Frequent Bible Reading Tied to Social Justice, Openness to Science

What daily practice may help American Christians become more concerned about issues of poverty, conservation and civil liberties?

Reading the Bible.

The answer may come as a surprise to those locked into viewing religious practices in ideological boxes. However, a new study by Baylor University researcher Aaron Franzen found frequent Bible reading predicted greater support for issues ranging from the compatibility of science and religion to more humane treatment of criminals.

The study, one of the first to examine the social consequences of reading Scripture, reveals the effects of Bible reading appear to transcend conservative-liberal boundaries.

Thus, even as opposition to same-sex marriage and legalized abortion tends to increase with more time spent with the Bible, so does the number of people who say it is important to actively seek social and economic justice, Franzen found.

It was not just liberal Christians who found their attitudes changing.

In many cases, even those who believe the Bible is literally true but rarely read the book found themselves at odds with their evangelical sisters and brothers who regularly read the holy text.

"Usually, the literalists tend to read the most frequently, but increased reading over time would moderate their conservatism," Franzen said the study indicated.

Challenging stereotypes

Franzen speculates the reason so little research has been done on the effects of reading Scripture may be because "the ubiquity of references to the Bible promotes the idea that we all know what it says and, consequently, reading it is simply a habitual and ultimately meaningless activity."

But that is not true, according to his study using data from Christian respondents to the 2007 wave of the Baylor Religion Survey.

In many cases, Franzen found frequency of Bible reading was one of the most powerful predictors of attitudes on moral and political issues. Consider some of the findings:

• The likelihood of Christians saying it is important to actively seek social and economic justice to be a good person increased 39 percent with each jump up the ladder of the frequency of reading Scripture, from reading the Bible less than once a year to no more than once a month to about weekly to several times a week or more.
• Christian respondents overall were 27 percent more likely to say it is important to consume or use fewer goods to be a good person as they became more frequent Bible readers.
• Reading the Bible more often also was linked to improved attitudes toward science. Respondents were 22 percent less likely to view religion and science as incompatible at each step toward more frequent Bible reading.
• The issues seemed to matter more than conservative-liberal tags. In the case of another major public policy debate, same-sex unions, nearly half of respondents who read the Bible less than once a year said homosexuals should be allowed to marry, while only 6 percent of people who read the Bible several times a week or more approved of such marriages.

Among other issues, more frequent Bible readers also were more likely to oppose legalized abortion, the death penalty, harsher punishment of criminals and expanding the federal government's authority to fight terrorism.

Forget Glenn Beck

The findings may be striking to those who tend to separate Christians into right and left, members of liberal and conservative blocs often seen as marching in lockstep with confrontational personalities such as Glenn Beck and Al Sharpton.

But the results are consistent with some past research.

In a 1998 article in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, sociologists Mark Regnerus, Christian Smith and David Sikkink found that data from the 1996 Religious Identity and Influence Survey suggested that, contrary to "conventional wisdom," conservative Protestants were among the most generous Christians in giving to the poor.

Anthropology professor James Bielo of Miami University, author of the 2009 book "Words upon the Word: An Ethnography of Evangelical Group Bible Study," said Franzen's findings "are not terribly surprising."

As individuals read the Bible, often in the context of other influences such as a local group or their spouse or children or a study guide, "Frequently, I think, people come to a new position, or find some nuance in what they already thought," he said.

In his own ethnographic work with evangelicals, Bielo found that most considered religion and science to be compatible. "Ultimately, they would say all truth is God's truth," he said.

Perhaps the larger issue is not whether Christians are influenced by Bible reading, but how many of them read the Bible enough for it to make a difference.

In the Baylor Religion Survey, less than a quarter of respondents said they read Scripture weekly or more.

As C.S. Lewis once observed: "Odd, the way the less the Bible is read the more it is translated."

David Briggs writes the Ahead of the Trend column for the Association of Religion Data Archives.

 

Follow David Briggs on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ReligionData

Comments

[ManuOB1]

09:58 AM on 07/26/2011

Let us not forget it was the conservative Black Baptists, lead by the Rev. Martin Luther King, who spearheaded the civil rights movement and pricked the conscience of America to live up to its ideals.

