More good reasons right here for everyone to order the Treasury of Daily Prayer from New Reformation Press. Click their ad on the sidebar for a great price on a product that has the FULL Lutheran scripture readings for every day.
Internet Monk lurker Dave McGowan sends along this piece from America magazine (I know, I know) on the increased importance of Bible study in the Roman Catholic Church, and the opportunities presented by the study of the scripture in parishes, classes, ecumenical settings and individually.
Is it true that Catholics don’t read the Bible? Many don’t, but similar numbers of Protestants don’t read the Bible either. Catholics believe they get the Bible in Mass. Protestants think they get it in sermons and Sunday School. But I can tell you firsthand after 30+ years of teaching the Bible, that very, very few people actually read the book at all. Most know a view of various stories and teaching that couldn’t be substantiated by any serious presentation of texts. They just know that some preacher or family member assured them that this was “what the Bible said.”
When people actually read the Bible, they are always surprised. It’s never what they expected.
But the quote of real interest to me was this evidence of the increased influence of conservative evangelicals (converts and otherwise) on the RCC.
Moreover, while fewer believers know much about the Bible, one-third of Americans continue to believe that it is literally true, something organizers of the Synod on the Word of God called a dangerous form of fundamentalism that is “winning more and more adherents” even among Catholics. Such literalism, the synod’s preparatory document said, “demands an unshakable adherence to rigid doctrinal points of view and imposes, as the only source of teaching for Christian life and salvation, a reading of the Bible which rejects all questioning and any kind of critical research.”
I have to admit that if you read what the Catechism of the RCC says about the nature and inspiration of scripture, I couldn’t be a bigger fan, and the reason is that since Vatican II, the church’s Biblical scholars and theologians have articulated a beautiful, elegant contemporary view of the Bible that will appeal to anyone who isn’t a literalist or fundamentalist. If you are a post-evangelical who needs to read a serious doctrine of scripture that engages with science, Biblical criticism and a Christocentric view of the message of scripture, it’s not done any better anywhere that I know of.
But apparently the recent Synod of Bishops working on the doctrine of the Word felt that the inroads of fundamentalism and literalism (spell that C-R-E-A-T-I-O-N-I-S-M) are serious enough to issue an unmistakable warning. Other coverage of the Synod reported considerable division and controversy over…..inerrancy. (Southern Baptist fundamentalists, your phones are ringing.) I think this means you won’t be seeing Raymond Brown or Joe Fitzmeyer on EWTN anytime soon. Enjoy Steve Ray.
Some evangelicals will, of course, say that a serious doctrine of inerrancy and literal interpretation will knock down some of the core doctrines of the contemporary RCC, and they would be right. The Roman Catholic doctrine of scripture works in relation to views on tradition, magisterial authority and papal authority that are undermined by the majority of evangelicalism’s views of scriptural authority. We believe in tradition, but tradition judged by scripture. We believe in authority, but not unerring authority in Rome.
Still, there is no doubt that many post-evangelicals and Roman Catholics can read the Bible together, engage in mutual Biblical studies and benefit from shared perspectives. We can learn a lot from the Catholic use of scripture in our scripture starved evangelical churches. We’re quite good at waving the Bible around, but how many churches that you know are teaching any kind of “Introduction to the Bible” or similar courses for adults?
Pope Benedict talked in the recent synod about doing away with the deadening effects of much of the higher critical methodology that separated the Bible from Christian faith. While many of us might have disagreements about the value of critical study, there’s no doubt that the call for a Christologically centered ministry of the Word and a view of scripture that brings us to understand the living Christ of faith is what all of us want to have and to share.
The Internet Monk Archives 
Josh:
If you’re correct about Newman “rewriting fundamental Catholic doctrines” then your problem with him is not simply a matter of personal taste but fundamental belief. And if that’s the case, is it fair to assume that he won’t be canonized? I would assume that the Catholic theologians who have the oversight of such matters are smart enough to recognize his errors. And if he is canonized, how does that square with the infallibility of the Church? After all, rewriting fundamental doctrines is no small matter regardless of the ecclesiastical body one belongs to.
Your continued disdain of Beckwith (at least
that’s how you sound to me) is interesting. You sound almost as dismissive of his reversion to Catholicism as many of his Protestant friends. Should we assume that because he’s a new revert he’s shallow, idealistic and hasn’t really grappled with the marrow of the Catholic faith? Should keep his mouth shut? It’s one thing to be told that the RCC is THE Church, but it’s quite another to see what some people think when someone actually swims the Tiber and is thrilled about it. Is the water really that cold? Again I ask, must one be a cradle Catholic before he’s the real deal?
By the way, I’m a Protestant who has for several years grappled with the claims of Catholicism. I’m encouraged when I run into a Catholic who’s genuinely concerned about my soul (they’re rare, unfortunately). But I’m mystified when I run into Catholics who act as though not only do I not get it, but they’d be just as happy if I didn’t.
Thanks for the head-up on Bellarmine, I’ll check him out.
Peace.
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Junior, you said: If Beckwith is a neophyte Catholic and doesn’t really get it [the Catholic thing], and if Newman is just a clever bore, who’s the genuine article?
Really, you do have more options for assessing Catholic history and theology than the idealistic, romanticized ramblings a recent convert and a fellow who completely rewrote some of the most fundamental Catholic doctrines to make them more palatable to his sensibilities. My assessment is derived largely from primary and secondary historical sources rather than the agitprop of fresh converts and apologists. And Catholic history just doesn’t look like what it should if what Beckwith said is true.
By the way, I think Newmanism is boring because at the bottom, it’s little more than a series of word-plays and rhetorical games. So much of modern Catholic theology is a verbal minuet because of him. Now Robert Bellarmine, there was a real Catholic theologian. He actually told you what he thought and why.
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“Juhn Burger” should be John Burger (above comment).
