07/9/26
John StonestreetandAndrew Carico
Two recent news stories point to the crisis of biblical literacy, not only of knowing the biblical text but in properly understanding it. An editorial published at the Washington Post by Princeton professor Gregory Conti (a self-professed “non-believer”) explained how common it is for college students to not know the basics of Christianity:
(They) seldom recognize the allusions to the Bible that appear in Shakespeare’s work or in Lincoln’s second inaugural address (or in Obama’s first, for that matter) . . . their ignorance of religious ideas means they struggle to understand a wide array of Western art, literature, and philosophy.
In short, the lack of Biblical knowledge means they are unable to understand American history and culture.
Another New York Times story profiled the pastor and the church of Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico. According to the article, Pastor Jim Rigby of St. Andrews’s Presbyterian Church in Austin, Texas, welcomes new members by:
…handing them a new copy of the Inclusive Bible, an unusual feminist translation St. Andrew’s has used since the 1990s. In Genesis, instead of saying that God created a man, Adam, the translation first refers to an “earth creature.” It often uses the term “kindom” of God in place of “kingdom,” which it deems classist.
The Inclusive Bible is promoted as “the first egalitarian translation.” In addition to replacing the male pronouns for God and humankind, it purports to “re-imagin(e) . . . the [S]criptures and our relationship to them.” The innovative version promotes progressive Christianity and includes a strong postmodern emphasis, rejecting absolute “truth” in favor of a newly created narrative.
Those who only read the Inclusive Bible will not really know the truth of Scripture, any more than those who never read any version. Nor can they understand a culture inspired by and built from, mostly, the King James Version. And yet, that is actually the point of the postmodern way of approaching reality: there is no truth to be known or revealed, only that which is constructed.
