A Crucial Literacy

A week or two ago I watched an episode of the TV show "House" on the airplane as I traveled back from meetings on the East Coast. I was expecting some kind of TV rubbish that would be forgotten by the time the front wheels of the plane touched down on the tarmac. I know, I know. I'm woefully out of touch with current TV programs, even the good ones.

The reason I've not forgotten this episode is because my attention was caught by all the biblical references in the episode. Not only was the theme about near-death experiences--a question that was not answered in the episode--but there were phrases sprinkled here and there throughout the episode that you would only fully catch if you had a reasonable degree of biblical literacy.

I believe that people who lack literacy in two specific areas--the Bible, and Greek mythology--are hobbled in terms of understanding Eurocentric culture, and therefore are hampered in fully appreciating the vast history and literature and culture that serves as a setting for mainstream western-based civilization. (For purposes of this post, I am focusing on Biblical literacy, although I'd have somewhat similar things to say about mythological literacy.) The problem is, these partially or poorly literate people to whom I refer comprise an ever-growing chunk of our population. It's not their fault. It's the fault of our families, our churches and our schools.

In my opinion, our churches have focused for quite some time on a literacy of feelings and simplistic doctrine, rather than on biblical literacy. Families have depended on churches or Veggie Tales (horrors!) to teach Bible stories, letting go of the old-fashioned custom of daily family time with a parent reading the Bible to the children. And our schools, mostly governmentally regulated, have shied away from anything smacking of religion, therefore shortchanging students who will never understand their own culture without a knowledge of the stories, sayings and teachings on which that culture grew its original values.

Don't get me wrong; I am not in the least suggesting that we teach our students in public schools to be religious. That is not the domain of the government. But I am suggesting that public schools have a responsibility to teach them about great works of literature, the literature that birthed the ideas of our culture, and that includes the Bible stories and sayings. Biblical literacy, in north America, anyhow, should be taught alongside American history, World history, Greek mythology, Native American folk tales, children's fairy tales, and perhaps a few other literatures that have not come to mind as I write.

So what's up with biblical literacy in this country? Here's the state of things now (and I doubt they're much better in any other country):

• Only 40% of Americans know that Jesus delivered the Sermon on the Mount.
• Only half of American adults can name any one of the four gospels.
• Only 42% of Americans could name as many as five of the Ten Commandments correctly.
• Twelve percent of adults agreed that Noah's wife was Joan of Arc.
• Seventy-five percent believe that the Bible teaches that "God helps those who help themselves."
• Sixty-eight percent of teens couldn't identify who asked, "Am I my brother's keeper?"
• Fifty-three percent of teens couldn't name what Biblical event happened at the village of Cana.

Here's another interesting list, this one showing many phrases used in literature and everyday language, phrases that come directly from the Bible:

• "Apple of my eye" – Deuteronomy 32:10 
• "At wits' end" – Psalm 107:27
• "Blind leading the blind" – Matthew 15:14
• "Can a leopard change its spots?" – Jeremiah 13:23
• "Drop in a bucket" – Isaiah 40:15
• "Eat and drink for tomorrow we die" – Isaiah 22:12-13
• "Fat of the land" – Genesis 45:18
• "Fight the good fight" – 1 Timothy 6:12
• "Fly in the ointment" – Ecclesiastes 10:1
• "Give up the ghost" – Acts 12:23
• "How the mighty have fallen" – 2 Samuel 1:19
• "Many are called but few are chosen" – Matthew 22:13-14
• "No rest for the wicked" – Isaiah 57:20
• "Physician, heal thyself" – Luke 4:23
• "Rise and shine" – Isaiah 60:1
• "Skin of my teeth" – Job 19:20
• "Sour grapes" – Ezekiel 18:2
• "Woe is me" – Job 10:15
• "Writing on the wall" – Daniel 5:4-6

I'll admit, while I knew most of those and could tell you the context in which they were uttered, there were several I didn't know.

So back to my original point about biblical literacy being crucial. Biblical literacy has its benefits for understanding the art, music, history, culture, film and written literature of our time and place. This has been observed in one researcher's meta-analysis of the effects of biblical literacy on school performance. Here's a paragraph on the results of that study:

The meta-analysis, which involves statistically synthesizing all the research that has been done on a given topic, indicated that students who possessed high levels of Bible knowledge achieved at higher academic levels and were more likely to demonstrate positive behavior patterns than those with lower levels of Bible knowledge. The other two studies also showed dramatic differences between students between students who possessed high and low levels of Bible knowledge. In the second study, the difference in GPA between students high versus low in Bible literacy was 3.60 vs. 2.47. In the third study the difference in GPA between the two groups was 3.31 versus 2.91.

For those of us who read these kinds of studies all the time, these are huge differences. William Jeynes, the researcher, goes on to say,

"One cannot thoroughly understand Shakespeare, Dickens, Dostoevsky, or Tolstoy without a solid knowledge of the Bible. Furthermore, to comprehend the effect of the life saving miracle of George Washington, the abolition of slavery, the women's suffrage movement, and the civil rights movement, one needs a sufficient knowledge of biblical principles. Students that possess such knowledge will indubitably have an academic advantage."

A crucial literacy? I believe so. And that's why I'm writing about it now. It's National Bible Week (per the National Bible Association). I, for one, think it's worth speaking up and reminding all of us--including me--to pick up that Book daily, read it and know it well.