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There was a discussion of related matters in the now defunct periodical, Crisis Magazine, some years ago — a series on the Jesus Seminar by authors including N.T. Wright, William Farmer, Juhn Burger and Kenneth Whitehead. All-in-all, it was a sseries well-worth reading. I garnered the publisher’s permission to post these articles online in an independent blog entitled “Jesus Seminar Critically Examined” back in 2007. They should be read in reverse order chronologically (an Index can be found in the right sidebar if you scroll down a bit). Recommended.
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Well Joe the last time I checked it was not Von Balthasar or any Pope in history that was all knowing that is reserved for God.
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“Consequently, the Catholic Church and its leadership are far more constrained from doctrinal innovations than either the ETS or the typical Evangelical megachurch pastor.â€
Oh please. We have von Balthasar and at least two most recent Popes who cannot even be sure a single soul is in Hell, against what for almost all readers are the very clear words of Scripture. That would hardly fly at a megachurch, although I am not so sure about all the players at the ETS.
What I do think is quite true is that even if Beckwith rattles of a list of many brands of Evangelicals, they as a species or group actually are far more homogenous of belief as a group, since common belief is the very thing that defines Evangelicals, whereas with Catholics it is membership. THE CCC is wonderful if read through Evangelically-trained theological senses, but the liberal RC establishment can adhere to it and read it with a liberal and faith-deadening lens where it means most anything at all. Can Evaneglicals do this with the Bible? Sure, but I’d argue there is indeed a more clearly defined Evan. faith. J.I. Packer & Thomas Oden’s “One Faith” argues this point to effect.
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Josh:
If Beckwith is a neophyte Catholic and doesn’t really get it [the Catholic thing], and if Newman is just a clever bore, who’s the genuine article? Are all Evangelical converts so shallow? Must one be a cradle Catholic before he’s the real deal? And more on topic, are Beckwith and Newman so Biblically illiterate that we can so cavalierly dismiss them?
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As for the Beckwith and ETS issue, and after looking at the list of groups acceptable to the ETS, it seems like people are focusing on Rome rather than the Bible. Isn’t this a rehashing of the old “enemy of my enemy is my friend” thing? So somehow groups who can read the bible and disagree with the Trinity, the divinity of Christ, eating meat, can’t really be as bad as those Catholics? Oh please; can you set me straight?
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Frankly, Beckwith is at this point a neophyte and should not be quoted as any kind of source on the nature and character of Catholic theology. He’s been a Catholic for what, a year? His understanding of how papal infallibility works really isn’t very compatible with the actual way it’s worked over the centuries. You end up with some kind of clever, Newman-style “say what again?” verbal dance whereby Luther was a scurrilous innovator for interpreting “by faith apart from the works of the law” as “by faith alone,” but Hugo of St Cher’s “treasury of merit” out of which the pope grants indulgences isn’t really an innovation. I think he’s just going to adopt Newmanism (he’s already speaking Newmanese), which is ultimately unable to surmount any divide…and hopelessly boring
Joe, I honestly don’t think there’s any way out for the RCC without either dispensing with the infallibility claim so that it can reform its own dogma or retreating into 19th-C, Vatican I-style fundamentalism.
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I don’t know Rose, but I like her.
“It seems that evangelical Christianity is in almost the exact position that it lambastes the Catholic church for being in at the time of the reformation: biblically illiterate, strong arming culture, attributing things to Jesus that are not scriptural, building elaborate buildings and teaching the traditions of men as doctrine of God.”
Maybe not until after Christmas, but expect to see something along these lines at The Master’s Table before too long. Rose, you’re welcome at my blog anytime to drop some more of these jewels.
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I would tend to agree with our esteemed iMonk also. While I certainly think there should be a place for evangelical and Catholic academics to come together and do exactly what Dr. Beckwith advocates, to make that place the ETS would seem to finally and completely gut a body that is already teetering on the brink of losing its original vision.
However, to start crystal-balling Dr. Beckwith’s future adherence to Catholic dogma seems a little…I can’t find the right word without being very negative.
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I tend to agree with iMonk on Dr. Beckwith however I think that he is approaching this in a more academic point of view.
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Michael:
Beckwith deals with the very thing you mention. In short he says:
“Moreover, the Catholic Church does not hold…that the infallibility of the Magisterium and the ex cathedra papal pronouncements are of the same nature as the Word of God written. As Dei Verbum states (as transalated in the Catechism of the Catholic Church): ‘Yet this Magisterium is not superior to the Word of God, but is its servant. It teaches what has only been handed on to it. At the divine command and with the help of the Holy Spirit, it listens to this devotedly, guards it with dedication and expiunds it faithfully. All that it proposes for belief as being divinely revealed is drawn from this single deposit of faith.'”
He continues: “So, for the Catholic, the Magesterium and the Papacy are limited by both scripture and a particular understanding of Christian doctrine, forged by centuries of debate and reflection, and, in many cases, fixed by ecumenical councils. Consequently, the Catholic Church and its leadership are far more constrained from doctrinal innovations than either the ETS or the typical Evangelical megachurch pastor.”
Though “everyone on the quoted list rejects the authority of the Pope and the Magisterium” this should not prevent them from coming together for scholarly research in the scriptures. I think he and other Catholics (Peter Kreeft, for example) recognize that we can learn from one another even though we have what appears to be irreconcilable differences.
And whether Beckwith is “a cafeteria Catholic in the making” remains to be seen. I personally think he’ll bring some very good leaven to the kitchen, and God knows the Roman Catholic Church can use it…and so can we Protestants.
Peace.
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Junior:
I’m all for ecumenism, but Beckwith’s idea is….I can’t find the right word without being very negative.
At the end of the comparison, everyone on the quoted list rejects the authority of the pope and the magisterium. The evangelical view of scripture can’t include infallible men determining what the Bible teaches. Fallible men advocating what the Bible teaches? Yes, but there is a huge difference.
