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The Last Gasps of Literate Christianity

...My young friend was apparently suddenly struck by the oddity that the Bible played no real part in her life as a Christian. Yet she was not disturbed, but merely bemused. In other eras, this would have been a discovery of a flaw so significant it would have called into question one's entire claim of discipleship. Today, the observation probably never entered her mind again, and certainly my admonition concerning the importance of reading scripture did not make any alteration in her path. I have been telling Christians to be students of the Bible for almost 26 years, and it appears to me that very, very few take this as anything more than yada, yada, yada. Among many Christians, reading of any kind, including the Bible, is seen as a genuine evil. Bor-ing.

One reason my friend doesn't feel a gaping vacuum where the Bible should be is that she is stuffed full of Christian media of other types. She is a "fan" of contemporary Christian music, a medium that will never be faulted for being bashful in claiming that it contains all the essential vitamins and nutrients for healthy Christianity. Listening to the current crop of Christian alternative rockers, hip-hoppers and rappers, the average Christian young person gets a version of truth that looks something like this: God is my girlfriend, one for whom I have romantic feelings of constant warm fuzziness. He loves me like the ideal girlfriend, except he won't dump me or ask anything of me. There are no real moral issues or dilemmas that ought to rally my generation, other than we ought to love people and share Jesus with our friends. Staying on a buzz with the Holy Spirit is the real point of worship. Jesus is better than drugs, but only because he feels better. And so on...

Millions of Christians believe this silliness is spiritual nourishment and truth of a kind that makes the Bible practically unnecessary. Listening to interviews with Christian musicians, one can understand why former CCM artist Steve Camp roundly condemned the whole business as vacuous Chicken Soup for the Deceived Soul. My friend is nourished on a diet of junk food masquerading as meat and vegetables. The Bible has assumed the status of the founder of a college whose picture hangs in the wall, whose books are on the shelf, and who doesn't matter a bit in the day to day. She sees no connection between her relationship with God and reading the Bible.

Now many of my readers will recognize the utter corruption of CCM as one of my frequent sump topics, so I must do better. And I will. Let's talk about the Bible as used in preaching, and in evangelical churches in general.

We find ourselves at a place where Sunday morning finds evangelical Christians demanding and being fed "practical" messages. How to's. Principles for. Ten Ways to. How to succeed and make things work. I need not acquaint any reader of this journal with such preaching. We have all heard it ad nauseum. And, we have heard the Bible used in it. Yet I will contend that such preaching is the very death knell of Biblical literacy.

First, such sermons are not expositions of the Bible's message and claims, but typically quite secular fare where Bible verses and examples make "guest appearances" to set up or "prove" the principle under discussion. The listener knows no more about the Bible, or the God of the Bible after the sermon than before it. The referencing of the Bible as support for a talk that would be just as true without the Bible is a travesty masquerading as a sermon....