[carnivor52]

03:11 PM on 07/24/2011

Religious charities have always been the leaders in proselytizing the needy and helpless. They bring relief to poor countries only if the needy accept religion along with charity. Religion is the major reason for the hatred and intolerance projected as violence towards the "others" all over the world. The statement that bible reading leads to social justice and openness to science is absurd in the face of the facts of history. All scientific discoveries were denounced by religious leaders as heresy until the Enlightenment. Revelation of the word of god is open to the interpretation of the reader who usually interprets the word in his own favor and to the detriment of people outside of his family, religion, or nation. Also, please don't cite statistics without providing the relevant numbers so others can make their own judgements. It's so often the case that people only see what they want in statistics.

[terry63]

11:44 AM on 07/24/2011

The largest Charities started out as Christian . The salvation Army and Catholic Charities for instance. There are many others and you will find Christians to be very giving . Many studies have comfirmed this.
The Bible as well as other religious beleifs teach us Values and Morals. Proverbs,for instance is a great book of wisdom and values. There also are great stories such as Sampson and Delilah, King David, Elijah and Noah. Samuel and the book of Kings as well as Judges are great reading.
Our Children will never learn Wisdom and Values from a video game.The further we get from God and the more hardened our hearts become towards a higher power , the darker our world will become and the more tribulation we will experience. God is no respector of man and the more we lean on our own wisdom the more we show how foolish we are.We blame God and religion for the Ill's of this Great nation but I ask you . What have we to do with God? We have taken him out of our schools His name has been removed from our Pledge of allegiance and his commandments have been removed from our Government Buildings Yet we blame God for our trouble.

[Colin Wright]

02:18 AM on 07/24/2011

I can sort of believe this. Reading the Bible is a good way to discover how horrifying the book actually is. It is often said, by many atheists, that they became atheists because they actually read the Bible. Therefore, reading the Bible is more likely to make someone an atheist, and therefore value science and social justice more. Makes sense to me!

[informant4u]

01:29 AM on 07/23/2011

Interesting

[Dan Stewart]

04:57 PM on 07/22/2011

Very very hard to believe.

[One more Thing]

11:25 AM on 07/22/2011

I think the conclusions in the article are opinions stated as fact, the same way conservatives sometimes do, until I see some evidence they were arrived at scientifically.

[suebeedue]

08:11 PM on 09/01/2011

you just cannot give the bible any credit for anything can you...

[GretchenMann]

08:54 AM on 07/22/2011

This has nothing to do with the reading material (bible). This is only because these are the Christians who know how to read.

[goddess1871]

11:48 PM on 07/21/2011

That may very well be true, but you really should read other parts than just the letters of Paul.

[dtrobert]

12:58 PM on 07/21/2011

Which just goes to show how few people actually read the Bible, because the vast, vast majority of self-described "bible-believing" Christians are very conservative.

The simple fact is this: most Christians don't even realize that public prayer is prohibited by Jesus, and not in some obscure text, but rather is what is supposed to be the most famous and most read of all of them: The Sermon on the Mount. Most Christians have never read the Bible.

Yet I, as an atheist, have read the Bible, the Qur'an as well as other texts such as the Bhagavad-Gita, the Tao-te-Ching and the Analects.

And the only one of them I have any respect for is the Tao-Te-Ching.

[CodyGirl]

02:38 PM on 07/21/2011

Where do you get these statistics about what the "vast majority" of Christians allegedly believe? Please send us a citation or URL so we can verify if they are accurate or, as I suspect, are merely your personal opinion.

[Wookiee1972]

11:44 AM on 07/22/2011

Well, taken literally, the Tao Te Ching has some bizarre, nasty parts as well.

[Down in FL]

09:08 PM on 07/20/2011

This isn't much of a surprise. Many atheists, for example, are just people who read the Bible too many times. Reading can make you think, and it is generally an individual pursuit of knowledge. I would expect the least open folks to be those that assume they know what's in the Bible because they've been told.