Beckwith impresses me as a cafeteria Catholic in the making. I’m afraid it’s not that easy. Why couldn’t Beckwith have remained an evangelical Catholic? Oh yeah…he has to be in communion with the bishop of Rome because it’s the only way to have Biblical authority. Should ETS include that? Sure about the time the Catholic theological Society invites over a few Protestants to be on equal footing.
peace
MS
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Francis Beckwith tells about his recent return to the Roman Catholic Church in his new book, Return To Rome. In the final chapter (“Evangelical and Catholic”) he gives his arguments as to why he believes the Evangelical Theological Society should not remain exclusively Protestant. He believes there is much to be gained from Protestant and Catholic scholars who are committed to Christian orthodoxy and a high view of scripture, interacting in an academic setting in which they can learn from each other. His arguments as to why Catholics should be permitted to join ETS are, I think, irrefutable.
Though we Protestants “believe in tradition judged by Scripture, and though we believe in authority, but not unerring authority of Rome”, Beckwith demonstrates how profitable it would be if we would rethink our position and allow Evangelical Catholics to join us in the scholarly research of Scripture.
Permit me this somewhat lengthy quote from his book: “Put in terms of specific traditions, if the term ‘Evangelical’ is broad enough to include high-church Anglicans, low-church anti-creedal Baptists, Presbyterians, Methodists, the Evangelical Free Church, Arminians, Calvinists, Disciples of Christ, Pentecostsals, Seventh-Day Adventists, open theists, atemporal theists, social Trinitarians, substantial Trinitarians, nominalists, realists, eternal security supporters and opponents, temporal theists, dispensationalists, theonomists, church-state separationists, kenotic theorists, covenant theologians, paedo-Baptists, Anabaptists, and Dooyeweerdians, then there should be room [in the ETS] for an Evangelical Catholic.” Amen.
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Obed said:
In short, the more I experience it, the more I love the lectionary and the mass-style worship service.
The Liturgy of the Hours is another great place where the person is immersed in scripture. I don’t only mean the praying of the psalms, but in the Office of Readings, you get a giant chunk of scripture and a related commentary, usually by some Church Father. Now that we’re in Advent, the Church immerses us in the book of Isaiah, and it’s sense of longing. And over the past 3 days, I’ve had commentaries by St. Cyril of Jerusalem, St. Gregory of Nazianzus, and today, St. Bernard of Clairvaux. You should check it out, if only for the readings. Although there is a significant chunk of change that needs to be spent. Conversely, you can get it on-line for free, here:
http://www.universalis.com/readings.htm
Although, seen as today is the feast of St. Francis Xavier, you get a letter of his, instead of the ordinary St. Bernard that I got (because I forgot it was his feast day). And I note that the bible translation they use there is…not my favorite.
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Michael, it definitely was the Gideons who came to my school (and indeed, to the local third level technical college when I was there) to give out Testaments, and they definitely weren’t KJV translations.
Don’t ask me which version, because y’know, typical Catholic “Huh? There’s different translations? Who knew?” 🙂
Maybe KJV-only is a local tradition?
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Sam:
Your independent Bible studies sound great. I want to sign up.
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iMonk: In this instance Catholics. However I would say this to anybody that can quote from the scriptures and yet shows no reverence for God.
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How about this for bible study?
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Here’s the address for the Catholic Bibles in the picture.
http://www.clearlycatholic.com/Bibles.html
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I’m in Canada but it was definitely a red NAS Gideons bible. Perhaps Canada’s Gideons is a little less strict about translation choices.
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>What good is it to them to be able to quote scripture if they lack understanding of scripture?
Giovanni:
Please explain the above statement. I’m really hoping it doesn’t mean what it appears to mean. Who is “them?”
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I agree with Joe the reform of the 60s did not do what it was suppose to, however I am not one of those who blames the Council (VII) but rather the people that implemented it. All that they did which the document of the council never sanctions was always followed up by “in the spirit of Vatican II,” when it should of been “in accordance to Vatican II.”
What good is it to them to be able to quote scripture if they lack understading of scripture?
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The Gideons are generally pretty hardcore everywhere, but the KJV-Only encounters in your experience might be more related to local Kentucky culture than the Gideons as an international organization. They also distribute the NKJV, and have in the past distributed the NIV and the Revised Berkeley. Apparently, in Britain, the Gideons pretty much only pass out the NIV. Though, with Internet sources, who knows how accurate that is.
Pax et bonum,
Sam Urfer
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Rose:
The Gideons are seriously KJV ony in my experience here in Ky. I’ve never heard a story like that. Sure it wasn’t the Navigators or another group.
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Since I only now just read this, I have to say Eureka!
“In other words, 20th century historical criticism gets fused with 19th-century anti-modernist infallibility theories. The result is redefinition of just about everything you can find pertaining to Scripture and dogma in pre-V2 Catholic literature and dogma.
To those of us on the outside, the incongruity in Catholic thought is real and obvious. You can’t spend half your time attacking and undermining Hebrew miracle stories as myths and jeer at people who believe the Bible is inerrant, then insist that everyone believe certain medieval miracle stories are literally true because papal dogmas are inerrant. Excommunicating Hans Kueng was only a stopgap measure and did nothing to address the underlying problem.”
THIS is the strange tension my formerly Evangelical mind stumbles over in my new church. Gibson can write about Biblical renewal all he wants, but the renewal Vatican II has so far ushered in has meant a *loss* of faith, not a gain of Biblical devotion. Even at the Synod just closed, the concern was how to embrace the Bible without being embarrassed by ‘literalism’ or ‘bad exegesis,’ when what, one Catholic in one zillion is guilty of that sort of sin. Unless the Pope weighs in with a comment that this or that event really took place, or the CCC, the attitude is one of ‘The Bible is Literature.’
As I said, though, I look forward to checking Fitzmeyer.
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Thanks for the referral on the Fitz article. Look forward to finding it. My point was *not* to ring in as the Traditionalist naysayer. Not at all, though I guess I do sound that way. But I have found a very strange, and to my Evangelically-trained mind hard to grasp, chasm between Traditionalists, who uphold a sort of inerrancy but also prooftext like madmen, Converts, who also prooftext and then can explain away anything from current Rome as good, and then, well, all other Catholic scholars who seem essentially like higher critics who question everything first and then sort of give creedance where they *must* to remain in good standing. Hence my question of who are the ‘conservative’ exegetes being published today outside of those rather shunned like Sungenis. So, as I said, I will check out Fitz. As for America and Jesuits, you are right: ’nuff said.
