America the Most Biblical Nation
May 5th, 2008 at 02:04pm Mark Noonan
No surprise - and it entirely explains why the social structure of the United States, in spite of many glaring problems, is fundamentally one of the healthiest in all the Judeo-Christian West:
In preparation for the next gathering of the Catholic bishops around the world, the Catholic Biblical Federation has conducted an extensive survey regarding how the Bible is read in 13 different countries. The survey reports that the U.S. is the one of most Bible-believing nations and the one that is most interested in the Scriptures.
The survey was held to obtain a sense of the influence of the Scriptures to assist the bishops in their October 5-26, 2008 synod on “The Word of God in the Life and the Mission of the Church”.
Thus far, 13,000 interviews have been held in the United States, the United Kingdom, Holland, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Poland, and Russia. According to Vatican analyst Sandro Magister, the results released on April 28 “cover the entirety of the adult population” and the results pertaining solely to Catholics will be published at a later date. Results from Argentina, South Africa, the Philippines, and Australia are still being collated.
In Magister’s view, the results of the survey show that, “the Bible is not present and influential in all countries in the same way. The wave of secularization produces very different effects from region to region. In the United States and in Italy, these effects appear to be more contained than in other countries of Western Europe, among which France emerges as the most de-Christianized nation.”
The Bible is present in many houses in Italy and the U.S., 75% and 93% respectively, but in France less than half of the people have a Bible at home.
However, the only place where the Scriptures have been read in the last year is the United States, which comes in at 75%. Despite high ownership, Italian Bible reading is reported at 27%, and in Spain the number falls to 20%.
All Christians owe a debt of gratitude in this to our Evangelical brothers and sisters who have been intense in their missionary zeal to get the Bible into as many hands as possible, and getting people to actually read it; I think the ready availability not only of the Bible, but of people willing to take the time to teach it explains why the United States is so deep in the scriptures - and our depth of religious knowledge is what keeps us from the worst aspects of the post-Christian Culture of Death. I think, also, that our liberal friends understand this, and understand that the greatest stumbling block to remaking us in the image of the EU is that too many Americans have access to truth, and thus don’t fall for the left’s siren song.
In the ongoing and intensifying culture war, the best defense for our civilization is a citizenry ever more informed about who we are, where we come from and what is the basis of our civilization. The rock of our way of life is The rock, as it were, and just so long as a majority of us know this, so will we be well-positioned to beat back the efforts of the left to destroy our civilization.
Entry Filed under: Life Issues, Popular Culture, Religion, Social Issues, Studies
14 Comments
1. middlefinger | May 5th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
Blah, blah, blah.
Get a grip
You should consider joining Hagee’s church.
You’re no different.
Another comical post.
2. Nate | May 5th, 2008 at 2:30 pm
i think that this text from the linked report is interesting:
“Interestingly, 27% of Americans adhere to a fundamentalist or literalist interpretation of the Scriptures, but these fundamentalists also show a poorer understanding of the Bible than those who interpret it with a more critical spirit.”
3. OhioOrrin | May 5th, 2008 at 3:09 pm
I financially support the Gideons thru charitable deductions from my paycheck (also seeing eye dogs).
Heathens like middlefinger (above) need all the help available & a Gideon bible is a good start.
gideons.org
4. Rana Quijotesca | May 5th, 2008 at 3:18 pm
As a proud heathen, I honestly don’t care what the people around me believe as long as it does not come back to hurt me in the end. Noone is helped or hurt by what those around them believe. What does hurt is when people act on ill-conceived and dangerous beliefs. Homophobia isn’t dangerous in and of itself, but thinking that it is okay to drag gay people behind a truck is–I’m sure you see what I mean. I know a lot about, but don’t believe in, the bible, and I honestly don’t care what it says about how I should live my life.
I’m an atheist who is honest, forthright, gives to charity (when I can afford my own groceries… being a college student is hard on the finances), has a clean criminal record (well… I did have a speeding ticket), helps those in need, and is (so far as I have been told) a generally good person. That is not something that comes from belief in a book; that is something that comes from belief in yourself and your peers.
5. OperationChaos | May 5th, 2008 at 4:23 pm
and is (so far as I have been told) a generally good person.
You must hang with the kooks. Oh, that’s right; you’re in college, so odds are you’re surrounded by them, students and professors alike.
You should feel right at home…
6. Just Another Taxpayer | May 5th, 2008 at 4:42 pm
To the editors,
Your right. We need to give thanks for all the good that has come from evangelicals getting W into office!!
