Faith Works 4-24-2026
Jeff Gill
If you’re reading this, you may be too close
___
There’s a bumper sticker out there saying “If you can read this, you’re too close!”
That has to do with typeface size and traffic speed, but you get the point. If you’re close enough to make out the words, you probably should slow down, unless you’re standing right behind the vehicle in a parking lot.
If you are reading this column, whether on a screen or phone online, let alone in print, you may be “too close” to the question of literacy and religion. Preachers talk about Biblical literacy all the time, as do many church leaders, lay or ministerial, but the reality is our relationship to reading is different than that of most of our congregation, let alone to the wider culture.
Some of us, a fair number of people even in 2026 Ohio, like to read. We do it for fun; a healthy audience turned out this week in Newark to hear an author speak about books, and the process of writing.
And I know as a pastor there are people who read their Bibles regularly, faithfully, diligently.
I also know there are many who wrestle with the topic, and find it hard to maintain a regular, consistent pattern of devotional reading, over time or just day to day.
What I hear much less directly about, but am painfully aware of, is how many people do not read. I’m not talking about literacy per se, and I’m not even sure calling it functional illiteracy is fair, but the practice of reading as measured by a number of metrics is on the decline.
Reading for pleasure by adults has been widely reported to have dropped by half in my adult lifetime. That sounds terrible, and I won’t say it isn’t, but that’s actually a decline from around 30% to 15%. If you think about it, that means even in the halcyon days of the 1970s, 70% of adults did not read for pleasure. That’s what’s generally referred to as a majority.
A few years back, it was widely trumpeted in book circles that the number of adults who had read a book, one book, at least a single volume, in the previous year had dropped below half. This isn’t even asking if you enjoyed it, just “have you read a book this year?” Over half now say “nope.”
As a born and raised American Protestant, I’m used to a mindset in my faith community of thinking that Bible reading is well-nigh equal to belief in general. If you don’t read your Bible, your faith is heading for the rocks. Not reading the Bible is dangerously close to not believing in God. Directly and indirectly, that’s what I internalized. But the unfair part here is two-fold: one, I enjoy reading, and read fast, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I’m more religious or a better person, I just read more. Trust me, I know that’s true.
The other thing that seems off here: up until good old Johannes Gutenberg and circa 1450, reading in your own copy of the Holy Scriptures was simply not possible. Monks and priests had handwritten, illuminated copies of the Bible, and the wealthy had beautiful psalters and breviaries or a “Book of Hours” for their prayers, illustrated and artistically written out, but Jane and Joe Average had their ears. They heard the Bible read in worship, through the year in the lectionary, echoed in bells ringing to let farmers know in their fields what was being sung and said in the parish church, but their Bible was largely auditory. If you missed church, you didn’t hear or receive your Bible text for the week.
Now, we can skip public worship, and read in our paperback “The Way” or on our Bible app across phone screens to get divine content that way… or do we? How should we think about Bible reading, and relating it to worship, today?
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he likes all manner of translations, which is a column all its own. Tell him how you read scripture at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on X.
Jeff Gill
If you’re reading this, you may be too close
___
There’s a bumper sticker out there saying “If you can read this, you’re too close!”
That has to do with typeface size and traffic speed, but you get the point. If you’re close enough to make out the words, you probably should slow down, unless you’re standing right behind the vehicle in a parking lot.
If you are reading this column, whether on a screen or phone online, let alone in print, you may be “too close” to the question of literacy and religion. Preachers talk about Biblical literacy all the time, as do many church leaders, lay or ministerial, but the reality is our relationship to reading is different than that of most of our congregation, let alone to the wider culture.
Some of us, a fair number of people even in 2026 Ohio, like to read. We do it for fun; a healthy audience turned out this week in Newark to hear an author speak about books, and the process of writing.
And I know as a pastor there are people who read their Bibles regularly, faithfully, diligently.
I also know there are many who wrestle with the topic, and find it hard to maintain a regular, consistent pattern of devotional reading, over time or just day to day.
What I hear much less directly about, but am painfully aware of, is how many people do not read. I’m not talking about literacy per se, and I’m not even sure calling it functional illiteracy is fair, but the practice of reading as measured by a number of metrics is on the decline.
Reading for pleasure by adults has been widely reported to have dropped by half in my adult lifetime. That sounds terrible, and I won’t say it isn’t, but that’s actually a decline from around 30% to 15%. If you think about it, that means even in the halcyon days of the 1970s, 70% of adults did not read for pleasure. That’s what’s generally referred to as a majority.
A few years back, it was widely trumpeted in book circles that the number of adults who had read a book, one book, at least a single volume, in the previous year had dropped below half. This isn’t even asking if you enjoyed it, just “have you read a book this year?” Over half now say “nope.”
As a born and raised American Protestant, I’m used to a mindset in my faith community of thinking that Bible reading is well-nigh equal to belief in general. If you don’t read your Bible, your faith is heading for the rocks. Not reading the Bible is dangerously close to not believing in God. Directly and indirectly, that’s what I internalized. But the unfair part here is two-fold: one, I enjoy reading, and read fast, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I’m more religious or a better person, I just read more. Trust me, I know that’s true.
The other thing that seems off here: up until good old Johannes Gutenberg and circa 1450, reading in your own copy of the Holy Scriptures was simply not possible. Monks and priests had handwritten, illuminated copies of the Bible, and the wealthy had beautiful psalters and breviaries or a “Book of Hours” for their prayers, illustrated and artistically written out, but Jane and Joe Average had their ears. They heard the Bible read in worship, through the year in the lectionary, echoed in bells ringing to let farmers know in their fields what was being sung and said in the parish church, but their Bible was largely auditory. If you missed church, you didn’t hear or receive your Bible text for the week.
Now, we can skip public worship, and read in our paperback “The Way” or on our Bible app across phone screens to get divine content that way… or do we? How should we think about Bible reading, and relating it to worship, today?
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he likes all manner of translations, which is a column all its own. Tell him how you read scripture at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on X.
No comments:
Post a Comment