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Gideons gave me an NAS new testament when I was in school. Could it simply have been that the hierarchy considered that translation heretical or at best unhelpful?
I’ve definitely noticed the biblical illiteracy amongst evangelical Christians. The hypocrisy of this is crazy. It seems to me that a lot of evangelical Christianity is actually another religion of it own. The bible is supposed to be the centre but no one reads it. The activities of this religion are supposedly Christ-centred, although few really care what he was actually like. Instead, issues of the culture war are simply attributed to him and no one questions it.
It seems that evangelical Christianity is in almost the exact position that it lambastes the Catholic church for being in at the time of the reformation: biblically illiterate, strong arming culture, attributing things to Jesus that are not scriptural, building elaborate buildings and teaching the traditions of men as doctrine of God. Even the doctrine of salvation by faith has been blurred. We just need some evangelical entrepreneur to start selling indulgences and then we’ll be all the way there.
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I have led weekly Bible study groups for twenty five years. The groups are not a function of any church. Some churches have problems with the idea of anyone leading an independent Bible study group because they want to dictate what is studied, resources, etc. That is precisely why my groups are independent.
Whenever I start a group, I take a couple of stacks of books to show some of the kinds of resources available for Bible study – commentaries, the text in original language, interlinear Bibles, lexicons, word studies, Bible dictionaries, Bible atlases, Bible encyclopedias, etc. etc. This has never failed to amaze people who are new to the group. The reaction is always the same – they tell me they had no idea that such resources exist.
They also tell me that the Bible studies they have been part of in the past use a “book about the Bible†as their primary source. Usually the book is one their church supplies, which of course is written to support the theology and beliefs of that group. Rarely do they actually use the Bible, or do anything such as go through a book of the Bible verse by verse. Usually, their book studies topics.
At the beginning, the group wants me to tell them what the passage we are studying means. Even those who have spent their life in church expect the pastor, study leader or a book to tell them what the Bible means. To illustrate the problems with this approach, sometimes I will take two books that give opposite interpretations of a passage. This is an eye-opener for those who think that all Christians should understand the passage and the Bible the same way.
If the group has comments, they are usually parroting back something they heard in a sermon or study group, but can rarely explain why they think that way. They understand that is how they are supposed to think, even if deep down they do not, and do not live that way.
I find very few Biblically literate Christians. Some of this is probably due to the busyness of life. People do not take the time to actually study the Bible. It is so much easier to have someone else tell you what it means. Personally I think this plays right into what most churches want – They want a congregation that believes as the church tells them. If the pastor/priest says it, and has a book that says it in print, it must be true.
So we drive through our cities and find ten million dollar church properties next to slums, adult book stores full of Christians, thousands of homeless people begging for money on the street corners, and lines of Christians at divorce attorneys offices. Perhaps – just perhaps – if our people could encounter God in His word first hand our lives and our culture would have a different flavor.
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PTM: Somewhere on a page that google returned under “Catholic Bible.”
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Rob responded:
One of the revelations as a Catholic has been how large the OT looms in the Church’s thought. How it really is just one book. I know what I say is probably unrepresentative, but there you have it.
I’ve been sloooowly working on my MA in religion at Wayland Baptist University. I very important moment to my view of liturgy, worship, etc. came when the Professor of my “Christian Worship” class pointed out how much more actual scripture reading occurs in Catholic, Anglican, etc. services as opposed to in his own Baptist tradition. In short, the more I experience it, the more I love the lectionary and the mass-style worship service.
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Though not specifically a Bible study I have spent some time with Protestants on some Scripture passages. We get together (about five Catholics, two Lutheran pastors (evangelical synod), one Anglican (formerly Episcop.) priest and one United Church of Christ pastor (reformed) and discuss specific books from Catholic (and sometimes non-Catholic) mystics – St. John of the Cross, Maximus the Confessor, Thomas Merton, Francis DeSales, John Climacus etc. Scripture is usually seeded into the conversation. My Lutheran friends like to rib me about what they term Catholic mythology and I in turn jag them (Pittsburgh slang) about Luther. Fun for all.
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iMonk: Oops you are right I stand corrected.
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I wonder what percentage of posters here participate, with some sort of consistency, in a bible study that has Protestants and Catholics, both serious about learning from the Scriptures?
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You can’t spend half your time attacking and undermining Hebrew miracle stories as myths and jeer at people who believe the Bible is inerrant, then insist that everyone believe certain medieval miracle stories are literally true because papal dogmas are inerrant.
This type of person obviously looms large in your mind, and maybe in the minds of many others of a certain stripe of Protestant. As a Catholic, I can’t for the life of me think of any such person. Oh, I don’t doubt his/their existence, but it seems their sphere of influence may be much larger outside than inside the Church. I don’t know, maybe not. Heaven knows our communion is full of heretics (always had ’em, always will). Such a schizophrenic person would flummox me as much as you, I suppose, if I but knew one.
Now to your other point of us as Anglican-come-latelys, the difference is that it is not just “papal dogmas [that] are inerrant.” It is also the teachings of the ordinary and universal magisterium of the Church, as well as those dogmas proclaimed in council. So you see, all those things you expect to see washed away with the historico-critical tide (as it supposedly has been with the Anglicans) are “inerrant dogmas”. All that mumbo-jumbo about the Trinity, the dual nature of Christ, the Creation, the nature of revelation, justification, the sacraments, Mary etc, those are all dogmas. And as you stated so well, we are “unquestioning fundamentalists” when it comes to our dogmas. 🙂 So I expect our narrow-minded rigidity may yet stem the tide. 🙂
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Martha:
Thank you for sharing your experience. I would say your nuns were probably better than mine. My nuns were simply submitting to what the priest told them to do. They did not recognize the Gideon New Testaments as being a translation other than what is/was acceptable in the RC church at the time. The priest caught it though and intervened in the nick of time.
