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Full Transcript of Episode 16: Americans Like the Bible More Than They Read It
Lizette Beard: [00:00] Podcasting from Nashville, Tennessee, this is “Keep Asking,” the weekly podcast that helps you dive in a bit deeper and wider into the research providing insights into today’s church and culture.
[00:07] Welcome back to those of you in our vast listening audience. I’m Lizette Beard, and I’m here with my cohosts, Scott McConnell and Casey Oliver. In today’s research exposé, we are talking about the explosive data behind Americans and their Bible reading habits. [00:50] Guys, gut reaction. How do you feel about my new approach to our openings? I’m trying to give them a razzlemataz, because people have that mistaken idea that research isn’t fascinating. How do you feel?Casey Oliver: [01:04] That felt a little clickbaity to me.
[01:07] [laughter]Scott McConnell: [01:07] You can keep pumping it up by lots of adjectives. That’s good.
Lizette: [01:15] Anything else you guys have ideas on to really get people thinking about research in an exotic, exciting, dangerous sort of way?
Scott: [01:23] Who said it’s not already exciting?
Lizette: [01:26] Here’s the thing. Rumor is out there. [laughs] There are some people who may or may not think. Now, I believe it is. I believe it is, but sometimes I think, maybe, just if we could change how we approach it.
[01:42] For example, I know we’re going to get into some others, but probably the most important stat I saw when I was looking at the research was about how people treat quotes from the Bible when they see them on social media. [01:59] Just right off the bat, 25 percent of respondents said they don’t use social media, so I’m just scooting those to the side. I don’t remember being consulted on this question, because the options were they pay closer attention to it. That was 18 percent. [02:13] 35 percent don’t treat it any differently. When they see a Bible quote in scripture, they don’t treat it any differently. 14 percent pay less attention to it when they see it in social media. Nine percent have never seen or noticed quotes from the Bible on social media. [02:30] Now, if I had been consulted, we would have had another option on there, which would have been it completely depends on how crazy the person is who is posting the Bible quote, because that has everything to do with how I look at it.Scott: [02:45] There definitely is completely different tones when people use scripture on social media. Sometimes, it’s accompanied by a nice picture, and it’s just, “Here it is. Here’s a little encouragement, a little word for the day.” Other times, it’s like a whole sermon, or it’s coming at you from a weird angle.
Lizette: [03:06] Weird angle, like strung in with a bunch of angel pictures, and then some potty‑mouthed memes that go along with it. I’m like, “What are you doing?” Sometimes, I’m like, I just…Or it’s a holiday. That’s where everybody’s got to have.
[03:24] Like on holidays, especially those tied with the Christian faith, people who never post a scripture verse, they’re all over it. It’s Bible, Bible, Bible.Scott: [03:33] Or they post a quote that they think is scripture.
Lizette: [03:35] Yes, that’s true. That’s all right. That was my thing. Maybe, it was even a voice of protest. I know we don’t always enjoy it when people don’t want to fit into a category, but that was one of my things. I was like, “I don’t fit in those,” because the craziness of who was posting it is a big factor.
[04:02] Talking about people, how they enjoy the Bible, or desire to read the Bible, yet their practices seem not necessarily to match up with that. Casey, break that down a little bit for us.Casey: [04:20] I think we saw in our research, one of the big takeaways, at least for me, and I think for all of us, was that people who really like the Bible don’t necessarily really read the Bible.
[04:30] When we ask about several words or phrases, and which of them describe the Bible, a lot more people used the positive descriptors, like a good source of morals, a historical account, true or life‑changing than used any negative ones, like harmful, or bigoted, or outdated.
[04:48] You’re seeing a pretty broad, among Americans, positive feeling towards the Bible. 40 percent of Americans say the Bible’s a book to read over and over again. That’s 53 percent of Christians, 65 percent of Protestants, and 85 percent of those with evangelical beliefs. [05:05] They’re saying it’s worth reading over and over again. You definitely see those stats on people really liking the Bible, at least.Lizette: [05:12] You know what bothered me about this one? I think it’s accurate, but I did not like when I looked at the breakdown of how many people said they would describe the Bible as a story. They could pick any of these.
[05:27] If you said it’s an historical account, you weren’t limited to not say it was a story. When I peeked over at the statistical, what was significant, I noticed non‑religious are more likely to select a story than those who identify as Christians. [05:51] Those without evangelical beliefs are more likely to describe it as a story than those with evangelical beliefs, and those who attend religious service less than once a month were likely than regular attendees. [06:01] I think that this was a little bit of what we were fishing for when we were talking about the questions. I understand that, for many, story has the connotation of fiction, but when you look at in the dictionary, it’s an account. It’s a retelling, a narrative. [06:23] Going back to my source, dictionary.com ‑‑ don’t tell Carol Pipes, she doesn’t always approve ‑‑ “a narration of a series of events.” I think that makes me sad, because the more I’ve learned to look at the Bible as an overarching story, and tying pieces together, the more it has helped me enjoy it, come back to it. [06:47] That one, that made me sad that there is a resistance, it appears, among evangelicals, among believers to looking at it as a story, where I think that’s a big key to increasing the engagement.Casey: [07:00] Not just to be hyping Lifeway Curriculum, but currently, my Sunday school class is going through The Gospel Project. I think it’s been really meaningful for me to just walk through it in that narrative arc, of saying, “How is all scripture leading and pointing to Jesus?”
