality in the Bible?
- The Bible says to use wordily wealth to gain friends?
- The Bible never says the New Testament is inspired by God
- The Bible says Jesus did not come to bring peace?
- The Bible says Joshua was commanded by God to kill every living thing including babies in Jericho except a Prostitute?
(hint: all answers are true)
Related post: Why do I like Atheists more than Christians?
Thanks for discussing this topic. I look forward to reading the rest of your thoughts.
And why doesn't Andy have a show? Oh I know, because he's not a demagogue, affirming people's prejudices, condemning faggotry and whatnot.
Andy let's do a podcast. We'll call it Saints and Sinners or something catchy. LC too.
I have enjoyed your blog post. There's a lot there and I will come back to comment on some of it later.
But for now, let me deal with Justin's comment because it is much shorter. :)
Only recently? ;)
I have to admit, when it comes to theology, I am with Robert A. Heinlein:
Theology is never any help; it is searching in a dark cellar at midnight for a black cat that isn't there.
I think one of the problems is dealing with the Bible on the verse level, rather than on the level of complete pericopes, or even better, books.
Like in Clerks 2, when Jay and Silent Bob used random verses to tell them they would score. Or the old joke of a depressed man who opened the Bible at random for guidance and got "Then he threw down the pieces of silver in the temple and departed, and went and hanged himself". Distraught, he did it again and this time got "Go and do likewise". Poor guy.
And that's the second problem. In order to find something wanting, one must first weigh it on a scale. You have to know the parts of Bible you want to reject to do so intelligently. If all you know of the Bible is what your pastor (I do not think there are many sermons on Judges 19 preached from American pulpits for example) choses to preach from, your understanding of the scripture will be impoverished.
I see your point. Using a closed canon is needed to establish an organized religion. In that setting, revelation has to be strictly controlled.
It's not just Christianity - for example Mohammed is described as being "the seal of the prophets". It's just a way to control the brand.
By the way, Catholicism is more flexible here than "sola scriptura" Protestantism in that it allows Church tradition to inform the Church teachings as is Mormonism, which has a prophet in residence at all times who can give new revelation. Of course, in both cases these new teachings are strictly controlled through hierarchy.
Exactly. I find a very verse-centered (what is it with Evangelicals calling individual verses "scriptures" anyway?), context-free approach to the Bible among many Christians.
I would have to disagree with you here, obviously. :)
Just curious - who is your favorite theologian?
Yeah, that's actually a very clear one if you read it with an open mind.
By the way, this reminds me of an interesting hypothesis concerning GMatthew. In Matthew's genealogy there are only 4 women mentioned: Rachel, the prostitute from Jericho, Ruth, who slept with Boaz on the threshing floor, the "wife of Uriah" who is Bathsheeba and who had an affair with David, and Mary. All the women mentioned before Mary had sexual morality issues. But what of Mary?
The hypothesis states that author of Matthew, in the original version of the birth narrative, didn't want to say that it was a virgin birth but an result of nonmarital sex and included Rachel, Ruth and Bathsheeba to say that it doesn't matter. Under that hypothesis, "for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost" would not mean literally conceived by the Holy Spirit but rather that the Holy Spirit blesses the child despite his parentage.
Later redactors of the gospel would edit it into the now familiar virgin birth narrative to conform with conception stories of pagan leaders, such as Augustus. That would also mean that the compulsory shoehorning of random bits of Hebrew Bible as supposed "prophesies" of Jesus is the work of the redactor, not the original author. And no, Isaiah 7 is not a prophecy of a virgin birth of Jesus, but Isaiah's prediction of a non-virgin birth of one of his own sons.
This could also explain Catholic dogma that Mary was a perpetual virgin - they doth protest too much the "illegitimate" parentage of Jesus.
You say that like it's a bad thing to be a prostitute.
For killing Uriah the Hittite "with the sword of the Ammonites" and taking his wife.
I know I'd pay $6.99/month for that podcast!
I'm afraid I don' quite have a voice for radio. I can be the producer on this one though. In any case I think it'd be a great idea.
Hell yeah! In the words of my spiritual advisor Snoop Doggy Dogg- "that's realer than real deal Holyfield/ and all you hookas and hos know how I feel"
Only problem is that people don't want real conversation; to get an actual audience you have to pander to the rubes and hicks, the wal-mart zombies.