Though I had to turn in my little New Testament, it all worked out for the best. It made me wonder what was unacceptable about those little books. I began to ask questions. I began to read for myself. It was and continues to be a great journey.
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ooops posted on the wrong thread!
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Josh S:
Actually, I am a Lutheran, and I agree with you. But in particular the LCMS of late has spent more time running from its heritage rather than celebrating and sharing it. The Treasury of Daily Prayer is a rare exception, but I bet the front office boys who are pushing Ablaze probably could care less. Maybe the Treasury will be a wake-up call to the LCMS on how it can be truly missional without selling its soul or drinking the church growth koolaid.
The RC Liturgy of the Hours is also solidly scripture-based, but I have found it very difficult to follow. If the Treasury of Daily Prayer is laid out in a daily format, that may encourage me to find the cash to buy my own copy.
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With all due respect I think it’s more insulting not to be evangelized than to approached. If I believe sincerely that I’m in the best place religiously and I believe that this same place is best for everyone then not inviting you to join is an insult. Granted it can be done very badly, rudely and disrespectfully and that is certainly valid objection. Treating the other party as if they had not sincerely come to their own beliefs or thought through all the various issues is disrespectful and thoughtless.
I’ve been that rude overzealous convert and I’ve turned away similar folks at the door. However I’m not insulted and I don’t resent what is for the most part childish over enthusiasm. Now if it crosses into insults and abuse that’s another story. Even then though it’s not so much the invitation but the coarse approach that is rightly rejected.
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Hey, I love that Bible with the crucifix on the cover, Michael. Can you say where you found that photo? I’d like to track that one down.
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I have just two quick comments because today is another busy day.
I have seen the level of Biblical literacy falling over the last few decades in the general American population. However, I must also agree with the comment that Biblical literacy seems to measured only by whether a person can answer trivia questions about Scripture–how many wives did King David have–rather than by an understanding of the great themes of Scripture with sufficient knowledge to be able to reasonably discuss the theme.
My experience in an evangelical seminary was that, other than the mandatory OT Survey, NT Survey and Church History Survey, there was little Scripture teaching, per se. Much of the teaching was on theology, hermeneutical methods, preaching, etc., etc. That is, the emphasis was on practical preparation for the pastorate. The problem is that we are trying to force feed candidates so that they can survive their first pastorate. I believe that Dallas Theological Seminary gave up on that years ago and has a four year program. There is no easy solution to the training problem by the way.
My experience in local churches is that I am still surprised by how little even life-long Christians know about Scripture. So, I began a game that I “play” on many Sundays. During the first two minutes of the sermon I will ask a trivia question, for instance, “what vow did the Prophet Samuel, the Judge Samson, and John the Baptist have in common?” Sometimes the question will be a Church history question, and I have even asked a question about Thanksgiving. The sermon will follow the theme of the question. That “game” has helped to interest people more in Church-related studies (whether Bible, history, practical life, etc.) because it gets them involved in something that is fun and a little different than one expects in a church. Every little bit helps.
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dumb ox, there’s more Scripture in Lutheran liturgy than in Catholic liturgy, for the simple reason that our lectionary is your lectionary, except we patched up the holes in most of the readings.
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No, I don’t assume that ID has the same style of writing as Genesis. What I am saying is that if one were to apply the same historical-critical tools to the Assumption story, one ends up with the same conclusions that your average Jesuit scholar draws about the most of the Bible–the Assumption story is a mythic expression of the piety of later Christians. Papal infallibility is supposed to be the safeguard, but it ends up in a tension, because Catholic scholars have the “liberal critic” mask they wear when dealing with the Bible, but the “unquestioning fundamendalist” mask they put on when the criticism is about to push them into denying this or that medieval theory or story. A good example is Al Kimel arguing that indeed, historical criticism proves that Paul didn’t write most of the letter attributed to him, but since God guided the Church to infallibly define the canon, we can still rest assured that they are the Word of God.
In other words, 20th century historical criticism gets fused with 19th-century anti-modernist infallibility theories. The result is redefinition of just about everything you can find pertaining to Scripture and dogma in pre-V2 Catholic literature and dogma.
To those of us on the outside, the incongruity in Catholic thought is real and obvious. You can’t spend half your time attacking and undermining Hebrew miracle stories as myths and jeer at people who believe the Bible is inerrant, then insist that everyone believe certain medieval miracle stories are literally true because papal dogmas are inerrant. Excommunicating Hans Kueng was only a stopgap measure and did nothing to address the underlying problem.
When the Anglicans began indulging this stuff way back at the turn of the last century, they thought that appealing to liturgy & creed would serve as a safeguard against higher criticism’s undermining of the most of the rest of the Bible. The Vatican endorsed higher criticism a scant four decades ago. I’m curious to see how this plays out over the next 40 or 50 years, and whether the RCC can avoid the same fate as the Church of England.
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There is an irony to this. Catholics may not measure up to evangelicals in the time spent reading the Bible or the attendance for Bible studies, but scripture plays such a integral part in Catholic worship. The Catholic liturgy is replete with scripture. Many Catholic prayers are a reciting of scripture. Many Catholic hymns are taken from scripture. In comparison, evangelical worship songs rarely make any reference to scripture. The average evangelical sermon makes no reference to scripture or to Christ (not that all Catholic homilies that I have heard do). The extemporaneous nature of evangelical prayer places focus on the person praying and not on God or on scripture. Traditional Lutherans and Anglicans fare a little better.
It seems like for all the emphasis on the bible in evangelical camps, the bible is relegated to the bible study, with little relevance elsewhere. Bible study amounts to an exercise in dissecting the text and maybe debating trivial matters to look smart. The bible study becomes a cage for the Word of God. For all our reading and study, the bible isn’t given a chance to change us.
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Sorry, one more, in response to Obed. My experience in my non-denom church back in the day (however unrepresentative it may be) was that the faithful had accepted a quasi-relegation of the OT to a secondary status. Officially, it was all inspired and on the same plane. But unofficially, you only really needed the NT. One of the revelations as a Catholic has been how large the OT looms in the Church’s thought. How it really is just one book. I know what I say is probably unrepresentative, but there you have it.
