Biblically sophisticated Christians: how many are there in the US?

Great Debates
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Mods: If this needs to be moved into GD, move away!

We’re accustomed to hearing statistics that state that x% of Americans (where x is a pretty high number, usually 70+) are Christians. My question is: How many people REALLY know the Christian faith well? How many have actually read the Bible, and are familiar with the theological, doctrinal, and factual problems that beset the religion? How many are familiar with basic apologetic responses to these issues?

And most interestingly, how many of these people would STILL be Christians after having examined the Scriptures and pondered all of the problematic issues? :dubious:

My point is, I think there is a sizeable percentage of “Christians” in the US, who are Christian simply because they’ve never cared enough to look more deeply into the faith.

Like many ex-religious folk, my most serious doubts about my faith arose when I took the religion most seriously, and had read the entire Bible from cover to cover and had studied it carefully and had sought out commentary on it.

(The phenomenon of devout believers slowly moving towards disbelief as a direct result of studying the Bible is a pretty consistent meme in “deconversion” anecdotes. There’s an old joke that the quickest and surest way to become an atheist is to attend seminary.)

I’m not looking for arguments pro- or con-Christianity, or religion in general. I’m not trying to start a debate. I would just like Dopers’ opinions on how many Christians we’d have in the US, if they were all fully educated on the religion and all corollary issues.

Thanks,

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Almost everyone in my Church has read the Bible through. The thing is, they don’t see any theological problems.

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I’d be interested in comparing it to the % of athiests who apparently have very little understanding of the Bible/Christianity.

On this board, although religious folk are a distinct minority, you’ll probably find them to be pretty knowledgable about their faith in general. Just like our athiests are smarter than average, so are our believers.

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My observations of US Christians (and not just Southern fundamentalists, but Christians from across the US, both Catholic and Protestant) is that they display a woeful lack of education about their own religion.

I’m sure that believers here at SDMB are probably different. After all, why else would they be at SDMB to begin with, if they weren’t educated or at least intellectually curious?

I’m talking general population, here. And when I say, “read the Bible”, I don’t mean just reading it, the way a teen Christian would, at summer Bible camp: I mean careful analysis.

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I saw a poll a year or so ago in some relitgious publication bemoaning the average Christian’s inability to answer some basic questions about the bible in a survey. I want to say it was the Christian Science Monitor, but google isn’t helping, so I’m either misremembering or my google-fu isn’t up to the task.

In any case, I’m sure someones done polls on this, so it shouldn’t be too hard to find a semi-factual answer.

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Almost 25% of Christians in the U.S. are Catholic, and generally speaking, they don’t stress Biblical scholarship. They don’t tend to have widely attended “Bible study” groups like the various Protestant denominations do. The Catechism is mostly what is taught in the Church, not the Bible itself. I’d wager that most Catholics don’t know too much about the Bible outside of the canonical gospels.

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[qualifier]
These are my anecdotal experiences and the opinions that come from them, nothing more.
[/qualifier]

It is my experiences/opinion that there is a distinct difference between “knowing the Christian faith” and knowing the bible.

The OP, it would seem, treat them as the same. The fact is, many Christians faiths draw their doctrine/faith from the bible as well as other sources. Sadly, it would seem, it isn’t required to read the bible to proclaim one himself a Christian.

As to Christians, it would seem that the vast, vast majority haven’t read the bible, don’t read the bible and are blissfully ignorant of it. Rather than reading the bible, many are content to “know their faith” in as much as they know the general doctrines and tenets of the church they belong to, and are satisfied in getting their doctrine from their preacher. Most have some general impressions and knowledge of things they heard or were taught. My experience is that many don’t fully realize the true origins of some of the things they believe, believing that they come from the bible, when in fact they don’t.

But there as as many------and I would bet many more, actually-------who assail Christianity or the bible and who are every bit as ignorant of the bible as any Christian. This message board is often overrun with people who have read a book, or found a website that purports to expose the horrible things in Christianity. To a person they seem to have read the bible “cover to cover”, often many times, in source languages, and different translations.

What is the substantive difference between the person of faith who gets his knowledge (and the beliefs that come from it) from a surrogate and the one who criticizes the believer and who also gets his knowledge from a surrogate? (and the beliefs that come from it)

With all due respect to the OP, I can’t count how many times I’ve read the board meme that if one only read the bible they’d become an atheist.

Hogwash.

I would also make a distinction between “seminary”, and “religion” and what the bible actually says. I’ve had the opportunity to talk to many seminary students, priests etc and they too seem to be blissfully ignorant of the bible. (while well schooled in their faith/doctrine)

The comment “I think there is a sizeable percentage of “Christians” in the US, who are Christian simply because they’ve never cared enough to look more deeply into the faith” is nothing more than witnessing for your subjective beliefs.

That you have come to believe that you have the “truth” by virtue of having studied the bible etc is the hallmark of witnessing.

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My point is that a lot of Christians don’t see the Bible as something that is supposed to be analyzed. Their entire faith depends on how they feel, not what they rationally think. The stuff you consider them ignorant for not knowing, they think is unimportant.

When I see someone who becomes an atheist, it’s usually the type that do not already feel this way. It’s someone who is dissatisfied with their version of Christianity for some reason. The people who are satisfied just never have a reason to engage in the analysis necessary.

Even I have to admit that I was happier before I noticed anything that needed to be questioned. The main reason I decided not to at least attempt to pursue atheism is that I see no reason to assault my happiness. I’m happy, I’m not hurting anyone. Why the hell should I change?