Have nice day!! Hope your home equity recovers soon!! Hope the killing in Iraq blesses us with 5$ a gallon gas while our refineries operate at Katrina level lows. Oil reached $120 a barrel today on the strength of the ‘Almighty’ dollar. Let us give thanks for the biblical vision
that lead us to imprison a greater percentage of our population than Russia and China. And, above all, let’s give thanks for the avalanche of home foreclosures, and job losses that teach us
how unimportant material things really are.
George Bush has brought many Americans closer to a genuine spiritual renewal than any President since Hoover!
Of course, there’s always that nagging question for people who tell the world that God
is on their side: Does He listen at all to people
who believe they are worthy of having the Almighty on their side, instead of asking what they need to do to get on the side of the Almighty.
No one, it seems to me, is further from God, in the context of their ordinary sins and vices, than when they get together with others to congratulate themselves on how close they are to Him.
7. ViralNexus | May 5th, 2008 at 7:41 pm
JAT- while your concerns are legitimate it is counter productive and ill informed to blame them entirely on the President and religion. OperationChaos makes a well founded and informed point that education really is the enemy of religion. The greatest weapon we have against religious zealotry is a liberal education. If you look at any of the countries in the Middle East that while Muslim do not suffer from extremism, you will find a huge investment in their educational infrastructure. This isn’t to say that religion and education aren’t compatible but as more and more people obtain a secular liberal education you see a decrease in religious activities such as going to church and reading the bible. Also the advent of the internet and the wealth of information and alternative views it contains have also lead to a steep decrease in religious activities. As to the study that this post pertains to- It would be a more honest interpretation of the data to say of the 13,000 people from several different countries that were interviewed, most were Christian/Catholic. I can guarantee you that far less than 93% of homes in the US have bibles in them and that far less than 75% of Americans regularly read the bible.
8. Eric T | May 5th, 2008 at 8:51 pm
There is no doubt that the liberals want to secularize America. The liberals have programs on Air America like “Freedom from Religion.”
The leftists try to attach pro-gay hate crimes bills to troop funding bills. Trying To police your thoughts and criminalize your religious beliefs.
The ACLU makes removing the Ten Commandments from courtrooms a priority, but they run and hide when your 2nd Amendment liberty, is being challenged.
I could write pages of examples on the left looking to rid the country of Christianity.
But what it is really about is, they hate God because they know that wrath and judgement is what they will face for their homosexual lifestyles. God doesn’t approve it. So it makes them hate God.
So their goal is to discredit the church, attack the priests and ministers. With enough pressure they will be able to criminalize the Bible
Or force it to be changed, to not pass judgement on their homosexual lifestyles.
I’ll stick with the “Straight Talk” and hope McCain will try to conserve traditional values.
you libs have candidates that have “Not so straight talk” actually kinda close to “gay talk”
check this post out
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,298307,00.html
9. Dennis | May 5th, 2008 at 11:44 pm
What in the world is “the Judeo-Christian west”? That is a construct of the evangelical mind that has nothing to do with authentic Christianity.
Noonan: “I think the ready availability not only of the Bible, but of people willing to take the time to teach it explains why the United States is so deep in the scriptures - and our depth of religious knowledge is what keeps us from the worst aspects of the post-Christian Culture of Death.”
Would this”depth of religious knowledge” include politicizing religion to the point that we have a major movement in this nation hoping for war with Iran just to hasten the apocalypse? Talk about a culture of death! What do the people “willing to take the time to teach” the Bible believe about Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount? When one is brought to Christ only to be made to pledge allegience to some modern political state or another, their ongoing wars or political intrigues, it profanes the very meaning of Christianity.
Core biblical issues should be approached independent of any vested interest in political outcomes. Jesus said “My kingdom is not of ths world.” God loves Republicans, Democrats, Israelis, Palestinians - even Communists and Muslims. As the children’s song goes, “Red and yellow, black and white, All are precious in his sight.” The closer we truly come to God the narrower our political and personal differences will be. But the way politics has been advanced by mainstream evangelicals in recent years makes it sound like one has to be a Bush supporter and a Zionist to be a Christian at all.
All of which gives the lie to the notion that we are a “Christian nation” at all. If anything, sectarian interests in the US have learned how to cynically manipulate masses using fear and religious prejudice to attain profane ends having nothing to do with anything Christ taught. Hence it might be said America is the biggest counterfeit of Christianity seen since Constantine marched his army across the Tiber River and proclaimed them all Christian soldiers.