[phyrro]

05:05 PM on 07/20/2011

David Briggs is either incompetant or deliberately misleading in his analysis of Aaron Franzen's study. Any journalist who looked at question 16 on the study's survey:

16. Outside of attending religious services about how often do you read the Bible, Koran, Torah or other sacred books.

would immediately conclude that none of the other survey question results could be associated with "how often do you read the Bible" - it is "how often do you read the Bible, Koran, Torah or other sacred books".

These other sacred books could be The Egyptian Book of the Dead, The Mormon Bible or who knows what religious cults "sacred writtings".

[gilcasanova]

04:50 PM on 07/20/2011

Just waiting to see what Bill Maher will say about it.

[SarahRuth23]

03:10 PM on 07/20/2011

Even though actually reading the Bible can bring a measure of understanding, there are many people who read it and even momorize it but do not understand it.

For example, there are some Orthodox Jews and many Christians who misunderstand God's commandment to "have no other God's before me."

That means that only the omnipresent, eternal Holy One is God and Savior, and besides God there is no other. But God is not only called Jehovah. Buddhists know God as The Supreme Consciousness. Taoists know God as The Absolute Tao. Zoroastrians know it as Ahura Mazda, Muslims call it Allah, Hindus call it Brahman, some Native Americans call it The Great Spirit or Wakan Tanka, some people call it The Creator, etc. But all those names are for the One Great Spirit-Parent of all.

Once humanity understands that, it will be much easier to establish peace in the world.

See The Humanitarian Coalition of Peace, Freedom and Justice, at http://cjcmp.org
And listen to the song of the son of man at http://www.soundclick.com/ttap

[guamote]

12:01 AM on 07/21/2011

Your New Age interpretation of religions, specifically to Christianity, contradicts what is taught in the Bible. The gods you mentioned ARE “other” gods and would most certainly be considered so under “have no other God’s before me.” They are not all composites of the God of the Bible and are not one and the same. In Buddhism, they don’t believe in God, nor in sin, heaven or hell. The highest degree of the god consciousness is obtained thru an individual’s efforts to nirvana. This goes against Bible teaching that talks extensively about sin and that heaven and hell are actual places. The Bible teaches it’s not thru individual works we obtain salvation but thru God’s grace. In Taoism, they deny God, yet deify people. They focus on immortality and achieving “Tao” or “the way” by the efforts of the individual. Zoroastrians, believe in good and evil, the problem is the believer has to be born into the faith. Converts are encouraged in the Bible. In Islam, while Allah is not a personal god, the God of the Bible is, particularly in the New Testament. The Koran denies the deity of Christ and also denies that Christ is the only way to God. The New Testament clearly states otherwise, even Jesus confirms He is the only way. In Hinduism, although they believe in one god, Brahman, they also believe there are hundreds of other gods that are part of Brahman.

[guamote]

12:02 AM on 07/21/2011

Continue: Hindus believe in reincarnation, which the Bible does not teach. The Bible says we are destined to die but once. Reincarnation and resurrection are not the same. For Native Americans they are very connected to nature and the earth. God said he has written his laws on the hearts of all men and for the Native Americans they translated that very well by acknowledging the one Creator. However, they do worship the one Creator and the spirits that control nature. The God of the Bible said He is the Creator of everything making Him in control of all the natural elements, not the angels (spirits).

Upon careful examination, the God of the Bible is not a composite of all the other gods as you contend. The nature of the other gods are too different and contradict the God of the Bible with what He says about himself and his nature. In Numbers 23 it says; “God is not a man, so he does not lie. He is not human, so he does not change his mind….” Since God is unchanging, He wouldn’t change his message to suit the culture. Therefore, the other gods with their different natures are not composites of God nor are they actually God with a different name.

[ManuOB1]

07:02 AM on 07/20/2011

I have been reading and studying the Bible daily for decades. I am extremely liberal. I believe in God, human intellect and science. I am Catholic. In short, I will never be a bishop.

[triplettam]

03:39 PM on 07/21/2011

Exactly. I go to church, but I'm sure if I would discuss the possibilties of my paradigm with my pastor, we probably wouldn't agree (even though it is a liberal church--meaning non-judgemental). But that really doesn't matter, does it?. It's a personal belief that should not be foisted on anyone else for any reason whatsoever.