[07:18] Just that, like you said, I think that sometimes, we get really caught up in saying, “Well, this is definitely historical, and this is historical.” I think that’s true, but also that still, we can sometimes miss on the broad narrative arc of scripture, and how that’s beautiful as well as true.Lizette: [07:38] To balance out your blatant advertising for Lifeway Curriculum, I want to recommend The Jesus Storybook Bible by Sally Lloyd‑Jones. She does a fantastic job in a children’s Bible tying the whole story together.
[07:52] She picks about 60 or so key stories in scripture, but then makes a point to tie each one to the cross, to Jesus. I think, if someone is an adult who’s not been exposed to that…I took a lot of Bible classes before I really saw the pieces together, so I wish I’d read that before I got that. [08:19] Anyway, I highly recommend that in my advocating for let’s also embrace this a story. I think that was a piece that really stood out to me. All right, Casey, I jumped in on you there.Casey: [08:32] You’re fine. Getting back to that idea that we like the Bible, but we don’t always read the Bible. We had 40 percent of Americans saying the Bible is a book to read over and over again, and yet only 20 percent of Americans say they actually have read all the Bible, at least, once.
[08:47] Only 22 percent of Americans are systematically, day by day, reading through sections of the Bible. On that one, people are more likely to say that they look things up when they have a need, or look up verses suggested by others than to systematically read through the book, they say, is worth reading over and over again.Scott: [09:04] Lizette, how do we get people to do something that they need to do? I think you normally refer to getting somebody to do something they don’t want to do as working your magic.
Lizette: [09:18] [laughs] Hey, whoa, whoa.
Scott: [09:21] How does that work? How do you get somebody who’s not in the Word, and yet they think it’s a positive thing, to actually engage?
Lizette: [09:31] I think in a lot of situations, we may look at something and think, “Oh, this is good. People should do this.” Just because someone thinks I should do something, I’m not always just real on board with that.
[09:45] I don’t think everyone should do what others think they should do. A book that I think has been very helpful, by Chip and Dan Heath, it’s called Switch. It’s on how people make a change, what’s required when people make a change, built on some research done in the field of what’s called behavioral economics. [10:06] One of the things they say, for something to change, someone has to start doing something differently. If you want to convince people to change, or to give them an opportunity to change, you need to connect with them logically, or in their head, emotionally in their heart, and then help them see the path to change. [10:30] Their illustration is a rider on an elephant. You can convince the rider on an elephant of something. That’s the logical, rational side. If the elephant is not convinced, which is the emotional part, the elephant’s going to go where the elephant wants to go. [10:50] I think I really laid it on that, because a lot of what we do in research can have a tendency towards the logical. We look at this number, then if you know this, why not? If you know that…But then we see in reality, if people haven’t bought in… [11:09] I won’t go into a whole bunch, but you direct the rider, you motivate the elephant, and then you shape the path. It’s all about breaking things down, and keeping them simplified, and connecting, being intentional. [11:27] The book, I do recommend it, because there are examples of what they did, and in simple ways. Whether it’s getting college students to donate to a can drive, or a community making a change, and emphasizing, or companies making changes. [11:41] I think there’s some really helpful ideas in here. I’m going to throw a couple of these out, and then just based on what we saw in the research, maybe, you guys will give them some examples, maybe. get people real excited about buying some Lifeway Curriculum, and the Heath brothers’ book. [12:01] Direct the rider. Connecting with thinking and the rational part. One of the examples ‑‑ and we’ll just think in terms of a leader in a ministry, or a pastor, or someone who, even a Bible study leader ‑‑ follow the bright spots. [12:16] Find out what’s working, and who’s doing the Bible reading, and tell that story. Highlight the bright spots.Scott: [12:27] That’s definitely an area that we’ve seen very effective in churches that are moving, is that their leaders are celebrating important things, celebrating things that they want to be taking place. We know that Bible reading is one of those.
[12:43] Celebrating that, giving examples of how that’s affected people’s lives for the better, is definitely something leaders can be doing.Lizette: [12:52] I really like this, because this resonates with, maybe, how I often make progress. “Script the critical moves. Don’t think in big picture, think in terms of specific behaviors.”