And to Josh S: I’ll leave unopened the Pandora’s Box of authority, but suffice to say that the question of authority is unrelated to the question of inspiration. The Holy Spirit inspired it, therefore it is true. That leaves untouched the question of who has the ultimate authority to interpret it (besides, obviously, its author).
And I think you’d be surprised how many of the historical critics would be willing to turn their methods to Ineffabilis Deus. 🙂 In any case, your point assumes a premise. Namely, that the early portions of Genesis contain the same style of writing as ID. I don’t think they do, and so I read them differently, though both are true. In other words, to say with CS Lewis that the creation account is written after the manner of a popular poet is not to say that is not literally true. It is merely saying that it is written differently than a historical narrative, and thus must be read differently. All of this, of course, leaves aside the fact that we are here comparing apples to oranges. Genesis is inspired by the Holy Spirit. ID is not.
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I think the Vatican is playing with fire. For centuries, they depended on biblical illiteracy to support the authority of the Magisterium. Now that they’re trying to promote literacy, they need to adopt a doctrine of inspiration that leaves them as the ultimate authority. The problem’s going to come when someone says, “Wait a minute…I don’t have to believe that Genesis or Judith are literally true due to historical criticism, but I do have to believe Ineffabilis Deus is literal truth and immune from historical criticism?”
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Sorry one last point. One thing that really hinders official bible study groups in our area is the fact that a typical parish has anywhere between 3 and 6 Masses per Sunday. This makes it very difficult to organize any outside-of-Mass events for a Sunday because people are quite literally coming or going at anytime of the day from Saturday night through Sunday night. Therefore, any official groups have to be done on a weekday or weeknight. And that certainly raises one more barrier to participation.
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OK, the post is about biblical literacy. I shall confine myself to that topic, and refrain from the obvious and typical America slant on all things Catholic. The last section was especially stupid.
Anyway.
From my Catholic perspective, I see pretty much a mixed bag. The homilies at our parish are pretty good, usually taking pains to draw out the obvious lesson from the readings. I think that after 40 years of horrible catechesis, many priests are very shy about confronting their parishioners with the “difficult” lessons, though, for fear of driving away their flock. But it’s a shame because I think that we all need to be confronted with the radical call of the Gospel to leave aside our smug fatness. And in my experience, that doesn’t happen enough. Usually it’s a safe call to be better. But rarely a calling-out about…really…our sorry state of affairs.
For the motivated, there are a lot of scripture resources to draw from. I have found myself much more confident in bible study on this side of the Tiber, and understanding more than I ever did. Jeff Cavins’ bible adventure is fantastic, as it takes you through a subset of the Old Testament, chronologically, and focusing on the historical books. It really teases out the greater OT narrative. Also, there seems to be much more focus on the Gospels in the Catholic Church. For better and for worse. I think most Catholics are quite familiar with the Gospels, but don’t know Paul. Hence: St. Paul, The Year Of.
Lastly, I think there is a real reticence to give way to bible studies that are not lead by clergy. And in one sense, I understand it. I wouldn’t want 10 Robs (or 10 David Gibsons) sitting in a circle trying to figure out what some difficult text meant, with no reference point to something more concrete. And yet, the Clergy Requirement limits what can really happen 1) because of simple numbers (i.e., not enough of them) and 2) people feel uncomfortable being open around them or questioning them. When you think your priest is being a bit…squishy…on a certain verse, what do you say? Too often lay leaders are expected to go through some intensive certification program, which limits lay leadership. There’s a real tension here that I don’t know how to solve. And I think the Church is truly struggling with it too.
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Boethius, I had the same experience here in Ireland – the Gideon people coming in to my Catholic secondary school and handing out the New Testaments to the pupils.
But the nuns didn’t make us give them back – now, were your nuns better (in the sense of not approving unauthorised translations) than ours? 😉
I am glad that there is a belated emphasis on the study of sacred Scripture. I wish this had come in during the 70s with all the reforms; I even would have preferred slogging through Numbers to the replacement workbooks (instead of catechisms) we ended up with – instead of the Ten Commandments and the Six Laws of the Church which we had been learning, all that “God just wants us to be nice to each other” stuff!
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I cracked a bible as a young catholic. Read almost the whole thing too. Later when I entered the evangelical movement I finally did read the whole thing. Too often though I have to admit that what kept me sane as an evangelical was what I learned at mass… which was scripture and in the creed. Understanding or remembering the creed allowed me to not fall prey to manipulations of the trinity, of which there are a few, and of course reading the bible had very little surprise because you get a good dose every week at mass… unless you just weren’t paying attention. Anyway I did leave the church and did read the whole bible because I was not a “bible believing christian” and lo and behold it took me 3 months to do, yet i’ll bet more than half of the people in my church who were “bible believing christians” for years still hadn’t done any such thing. And unfortunately it seemed that of those who did, they had absolutely no real tradition to stand on so you actually had about as many interpretations as there were people on what the bible meant. I’m sure that some of the older churches like baptists or methodists stayed on a better target, but I was charismatic. Anyway as an ex catholic I heard all that classic anti catholic jargon like catholics were not allowed to read their bibles and just had to scratch my head… because my grandparents were strict catholics and had their bibles… my parents did too and they never mentioned being told they couldn’t read the bible before or after vat 2, and then there were to my discovery several catholic authors who seemed to have a very good grip on the scriptures such as chesterton, o’connor, and belloc. They weren’t clergy so how did they get such knowledge?
Anyway after many years in the evangelical world going from charismatic/arminian to post evangelical calvanism I did come to the realization that maybe people shouldn’t read their bibles… at least without a solid catechism or tradition, because the bible in my own experience had been hacked so many times that it would have made more sense if it was just placed in a paper shredder. It was being yanked here and there, contradicted from one groupe to another, one person to another, all claiming to have the right interpretation and of course, mine was always wrong…. Anyway it almost makes sense that some would want to lock it up.. at least we could still believe it was sacred scripture and not the mundane tool for proving we have the authority and power we think it means to be a christian.