That's really interesting LC. Have you asked Bob (aka the Oracle) about that one?
The problem is that if you don't believe in the entirety of something, it negates the power from even that which you choose to follow. Take the Constitution. I don't get to be like, well, I like this whole free speech stuff, and I'll follow that, but the whole right not to incriminate oneself is retarded so I am just going to leave it out. No. If you take that out, the document has no power, and freedom of speech is really no longer protected at all.
I don't have one. I got sick of the theology-one-ups-man-ship in college and sort of swore off theologians. It isn't to say I don't look to external sources for help. But I'd rather just read the Bible for itself, and when needed consult a litany of different sources to help with interpretation and context.
I have definitely heard this theory. Just not sure I buy it. But I do think the point of Rahab, Ruth and Bathsheeba to be one of great importance as we look at sin, purpose, and sexuality.
Ding. You are the winner. It was about murder and, essentially, theft. The sex was irrelevant. It even says in the text that if he wanted another "sexual partner" God would have given you one. But the fact that you took ANOTHER MAN'S wife was the problem.
Thanks for taking the time to read and respond to my comment. You make some great points. I would like to respond.
Good one. However, I did not mean to suggest that this has not been a problem for longer than I have found it to be a problem.
I am not sure I am ready to agree to such a hyperbolic stance. If one's theology is based solely on a single collection of books, then maybe I could agree with you.
I agree that the Bible should not be dealt with on a "verse level." I also agree that in order to intelligently reject something you must know why and what you are rejecting.
I would like to mention that I did not suggest a means of determining truth, only that one should reject untruths found in the Bible the same way they would reject untruths found elsewhere. I was unsure if you were suggesting that I had by your comment.
It is my understanding that religion has historically been used as a means for a small group of individuals to control a large group of individuals. I understand why in order to preserve this control, certain individuals would want to establish a canon. Once it is established, it is easier for these individuals to control how others are to receive revelation from God ("sola scriptura", traditions, modern day prophets, etc.).
This seemed to be a very knee jerk reaction to my comment. I am not sure you thought through your response very well.
I agree that it would be very hypocritical for one to claim to believe in something in its entirety and yet only choose to use specific portions of this something. Maybe you assumed that I claim to believe in the entirety of the Bible or choose to follow the Bible?
The Bible is not a principle, and it can probably be proven that it is not adhering to any given set of principles at all times. However, it may contain principles which I choose to follow. I may choose to follow these principles because of a well made argument, or the principle which I follow may happen to coincidentally align with a principle present in the Bible. Authors of texts found in the Bible did not have everything completely correct, and people today do not have everything correct. I am just proposing that we continue to search for truth and reject untruth (even if that applies to the Bible).
I think that's where I first heard of it.
I kind of see both sides of the issue here, depending how you interpret the issue. One way, is that if something (such as the Bible) is not trustworthy in matters we can independently verify or falsify (such as history or science) there is no way we should hold the same source as trustworthy in matters that can't be independently verified/falsified (such as existence and nature of God, morality, salvation). That is behind fundamentalists' inclination to affirm the literal veracity of the Bible "from the very first verse" (as Answers in Genesis would put it.
The other way to look at it is that you can agree and affirm certain parts of the not independently verifiable/falsifiable without having to affirm others. For example, one can affirm certain moral positions ("love your neighbor as yourself", "take care of the poor") without having to affirm either metaphysical positions or other moral positions that are not contingent on them ("lusting after a woman is spiritual adultery"). I concede though, that it would be difficult to make the case for accepting some metaphysical positions of the Bible without accepting it completely, but that brings us back to fundamentalism.
But we do not see the constitution that way really. If there were sufficient majorities, we could repeal the whole self-incrimination business without touching the freedom of speech. Besides, even if it is not repealed, you can still disagree with the self-incrimination bit without logically jeopardizing your affirmation of freedom of speech. The two freedoms are independent and not contingent upon each other. Many aspects of the Bible are similarly not contingent on one another and can be accepted or rejected independently as long as you don't use the Bible as a stated reason to accept certain propositions (which would be circular reasoning).
