Welcome to Breakpoint, a daily look at an ever-changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth for the Coulson Center on John Stone Street. Two recent news stories point to the crisis of biblical literacy, not only of knowing the biblical text, but also in properly understanding it. An editorial published at the Washington Post by Princeton professor Gregory Conti, a self-professed non-believer, explained just how common it is for college students to not know any of the basics about Christianity. Quote, they seldom recognize the allusions to the Bible that appear in Shakespeare's work or in Lincoln's second inaugural address or in Obama's first for that matter. And their ignorance of religious ideas means they struggle to understand a wide array of Western art literature and philosophy, end quote.
In short, what he means is the lack of biblical knowledge makes them unable to understand American history or culture. Another New York Times story profiled the pastor and the church of Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Tallarico. According to the article, Pastor Jim Rigby of St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church in Austin, Texas. We'll welcome new members by, and I quote again, handing them a new copy of the Inclusive Bible, an unusual feminist translation that St.
Andrews has used since the 1990s. In Genesis, instead of saying that God created a man, Adam, the translation first refers to an earth creature. It often uses the term kingdom of God in place of kingdom, which it deems to be classist, end quote.
Now, the inclusive Bible is promoted as the first egalitarian translation. In addition to replacing the male pronouns for God and for humankind, it purports to reimagine the scriptures and our relationship to them. The innovative version promotes progressive Christianity and includes a strong postmodern emphasis, rejecting absolute truth and favor of a newly created narrative. Of course, those who only read the inclusive Bible will not really know the truth of Scripture any more than those who've never read any version to begin with. Nor can they understand a culture that is inspired by and built from the Bible, mostly the King James Version.
And yet, that's actually the point of the postmodern way of approaching reality. There's no truth to be known or revealed, only truth to be constructed. Among the exhibits and experiences at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C. is a virtual flying tour called Washington Revelations. Visitors are taken virtually throughout the nation's capital to look for the biblical and Christian references that are inscribed on so many monuments and buildings.
The sheer amount of these references is quite impressive, but even more so when you consider how many more there are across the city than are included in the ride, not to mention across the entire country. which is never addressed in the ride. Vichel Mangawadi's book, The Book That Made Your World, and Daniel Dreisback's Reading the Bible with the Founding Fathers, both trace the influence of the Bible on Western culture, including American culture. Put simply, cultural literacy, at least when it comes to the West, requires biblical literacy. And versely, the more that our biblical literacy diminishes, so does our cultural literacy.
Even more so, those who do not read the Bible are far more susceptible to whatever claims that people will make about it. Not only will they be unable to distinguish between an inventive, ideologically loaded translation and the actual text of God's inspired, infallible, inerrant word, they will become subject to those who speak on their own authority rather than relying on the authority that's inherent to the text. The inclusive Bible is just another example of making the Bible say something it does not. We must put ourselves under the text of scripture and its authority, not above it as the ultimate authors. The older meaning of the word crisis means turning point.
So if the recent emergence of theism in America turns into somehow a greater openness to Christianity specifically, proper guidance on how to read the Bible will be desperately needed.
So with God's help, this could mean a turning or a returning to the Bible as our ultimate authority. In our book, A Practical Guide to Culture, Brett Kunkel and I attempted to describe how to approach the Bible this way, as if it is actually true, not only in the sense that what it contains Is true, but that the Bible presents to us the true account of all of reality. It frames for us the truth about God, about the cosmos, about God's image-bearers, about Jesus Christ, about his work in the world. Thus, we can and we should read the Bible as it was given to us, as it was written. to avoid imposing mere moralistic and therapeutic applications.
whether they're sourced in critical theory or cultural power or legalism or something else. The Bible is God's revealed word to us, not words that we can make say whatever we want. Jewish theologian Abraham Joshua Heschel put it well when he said that the great challenge to those of us who wish to take the Bible seriously is to let it teach us its own essential categories and then for us to think with those categories, not just about them. For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street. with Breakpoint.
Today's Breakpoint was co-authored by Andrew Carrico. If you're a fan of Breakpoint, leave us a review wherever you download podcasts. And for more resources or to share this commentary with others, go to breakpoint.org. Has AI made humans replaceable? Do the promises of AI outweigh the perils?
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