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On the “relevant examples”, if I hear one more preacher compare our relationship with God to dating/courting our spouses, I’ll come unglued.
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iMonk,
I think there is a new awareness of the Bible among Catholic youth now. John Paul II for lack of a better term, discarded the generation that grew up in the “Girls Gone Wild” days after Vatican II–the ’70s and ’80s–and turned his attention to the next generation. That decision is bearing fruit now.
Like Charlie (above), my 17 year old niece can comfortably speak of “mega-themes” like death to life, bondage to freedom, slavery to sonship, darkness to light, exile to homeland, being lost to being found, Law to Spirit, unclean to clean, desolate to fruitful, etc. She can use references from the OT and NT that point out these themes and she can apply them to a theology of life that informs her walk and her relationship to God, others, and the world.
This is what I would refer to as “Biblical literacy”. Being able to articulate the major themes of the Bible, draw from the richness of the Scriptural characters and events to give them concreteness, and then to apply the principles to daily life.
Unfortunately, the article and many like it define Biblical literacy as being able to spout out the names of Jacob’s sons or Noah’s wife. The order of calling of the disciples. Paul’s home town and original name. To know where David was born or how many wives he had. To recite the 10 commandments in order. To place the book of Hezekiah in it’s proper order in the canon. If you can accomplish these tasks of trivia, then you are deemed literate.
I guess these are tests to see if you ever read it (and retained any of the objective facts from it) but the Christian life isn’t about retaining facts.
The Catholic youth seem to be getting this–and even adult Catholics seem to have a better grasp of their theology.
But Evangelical churches have turned their discipleship over to small group leaders who choose themed books to give people tips on how to live a better life. Biblical principles may or may not be used (or co-opted) to support whatever point the author is getting across. There is very little knowledge (in my experience) among the rank and file of what the text is really talking about or can speak of the richness of the imagery used. So authors make up new, more “relevant” examples. Unfortunately, those examples don’t always echo throughout Scripture the way the originals do.
The Evangelical churches may know more *about* the Bible (chapters and verses) but that doesn’t mean they *know* the Bible.
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I’m not going to moderate this thread at work people, but we aren’t discussing the magazine or the author. Discuss the topic of the article, or don’t comment at all. If Fitzmeyer is a liberal, that’s a shame. The post is about Biblical literacy.
MS
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Giovanni:
The Gideon don’t translate. They distribute the KJV.
Greg:
There’s nothing I dislike more than the silencing of personal experience. I agree it shouldn’t be given exaggerated authority, but discounting it- which is done all the time by every religious group when criticism is expresed as a life experience of someone- is simnply wrong and unwise.
MS
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Well argued and I couldn’t really agree more than what you’ve said here Michael. Unfortunately even in my own church congregation (evangelical Methodist with a hint of fundamentalism), there still persists this image of RCs not knowing Scripture at all which has been solidly refuted by RC friends who know Scripture even better than I do (and for that matter, better than a lot of my Protestant friends). And dagnammit, I’m gonna have to see if I can find Treasury of Daily Prayer at some bookshop here in Australia. Y’all in the States have it too good at times book-wise. =)
Pax
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Greg didn’t mention anything about Fitzmyer in his criticism above. I can explain Brown to you, if you have the time.
I added the Reading Paul Together book to my Amazon wish list … it is a great recommendation ( needs more Catholic contributors, ‘though – 🙂 ).
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Boethius:
That funny because my first memory of Catholic school was my parents giving me the family Bible to take to school. It was a requirement of my Cathechism class. There I was 6 years old carrying on my backpack the biggest book I would ever carry to school. I have it to this day.
The nuns/priest were prob just trying to protect you from the horrible translations that Gideons is known for.
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I just read the Catechism section you linked. Section IV has the most profound statements on the unity of the Old and New Testaments I’ve ever read. I spent much of my teenage and adult life in Messianic Jewish circles where the (perceived) apathy of gentile Christianity toward the OT is ofen lamented. What the RCC had already said about the Canon was simpler and truer than anything I heard during those days.
I especially loved an Augustine quote on line 129: “As an old saying put it, the New Testament lies hidden in the Old and the Old Testament is unveiled in the New.”
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Fitzmyer, Brown, Meier, et al don’t really believe in the historicity of much of the Gospels. Honestly, if you really read them, you would know that. As “magisterial” as Birth/Death of the Messiah may be in one sense, they are essentially arguments that the pertinent elements of Scripture are nothing more than pastiche. Same with Meier’s major two volumes.
Michael, if you wonder why Catholics aren’t evangelistic it is because they are preached at by priests who have been trained in seminaries in which these guys are the center of exegesis, therefore they have no compelling reason to believe any of it is true, and their preaching shows it.
The idea that Reese was removed by B16 is a myth, unsubstantiated, promoted coyly by Reese himself. If you go back and trace the chronology, what you find is that Reese resigned very soon after B16 was elected, dropping all kinds of hints that he was removed, but never directly coming out and saying so.
It was fairly despicable.
I, too, attend Catholic schools in the 1970’s. We were given a Jerusalem Bible in the first week of 9th grade, read it throughout the curriculum and read Dei Verbum as well. Tough slog, that last one, was, but nonetheless, we read it.
Anecdotes are pretty useless. They only express one individual’s experience, not the general picture.
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You might glance at this, referenced at the end of his wiki article, as a sample of Fitzmyer’s impeccable style and wholehearted commitment –
http://www.companysj.com/v141/written.html
which concludes, “This is the contribution that the trained exegete can make to the spiritual life of modern Catholics, which is nourished by the written Word of God.”
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Joe: I’m sure most of us are aware that America is a Jesuit publication whose editor “left.” I playfully acknowledged that America would get some flack when I cited it.
If you’ve read Fitzmyer on Paul, great. If not, you might check out why Michael Horton says he understands justification better than the vast majority of Protestants. See Reading Paul Together, where Fitz has an essay.