Now we have General Boykin, George W. Bush and Mark Noonan carrying the same standard, albeit a little more tattered and worse for the wear.
10. Dennis | May 6th, 2008 at 12:24 am
Eric T: “I could write pages of examples on the left looking to rid the country of Christianity. But what it is really about is, they hate God because they know that wrath and judgement is what they will face for their homosexual lifestyles…”
What a ridiculous idea - as if “the left” were homosexual by definition. I would posit that Americans on the left are looking to rid the country of a world view that glorifies violence in the service of nationalism, and bring us back to the Constitutional notion of separation of powers, freedom of speech and religion (which includes freedom FROM religion) and non-interference in the affairs of other sovereign nations.
11. Eric T | May 6th, 2008 at 7:53 am
Dennis-
The left trying to sneak pro-gay hate crimes bills into troop funding bills is disgusting. Troops who need armor, ammo, food. Your side is saying unless, they can create a new special protected class of people to get preferential treatment, that they will not suppport the troops.
Dennis crime is crime, if you are a victim, why should your attacker be punished more based on YOUR sexual preference.
Think about, a random attacker goes out mugging people for some crack money. He mugs five people before getting caught by the police. Why should he be punished more severely because one victim happened to be gay.
Is being a victim not as bad if your straight.
The worst part is it has nothing to do with our troops.
12. Just Another Taxpayer | May 6th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
Viralnexus, (Post # 7)
Thank you for your thoughtful response to my post.
I agree with you that education is the solution to many of our problems. When Bill Gates says he needs more H1 visas sptted to the tech of the economy because the American educational system simply isn’t producing enough technically competent people to fill available positions, this should be enough to get the evangelicals to call for their flocks to study their tech manuals as closely as their bibles.
After sputnik, when religious epics still crowded movie theatre marquis, The country did not clamor for more bible education. It called for more resources devoted to instruction in engineeering and the other sciences that lead to the myriad technical advances of the space age that we now take for granted.
Everywhere you look, you see evidence of our decline. In 1947, America made more shoes than any other country in the world. Today, you’d be hard pressed to find an American made shoe anywhere.
People confuse American logos, entertainments, and marketing campaigns with some kind of cultural dominance. This perception of this dominance is as irrational as the current market run up right now. This is nuts.
Oil is $122 a barrel, Fannie Mae says the Housing market is a mess, and likely to get worse, Buffet says we are in recession, refiners are operating at Katrina level lows because they can’t sell gas for what it costs them to make it while Bush calls for the morew refinery capacity.
But if you have faith, the hand of of the Almighty will put aside the math says Kenneth Copland, and his ilk. And, therein lies the problem. Such religionists dominate the likes of Bush supporters who recently had their day on newsweek cover which featured the front of a Rolls Royce, procaliming a new religious movement where favor from God is shown by the amount of material prosperity an individual
posesses.
To associate the Almighty with either extreme poverty or wealth is a mistake. God is.
As the Good book says that the almighty said to Moses “I am that I am.”
The best and most enduring voices from any religion are those who encourage thrift, prudence, and humility. Those who demand obedience to their commands because of their self declared closeness to the almighty are to be guarded against to prvent the excesses of arrogance that cloud sensible judgement. We are paying the price for listening to the siren song of the self proclaimed rightous. We will continue to pay until we humble ourselves and listen to the voice of good sense and reason.
I’ve yet to hear it from either side of the aisle.
13. js | May 6th, 2008 at 7:12 pm
“The best and most enduring voices from any religion are those who encourage thrift, prudence, and humility. Those who demand obedience to their commands because of their self declared closeness to the almighty are to be guarded against to prvent the excesses of arrogance that cloud sensible judgement. We are paying the price for listening to the siren song of the self proclaimed rightous. We will continue to pay until we humble ourselves and listen to the voice of good sense and reason.”
so that means lets invade iran….
14. Some Assembly Required | May 6th, 2008 at 7:41 pm
“so that means lets invade iran….” - js
Whoever your doctor is please give me their number. They have got to be giving you some pretty serious meds.
Lets see, to name a few evidenced on this blog on pretty much a daily basis.
Abortion is Murder…
Homosexuals are Evil…
Islam is Evil…
Iraq must be a free democracy (We saved them)…
Classrooms and Television must be censored…
Tell me js, how is any of that not self proclaimed righteousness? How does any of that “encourage thrift, prudence, and humility.”?
Where in the name of God do you justify invading Iran from the full quote? I mean I have an idea how you could, but you’d have to be living on never neverland ranch with Micheal to be that hypocritical.