Too bad. It would have helped to see where you are coming from. What you wrote above sounds too much like fundamentalism.
It isn't to say I don't look to external sources for help. But I'd rather just read the Bible for itself, and when needed consult a litany of different sources to help with interpretation and context.
So you see the Bible as the basis of all metaphysical and moral statements? But how do we know what is stated in the Bible about these things is accurate?
If you accept that the Gospels were written in layers, and I find it difficult to deny that fact (at the very least even the most hardheaded apologist must admit Matthew and Luke used Mark as a source, which is an example of layering, but there is layering evident even in Mark itself as well as in Q, Matthew, Luke and even John) then this "theory" is very hard to argue against I think.
Ask yourself - why emphasize sexual sin, and sexual sin by women, in the genealogy of Jesus, if not to defend sexual sin by Mary herself.
Yes. Which makes mockery of emphasis on premarital virginity placed by modern day Christians, by the way, as that was all about the father protecting his property as an intact daughter could fetch a greater bride price than a damaged one. Note that there is no talk of premarital virginity for guys in the Bible, at least not that I can recall.
I hope I am making some sense here, as it is getting late. I will respond to Justin tomorrow.
I do not think it is a hyperbole. The issue is not using a single set of books or several but the whole methodology. How do you determine which theological "theory" among myriads of possibilities best corresponds to reality? How do you chose between Barth's neo-orthodoxy, Tillich's "ground of being" or even Altizer's "death of God" concept? Ultimately, there is no objective way to differentiate between these widely different theologies, as there is no way to falsify them.
Theology has been called the "queen of sciences" in the middle ages, but is no science at all using modern definition of a science.
Fair enough. What I was responding to is your apparent defense of only 10% or so of the Bible being regularly used in sermons and church readings. Note that to most pew potatoes this is the only exposure to the Biblical text they will ever get.
There is much truth in that. Note that new movements such as Christianity, Islam, LDS etc. usually arise from a rebellion to the old order and usually incorporate elements of other religions/movements around them.
I also would like to see Andy clarify/defend his statement there.
You mean like "Bishop" Eddie Long preaching against homosexuality but secretly loving the cock?
Or like Christine O'Donnell preaching abstinence (even with oneself!) but shacking up with a man?
Yes it can. Bible was written by many different people with different ideas and agendas over long periods of time. Often you see the disperate sources intertwined in a single narrative or book - like the Flood narrative in Genesis or passages concerning the delay of Parousia or relationship between Jesus and the Father in Mark and John respectively.
Exactly my opinion.
The point I was trying to make is that as an individual you can't choose to be "under" one part of the Constitution and not another. Yes, it isn't a perfect analogy, because the majority could vote out parts of the Constitution - but the idea of the "total authority" of the Constitution (whatever the amendments may or may not be) is the correlation I was trying to demonstrate.
I never said I didn't believe in the infallibility of the Bible.
I don't think the Bible ever makes claims to be a metaphysical source of material. I know 'true' fundamentalists will, but I believe the Bible is 100% true in that which it is trying to communicate (hence the difference between infallibility and inerrancy). The question I throw back in the case of Genesis for example is what was the point of Genesis? Was it to show metaphysically step by step how God created the world (keeping in mind he would have to explain concepts of DNA to people who just recently developed iron tools. Or was it to just make the point that God in fact did create the world and we'll let later generations figure out how He actually did it. I of course go with the latter. Thus Genesis is still infallible if you look at it as a narrative of creation, not a science book on creation.
I believe Q when I see it. Until then, it's just a nice theory based on professors sitting in dimly lit offices with a couch.
There is no doubt that this is true though.
It the sub-culture narrative of the Gospel/Bible. The beauty of Scripture is that it has a predominant meta-narrative - i.e. don't commit adultery / don't let women have authority over men - yet it also shares a secondary-narrative challenging that - i.e. women and men who commit adultery used in very powerful ways / God telling Abraham to shut up and listen to his wife. There is too much in the New Testament about being a virgin birth (which I know isn't exactly a uniquely Christian concept given the time period) - for me to ignore it, especially in light of nothing else in the text to contradict it.
Exactly. Adultery was "specialized" theft in a patriarchal society where men owned their women (either daughters or wives). It doesn't mean I don't think the Bible speaks of sexual morality, but we need to first identify what it is talking about and then apply it to society - not the other way around (more on this later).