Casey: [13:08] One of the action steps we saw when we were asking pastors what ways, if any, do you encourage your congregation to read the Bible on their own, a few of the action steps we saw them talk about was providing a printed Bible reading plan.
[13:22] 64 percent of pastors say they’re doing that. Or providing a digital or online Bible reading plan. 40 percent said that they were doing that. I think that ties in as one of those ways that, giving the actual step by step, “Hey, here’s a means by which you can go about accomplishing this task,” and not saying, “You should be reading the Bible a lot.”Lizette: [13:41] I would even say there’s some benefit if you’ve got a lot of folks who have not done very much. It’s not just that they’re out of the habit, but don’t necessarily toss out, “Hey, we’re going to read the whole thing.”
[13:53] That’s a great option ‑‑ I highly recommend it ‑‑ but for some folks, to make it through four chapters, and to have that sense of success, of, “Oh, that was meaningful.” They hadn’t done it before. Then there’s also ‑‑ I don’t want it sound negative ‑‑ but there’s an end in sight. [14:11] You’re not committing to 365 days of this whole new habit. Hopefully, they’ll catch onto it. Skipping over to the emotional, motivating the elephant, find the feeling. What they say is, “Knowing something isn’t enough to cause change, so make people feel something.” [14:34] There’s a lot that we get in the data to know, but what’s out there? What’s the potential for knowing, or helping people understand the feeling, or connect with the feeling for reading the Bible?Scott: [14:46] I think there’s huge potential in that. We see it in advertising, where what you’d think would be a very rational decision, like buying a car, the advertisers spend all of their time and energy trying to make it not a rational decision, to make it more of an emotional decision, because that’s going to get you to move.
[15:06] You see that in an advertisement, where the feeling is what is being conveyed more so than the statistics on the car. I don’t think we think about that enough in church life. We’re in the “Do this, don’t do that” kind of mode. Scripture definitely includes that. [15:23] As we read Paul’s letters, we see him inserting the emotional as well, and putting those appeals in there that are related to stamina, that are related to his own journey of just being completely dependent on God, completely invested in the journey with God that very much is emotional.Casey: [15:49] I think one thing, to piggyback on Scott there, is for advertising, there’s a comparison we could make there, but also a contrast to be made in that a lot of times, when people are buying something that’s been advertised to them, they’re buying something that they know they don’t need, because they feel an emotional connection to it.
[16:05] We have something that we see a lot of people saying, like they know they do need it in scripture. We see in a variety of ways that that’s true, that they do need that. Then helping, hopefully, create that emotional connection, so they also want what they do need, in addition to the things that they don’t really need that we just buy on impulse.Lizette: [16:25] In “Shape the Path,” I’ll just pull out one of the examples. They have, “Tweak the environment. When the situation changes, the behavior changes, so change the situation.”
[16:36] It’s been a few years since I’ve read the whole book, but one of the examples was a business that I think one of their customer criticisms was that people spent too much time on hold, or waiting for customer service on the phone. [16:54] The new head cheese threw out the phone system. There was now no longer any way to take messages. A live person had to answer the phone, and it always had to be handled. By changing that one thing, created an environment where it wasn’t dependent on everybody getting up to speed, or even feeling like they were going to make the change. [17:18] What are some things, whether it’s a ministry, an organization, or even a family? How could you tweak the environment?Scott: [17:29] I think removing some of the dependency on the pastor to be delivering that Bible reading. It is encouraging to see three out of four churches have an additional Bible reading in addition to whatever’s in the sermon.
[17:45] That’s illustrating that this is not that hard. There’s a positive element to that, but can we walk into a Bible study, and actually expect people to have read that passage ahead of time? [17:57] That sounds like an old ideal, but it’s flipping the classroom a little bit, saying, “You’re going to do some preparation. You’re going to do some reading ahead of time. Then, let’s come together and just talk about it,” rather just the leader having read it ahead of time.Lizette: [18:11] Or ‑‑ and now I’m just brainstorming, so this may be a terrible idea ‑‑ what if you read the material together? Like that’s what your together time was. Then, there was some interaction during the week where you were engaging? I don’t know. There’s some things.
[18:28] I think that may be all we have time for today, but as a special teaser, we have another fun segment coming up on Bible engagement in an upcoming podcast, so stay tuned for that. We would love your feedback. [18:42] We would really love your positive feedback, but we’ll take any kind of feedback that you have. If you could go in and rate the podcast positively, and give us a review on iTunes, that always helps. [18:54] You can also send us your questions about this topic or any others that we’re covering to our Twitter handles, @smcconn, @statsguycasey, and @lizettebeard, or you can also go check out some of our other research projects at lifewayresearch.com. Thanks for listening, and we’ll catch you next time.See also
Americans Are Fond of the Bible, Don’t Actually Read It by Lifeway Research