If I need to start a thread for traditionalists and Hahn fans to criticize Gibson….well…I probably won’t.
This was a good article. Solidly helpful to a lot of us. Of course, I’m sure plenty of people on both sides would dislike it, and will say so. That’s fine. Comments are open for civil discussion that’s on topic.
peace
MS
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Also, author Gibson wrote something of a hatchet job of Benedict in his book “The Rule of Benedict,” essentially countering every single controversial position the Pope has outlined. Not the happiest reference point for a non-progressive Catholic.
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Calling Fitzmyer “extremely conservative” on Scripture is like calling Tony Campolo very conservative on social issues, from what I have read of him. In fact, I’d wager that there are almost zero very conservative Catholic exegetes out there being published, outside of Scott Hahn’s troupe. I’ll be happily corrected if I am wrong.
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Fr. Fitzmyer is extremely conservative on Scripture – or is that all relative? – so if Avery Dulles can appear on EWTN, Fitzmyer can too. Let him replace Tim Gray.
When Fr. Fitzmyer (you note how I’m spelling his name?) autographed my New Jerome Biblical Commentary a couple of years ago, he remarked, “Well, Brown and Murphy [the other imprimaturs] are dead, so you won’t get their signatures.”
And when Fitzmyer talks about Jesus, well, it’s clear that faith is driving his life’s work.
Hey, you know the author of the America piece, David Gibson, is a convert. 🙂
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Charlie:
My experience as a fromer RC is the same as yours; many years of religion classes but never cracked a Bible. In fact, the Gideons had come to our Catholic Grammar school when I was a child and handed New Testaments to every student. The next day, the nuns came in, told us the priest said we should not have them and that we had to give them back. I was very sad to turn mine in the following day to my teacher(nun). I attended a Catholic college as well; cracked open the Gospel of Mark for one Humanities course. Otherwise than that, never opened one.
Perhaps one has to be a convert from Catholicism in order to desire to read the Bible? We converts are very passionate about the Bible because we were not allowed to read it, (way back then).
I am glad to hear that Scripture reading has begun in the RCC schools.
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I’ll try again. My wife has been a Christian for about two years and knew nothing of the Bible before that.
She already finds herself in Bible study groups where she knows more about the Bible than others in the group who have been Christians for decades, are pastor’s wives, etc.
When I say ‘knows more’ I’m not talking about anything fancy–just basic things about who the people are, how they are related and what actually happens in the stories. Honestly, these are things that people who have been reading the Bible for the majority of their lives would probably know.
On top of that, people have lots of opinions about what the stories mean and feel they can teach people like my wife who are new Christians.
This discovery has been discouraging to her. What’s the point of being a Christian when the Christians around her seem to care so little about actually learning about the Bible? Is it all a big farce?
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Bob:
Don’t be coy. ‘Splain yourself.
peace
ms
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Charlie, I second that. I think the RC church has really gone through a revolution of Biblical literacy. All the work JP2 poured into Catholic youth is bearing fruit. My neice speaks of Biblical mega-themes quite comfortably.
Unfortunately, I feel like the advent of small group based Bible study (pronounced “uninformed teaching”) is starting to bear a different fruit in the Evangelical church.
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Wow, the Steve Ray remark sounds kinda snobby to me! But I’m admittedly an uneducated, working class gal– what do I know? Anyhoo, I just read a few more of your older posts and I must tell ya I had NO IDEA when I first commented that yer wife is Catholic, you consider yourself “reformed” (my niece is a freshman at “The Masters College” and has almost lost her faith– and it’s only December) *and* you’ve been driven near-crazy by well-meaning Catholic apologists. So, golly, sorry if I came off that way. Seriously. Didn’t mean to be another Catholic pushing you over the edge of sanity. I shall quietly remove myself now. God’s peace be upon you!
MOD: I’m actually not reformed. I’m a reformation Christian. The difference is substantial, but it’s inside baseball so to speak. Please feel free to stay and play, but you’ve just become IM commenter 141 to invite me to become RC 🙂
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Donna: I’m sure Steve Ray is a great guy, but I have no interest in anyone who approaches me as a potential convert. There are plenty of people who have no relationship with God at all who need an evangelistic witness. I don’t. Yet. Well…today….so far.
Raymond Brown and Joseph Fitzmeyer are to Steve Ray as Mozart is to Clay Aiken.
peace,
MS
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I attended Catholic school from K-9th grade back in the 70’s. We had religion class every day but we never once cracked a Bible. Now, fast forward to last Thursday, Thanksgiving Day. I am having a discussion with my 17 year old niece, who attends Catholic school, and I am amazed at how seemingly knowledgeable and comfortable she is with the Scriptures. I am thrilled to see the Word of God finally making it’s way into the minds and hearts of Catholics.
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Oh! And Pope Benedict elaborates further what yer talkin’ bout in his amazing book, “Jesus of Nazareth”. Have you read it? You would DIG this book!!! (Sorry I’m being so random; today is my birthday and I’ve had two glasses of red wine. Sheesh– I’m a lightweight.)
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1) Steve Ray is a great guy. Actually, he rocks. Have you read “Crossing the Tiber”? Read ALL the footnotes, too. Great stuff!
2) Please capitalize “Mass” when you write it. Thanks, my brutha.
3) My Bible (which I read) is the Ignatius Holy Bible, Revised Standard Version, Catholic edition. The books that [Protestants] don’t [use] are the Deuteronomical books, not the “apocryphal” books. Those are, like, the “gospels” of Q, and Thomas, etc. They are not inspired. But the Deuteronomical books are! 🙂
[Mod edited: We don’t do that here Donna. Appreciate the sentiment, but it’s a very painful subject.]
Peace + blessings 2 U in Christ Jesus,
Donna
🙂
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I’m not quite following you there, Eric. Could you explain your observation a bit more.
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It has taken my wife 2 years as a Christian starting from zero knowledge (she is Chinese) to exceed the knowledge of the Bible of others in Bible study groups. This is causing her a crisis of faith.
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