Biblical Literacy in a Postliterate Age

By BRAD EAST|APRIL 18, 2024 

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The author sets forth some challenging options at the end of his article:

"In a culture where most people are not daily readers of books, most Christians probably will not be daily readers of the church’s book either. Unless, that is, we believe that private, individual reading of the Bible is so foundational, so nonnegotiable that our churches ought to devote extraordinary resources to making it a countercultural possibility in the life of every ordinary believer.

"Such churches would not only found and support classical academies. They would also commit to being consistently countercultural in the face of the whole ecosystem of digital technology: no screens in worship; no AI in preaching; no streaming online; no smartphones in the building; no presence on social media; no Bible apps in Bible class—only physical Bibles brought from home. Churches like these would be clear-eyed and undeceived about the nature of the threat. They would not try to have their cake and eat it too.

"I'm open to that approach. But unless we’re willing to go that far, it seems to me that churches in the modern West should accept that we live in a postliterate world and therefore must minister to a postliterate people. Concretely, this means accepting that most church members are not and never will be readers, _and that this is not a problem—_that it does not make them less than other believers, that it does not preclude their maturity in the faith and service of God.

"The upshot of this acceptance would be a changed vision of the Christian life. This too would have us looking to the past, as well as to contemporary liturgical traditions with models of worship carried over from a premodern illiterate age. Those of us in communities defined by personal Bible reading have much to learn from them.

"Our congregations would not cease to be centered on God’s Word. But we would be centered differently than we have been in the past. Perhaps we need more—much more—oral reading, even memorization and performance, of the Scriptures in the assembly. Perhaps we need longer and more detailed exposition of the text in the sermon. Perhaps we need to reimagine what “biblical literacy” can mean: not necessarily the reading and rereading of one’s personal Bible, but a mind, imagination, and vocabulary shot through with the stories and characters and events of Holy Scripture."