Ad rem is a straightforward, biblically-based, analysis of our times.

Today’s analysis is of the recently released poll results of a survey conducted over the last seven years by the American Bible Society. Some of you may have read the January 22nd, 2014 article regarding the survey in Time Magazine, which faithfully represented the results without comment regarding their relevance.

The survey results are available online at the link below:

http://www.americanbible.org/features/americas-most-bible-minded-cities

In an effort to find out which American cities embrace the best-selling book of all time, the American Bible Society surveyed people in 100 cities across America asking, “How many times do you read the Bible outside of church or a synagogue?”

The study defines “Bible-mindedness” as a combination of how often those surveyed read the Bible and how reliable and accurate they believe it to be. You can see why Think-Biblically dot com would be interested.

According to the report, Chattanooga, Tennessee is the most “bible-minded” city with 51% of its population meeting the classification and Providence, Rhode Island tying with New Bedford, Massachusetts at only 9% for the least.

Think-Biblically dot com finds these results a disturbing representation of declining biblical literacy in the United States. References to the Bible were common among the founding documents of the US and were featured prominently and frequently in political speeches not for the sake of statesmanship, but because it was expected that everyone reading those documents or hearing those speeches would understand the reference. The Bible was instrumental in elementary classes to teach students the alphabet (the New England Primer, below, uses Bible Verses to teach the alphabet) and all through education, culminating in a detailed study of the book as both history and literature at the university level.

Why has Bible-literacy fallen so dramatically? Talk radio host Hugh Hewitt remarked on his show on Friday January 24th, 2014 that it is a product of faith having been demoted from something that can be known and discussed to something that is radical and damaging to society and is therefore kept private.

This is all to true. To illustrate the point is a remarkable statement by a principle of a high school in my home state of Colorado who told me that while he is a devote catholic, when he entered the school he would hang up his Christianity like a coat and put it back on again when he left. His faith was not supposed to impact his duties as a high school principle.

This thinking is nothing new. For the last century has been wrought with people who believe that their lives should be compartmentalized, which has led directly to biblical illiteracy. In my own high school I was a bit of a Christian activist and on one occasion the vice principle told me that I should do as the Bible teaches and “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.” Clearly this was meant to teach me to compartmentalize my life based on location. When I told her that the statement she just cited wasn’t in the Bible she argued that indeed it was. I shook my head and walked away saying, “No mam, that’s Shakespeare.”

What American Christian’s should be ashamed of is the dramatic drop of bible-mindedness, as the American Bible Society’s survey indicates. It has dropped because the majority of Christians have ceded the argument that the Bible is irrelevant and non-authoritative to the unbelieving population. We need to pick up the Bible again, not to beat people over the head with it but to reason from it. Do the hard labor of showing its relevance to even non-Christian citizens. The Bible is the foundation for America’s most important laws and political documents; to properly understand American politics and life one must have an understanding of the Bible. As such the Word of God is an important factor in the life of every American, whether or not they believe its origins are divine.