What do students today know/believe about the Bible?

If you had to guess, would you assume that today’s students know more or less of the Bible than students in previous generations? While you’re thinking about that, would you assume that students are becoming more or less “liberal” in their orientation towards scripture?

I think that most people would probably assume that students don’t know the Bible nearly as well as they used to “back in my day” (whenever that was) and when they do think about scripture (which is not nearly enough) they are becoming alarmingly liberal.

On the surface of it, this wouldn’t be a bad assumption. There is a sort of entropy where cultures will gradually drift over time towards innovation and “progressivism” and away from older traditions, authorities, and assumptions unless there is some force exerted to temporarily stem the tide – a revival, a revolution, a crisis, or just plain nostalgia. To observe a drift away from traditional understandings or even concern for the Bible may alarm us, but it shouldn’t surprise us. And anecdotally it certainly seems as if we don’t read, love, obey, or just plain know the Bible nearly as much as we used to.

But what I have observed at least in our tiny little corner of the world doesn’t really support that narrative. Ozark Christian College has been giving a standardized test from the Association of Biblical Higher Education on Bible knowledge to incoming students for over 45 years. The average score for men over that time has been just over 40 percent. The average score for women is about the same – just under 39 percent. What is remarkable (at least to me) is that the score for incoming students has remained relatively unchanged over those years. Not one time did the scores go over 50 percent, and only two years were over 45 percent. In 1969 (the first year I have records) the average score for men and women was 36 percent. In the most recent year, the average score was 39.8 percent. You could argue from these scores that Bible knowledge has always been inadequate, but you can’t argue that students know less today than they used to.

What about orientations towards scripture? Our society is undoubtedly more liberal than it was even 10 years ago on any number of different, specific issues. It’s naïve to think that somehow our students have been immune to these changes. Before I go any further, let me add this disclaimer. I am on most things what you would call a pretty conservative person. But if liberals are guilty of idealism when it comes to the future (which they are), conservatives are certainly guilty of idealism about the past. Many of the beliefs, assumptions, and practices of our idyllic past needed to be called into account and changed (and changed sometimes because frankly we were getting scripture exactly wrong). There are occasions when progress and change should be embraced. My point is that not every innovation should be automatically cursed with the imprecation of LIBERAL. In fact, both sides should just chill on the name calling in general.

But back to my point. Are students changing their basic orientation to scripture? I have less data to draw on here, but from what little data I have, the answer seems to be no. Scot McKnight published a quiz some years ago designed to measure a person’s interpretive assumptions about scripture. It asks questions like: The commands in the Old Testament to destroy a village including women and children are: 1) Justifiable judgment against sinful, pagan, immoral peoples. 2) God’s ways in the days of the Judges: they are primitive words but people’s understanding as divine words for that day. 3) A barbaric form of war in a primitive society and I wish they weren’t in the Bible. A person’s score on this quiz will show where they fall on a spectrum from conservative to moderate to progressive. I’ve been giving this quiz for about five years in my third year biblical interpretation class. I use it as a way to talk to the students about the hidden assumptions that they make while interpreting scripture. These are mostly sophomores and juniors who are ministry majors. Since they are ministry majors you would expect them to be more committed to scripture than average. But as upperclassmen, you would also expect them to be a little more reflective and critical than the average freshman. I didn’t keep the averages from the first couple of years, but my past three years of classes have all averaged exactly 54.6 on the quiz. That is remarkable consistency. McKnight says that this score places you squarely in the “moderate” category and closer to conservative than progressive. In other words, not only do my students’ scores not seem to be changing, they are also remaining solidly moderate in their orientation towards scripture.

I know that this is a very thin slice of evidence. I could be totally wrong about larger trends in the church or in the culture. But as far as my students are concerned – students coming from mostly a churched background and demonstrating a desire for some kind of vocational ministry – they seem to know as little about scripture as their parents and grandparents, and despite the movement of culture in a more liberal direction, they have generally remained committed to the authority of scripture.

Gutenberg's Revolution

In 1455 all Europe's printed books could have been carried in a single wagon. Fifty years later, the titles ran to tens of thousands, the individual volumes to millions. Today, books pour off presses at the rate of 10,000 million a year. That's some 50 million tons of paper. Add in 8,000 to 9,000 daily newspapers, and the Sundays, and the magazines, and the figure rises to 130 million tons. (John Man, The Gutenberg Revolution, 4)

One of the most underrated influences on biblical interpretation is the invention of the printing press. Most books on the history of hermeneutics leave a Gutenberg shaped hole in their study. One of our most treasured ideals as Evangelicals - personal, devotional study of scripture leading to a very personal and devotional relationship with Jesus - wasn't even the dream of a possibility before around 1455. Luther would never have become Luther, Calvin would never have become Calvin, and Tyndale would never have become Tyndale without this invention which John Man identifies as the third most important invention in civilization only after the inventions of writing and the alphabet. The Reformation probably wouldn't have happened without the assistance of the press. (Man points out that Muslim nations had access to the new technology but for multiple reasons they rejected it. And Christianity had a major reform movement while Islam did not. This is a simplistic analysis, but it's interesting to think about.)

The Internet is the fourth most important invention according to Man which ought to give all of us a pause. Just as the press allowed a new world to come into being, Internet technology is bringing another world into existence. The press undeniably changed the church and certain assumptions about discipleship. We can only assume that the Internet is having and will continue to have similar effects. The press changed the way that Christians interacted with the Word. Look around your church on Sunday morning and take note of all of the people with their noses buried in their phones and it is clear that Internet based technology is also changing the way that people interact with the Word. The question is "How?" And is it for the better or the worse? But I'll leave those questions to the Leonard Sweets of the world to figure out.