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I attend a good sized Roman Catholic church, 3500 people. I attend a monthly adult bible study and a monthly woman’s group/bible study. I teach religious ed to 7 year olds, and while the catechism is part of class the bible plays a large part.

Lamar Mundane I don’t doubt that your right for some Catholic churches, but in many of the ones I’ve attended the bible is stressed as something any Catholic serious about their faith should study not just read.

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You recognize that this is confirmation bias, though, right? The people who become more devoted by studying the Bible aren’t going to show up in deconversion anecdotes.

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I’ve never studied the Bible deeply, but I’ve read a good bit of it.

I’ve never been taught that the Bible is the be-all-end-all rules for how to live, so I never thought to study it in a way that should teach me what the “rules” are.

Instead, I know it as the book of stuff God wants us to know, the story of why Jesus is our savior, and a good bit of the things Jesus was trying to teach people. From all that I get “God loves me,” “be kind” and “judge not lest ye be judged.”

I believe that the Bible is a creation of man, who is fallible. I know it’s not a first-person account. I know the stories take place in a different time and different society. I know there are too many translations. I know that things changed between the OT and the NT. I don’t trust any of it as law.

Now, if I grew up being told that the Bible was law, and then came to all of those realizations, I’d be thumbing my nose at the whole thing, too. But that’s not how it was presented to me, and I’m glad.

I don’t let the Bible dictate my life, rather, I let it enhance it.

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Correct. It’s also anecdotal evidence, which was given away by my use of the term, anecdote. :slight_smile:

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I’m not saying you should. If you’re happy and intellectually content, that’s fantastic. Go with what works.

I was really just wondering aloud if we might see fewer “nominal” Christians if all people who profess that faith were to seriously study the totality of the Christian scriptures. I don’t know if that would be the case or not. I tend to suspect that it is, but it’s not an affirmative statement I’m going to make. I’ve no idea how I’d go about validly supporting such a claim.

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Your assessment of my starting assumption is correct. I was raised in a type of Christianity that explicitly teaches, “Bible = Christianity = Bible”. And I think the Bible itself supports that idea (there are lots of verses suggesting that “all Scripture is from God” and that no man may “add or subtract” from the corpus of God’s word). Whether Catholics, or Orthodox, or whoever, don’t regard the Bible the way that American fundamentalists (and apparently, the Bible’s own authors) do, is indeed germane to the discussion, but not to my question as directed to most American believers.

I’m sure there are. I know there are. Richard Dawkins annoys me greatly in this regard. He mocks Christianity mercilessly, while cheerfully admitting that he doesn’t have the slightest clue about Christian doctrine or theology.

I’m not actually making that claim. I believe that a considerable number of Christians would become atheists if they studied the Bible, but I’m not stating that belief as fact. It’s just a personal opinion, based on observation. (Note also that I don’t claim that it would be the case with all, or even a majority, of Christians.)

I could be totally wrong.

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I apologize if I came across too strong. How one develops faith is a tricky thing. Of course, a believer will often say that God “draws” someone to faith/ a belief on God.

Strangely enough, I agree with this post. However, it has occurred to me----a believer----that if many people actually read the bible they’d become believers.

Using the SDMB as an example (and IMO/IME) the vast majority of Dopers who lay siege to Christianity and the Bible have almost no clue what they’re talking about. Like Dawkins we’re not talking about the finer points of interpretation or doctrine, but simply what it says. In spite of this, I have read countless claims of Dopers having read the bible multiple times. (literally dozens of times, or in ‘7 different translations’ etc etc) From that group, I can’t remember a single soul that has shown evidence of this prodigious knowledge. We’re much more likely to get cites from Asimov or C.S. Lewis than the bible, in bible discussions.

My interest----like yours----came from a desire to know what the bible actually says; uncluttered by Doctrine or Tradition. I was raised in a large denomination and had a hard time understanding how/why a [presumably] loving God would burn someone for eternity, as just one example.

I came away believing that in practical terms there is a huge difference between popular Christianity and what the bible actually says, (including fundamental churches) and that’s hardly Christ’s fault.

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Going strictly on anecdotal evidence, I’ve heard of examples of Christians becoming nonchristians, nonchristians becoming Christians, Christians becoming different sorts of Christians, and nonchristians remaining nonchristian but becoming more sympathetic towards Christianity, all resulting from a serious reading of the Bible.

It’s not at all uncommon (though not universal) for churches and other Christian groups to try to educate their members about the Bible, Christian doctrine, etc.—what Christians believe and why, including addressing at least some challenges to those beliefs. On the other hand, it’s also not at all uncommon (though again, not universal) for someone to be Christian all their lives without encountering some of the modern scholarly consensus about the Bible, Christian history, etc., and to be at least a bit shaken when and if they do encounter it.

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What she said.

I think I love you, ZipperJJ! :wink:

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Most of what the OP has is requirements of what is taught about Christianity, a question that has a lot more meaning is how many of them know Lord Jesus personally.

The difference is between studying the life of someone and living with them every day, knowing them as opposed to knowing about them.

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When I learned on this board, that an eternal flaming Hell was not in the bible, I became convinced that every Christian I know has not a clue of what that bible is about.

I read that bible several times, and even I thought that Hell was certainly in there. Learning from Dio that I have either misunderstood what I read, or whatever, I have to say that someone should explain that to everyone at every church I ever went to as a child. And also my preacher brother. And all those evangelists on t.v. And the pope.

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Moving thread from IMHO to Great Debates.