Don't forget the Bible studies that are essentially just re-works of the sermons ;) But yes, that is in fact the problem I am speaking of.
Ohh I thought it through, for a couple of hours actually. I further clarified above the Constitution analogy. And no, I do not assume you believe the entirety of the Bible.
Thanks for expounding upon what the quote by Robert A. Heinlein means. It helps me understand better understand where you are coming from in that view. I still need to think about it some more.
Andy,
I apologize for wrongly accusing you of giving too little effort in your response. A couple hours is a great length of time to devote to a blog comment! I am going to go read the next post.
It fails on other fronts too. We only live under the authority of the constitution if there are organs of the state that enforce its provisions. Transferred to the Bible, you are only "under" the Bible if there is some form of enforcement of what it says, like direct divine punishment (see sons of Aaron for example) or through a theocracy. Now, even that only applies to law-like portions of the Bible, and not to the propositions concerning metaphysics and the nature of the universe or simply stories. So I do not think the comparison works at all in the end.
Yes, I guess so and it gets really confusing later on ...
Distinction without a difference I've always thought. Except now you call yourself an "infallibilist" and espouse a view I do not think even comes close.
Of course Bible makes claims to be a metaphysical source of material Even the very first verse is a metaphysical statement!
Yes. That was the purpose of both P (Genesis 1) and J (Genesis 2) creation stories. The authors wanted to create a, for their time and place, believable account of how their world came to be. Not very different from other creation myths of the antiquity.
Now wait just a second! You are assuming here, a priori, that God is the author of Genesis and that he, from a point of omniscience, chose to reveal some things in such a way as not to confuse the people. But that does not hold water, as I will show later, completely beside the point that divine authorship of the Bible is not something that should be presumed.
Sorry, but I do not buy it. Genesis does not simply state that God created the world (in fact, I do not think Genesis 1 even argues for a creation ex nihilo as it is commonly interpreted in Christian circles, but more likely shows the creation act as an act of ordering a preexisting, albeit chaotic, state of being) and leaves the particulars for secular science to flesh out. No, both Genesis 1 and 2 make some pretty detailed and in many points directly contradict science (plants being created before sun, angiosperms before sea animals, birds before land animals, humans created from dust etc.) but are perfectly consistent with contemporary creation stories of neighboring cultures. As such, the weight of the evidence is that that's precisely what Genesis 1 and 2 are.
Besides, the existence of God and act of creation (whether ex nihilo or not) are already metaphysical claims.
Mind you, I am not faulting authors of Biblical creation stories one bit. But I am faulting modern Christians who want to see these stories as more than they are.
It is certainly more than that, as it explains quite a lot. But even if the "2 source hypothesis" is wrong, all the serious challengers (and "Matthew was an eyewitness and Dr. Luke was Paul's primary care physician" is not serious) propose equally extensive layering.
You are right - the multiplicity of voices is indeed a dimension of the beauty of the Bible. However, I do not see how you can see that multiplicity and conclude that God is the ultimate author of it, or how a text postulating both A and NOT A can be called "infallible". It just baffles my mind.
There is really not that much in the NT about the virgin birth. Parts of birth narratives in Matt. and Luke and than what? Unless I am much mistaken, there is no mention of it neither in Mark or John, nor in epistles, nor in Revelation. Even the rest of Matt. and Luke don't mention it further! And I have already stated that there had to be only a few changes to go from Mary as a "(sexually) sinful girl forgiven" - consistent with mentions of Rahab, Ruth and Bathsheeba in the genealogy - to the pagan inspired "Jesus as a demigod" nativity story. And parts of Luke's narrative are highly curious too. I could spend pages talking about it, but let me mention only one curiosity: when the angel tells Mary, a young woman about to be married to Joseph, that she will, in the near future, become pregnant, she is incredulous because, as she says, she is a virgin. Excuse me? Isn't she engaged to be married? Wouldn't she then have sex with her betrothed? Then why is he present state of virginity an obstacle to her being pregnant in the near future? It doesn't make much sense.
So I would really like to know what you consider "too much in the New Testament about being a virgin birth" because I just don't see the too muchness of it.
Santa Clause too.