Reading God’s Word in a 'post-literate' world

As Christmas approaches, gift buying is underway. Shops are full, and atmospheric Christmas markets entice you with their beautiful, expensive, but ultimately unnecessary items. You return home with nothing - except perhaps a glass of mulled wine and a mince pie.

What to buy? Back in the day, the physical gift of music was an easy choice: a CD, a tape, or an LP, but now it's all accessed through streaming services. The other physical choice used to be a book, but has that disappeared too?

I am part of a reading group that is great fun; however, when we choose the books we read, we include this essential criterion: is it available on Audible?

The 'lost art' of reading?

The Sunday Times newspaper has been running a campaign to get Britain reading again. But can we ever return to the days when the physical book sparked great excitement and joy? As a child, my Saturdays were spent cycling to the library to replenish the four books I took out each week. It was the highlight of the week for this bookworm. The authors I read were not complex, and I confess that learning to really read took me many years; I still have much to learn. I am not alone. The ability to read complex texts is a skill that is becoming lost.

Much has been said recently about the rise of a post-literate society. We should ask whether or not it matters. After all, we can listen to books on Audible. What are we losing? Many generations and cultures have lived without printed texts. Ancient Israel was primarily an oral culture dependent on hearing the Scriptures read and explained. Only the elite would have access to a physical scroll. But those who could read had a responsibility to teach so people could learn Scripture and pass it on.

It is evident from Luke’s account of Jesus’ birth that Mary knew Hannah’s prayer from 1 Samuel; her language of praise is infused with it. Mary was unlikely to have read the scroll herself. Being illiterate does not exclude people from knowing the Scriptures. But for Scripture to be passed on, there needs to be a level of literacy among some so that it can be read, taught, and learnt.

We should be deeply concerned about the loss of literacy. One anonymous American professor wrote in a blog: "Our average graduate literally could not read a serious adult novel cover-to-cover and understand what they read. They just couldn’t do it. They don’t have the desire to try, the vocabulary to grasp what they read, and most certainly not the attention span to finish."

I was recently leading a small-group Bible study with students and post-grads all under 30. We were looking at Luke 3v18: "And with many other words John exhorted the people and proclaimed the good news to them." None of them knew what the word exhorted meant. It was utterly unfamiliar. It is no good to just tell young Christians to read their Bibles; they need more help than ever before to understand Scripture.

The ability of students to read a text was examined in a recent study. The students were asked to read the first paragraph of Bleak House by Charles Dickens, a book read by children in the 19th century. The vast majority lacked the advanced skills to understand it. The researchers observed: "The majority of these subjects could understand very little of Bleak House and did not have effective reading tactics. All had so much trouble comprehending concrete detail in consecutive clauses and phrases that they could not link the meaning of one sentence to the next."

Bleak House is a pretty challenging text. Dickens refers to an unfamiliar world of 19th century London, its legal system, and describes a fog to suggest metaphorical blindness. The researchers did not expect instant understanding but sought evidence of skills and techniques which would enable the students to address their difficulties, e.g., looking up on Google who the Lord Chancellor was. Instead, what the students did was the equivalent of skim reading. They missed the detail: "[Problematic] readers were oversimplifying, guessing, and commenting. The most common was oversimplifying—that is, reducing the details of a complex sentence to a generic statement."

Oversimplifying means that much is missed, the depths of the passage aren't heard, and the author's voice is drowned out. This habit, if taken into our Bible reading, would mean the riches of Scripture would be lost. It would be like surviving on a diet of fast food rather than the whole nourishing food of Scripture.

This change in reading ability is widely reported. Where previously professors expected literature students to read a novel a week, they have had to reduce their demands to sections of books only. Some suggest that technology has damaged attention spans. One professor said of his students: "They can’t sit in a seat for 50 minutes. Students routinely get up during a 50 minute class, sometimes just 15 minutes in, and leave the classroom. I’m supposed to believe that they suddenly, urgently need the toilet, but the reality is that they are going to look at their phones."

He went on to observe: "I can’t assign papers any more because I’ll just get AI back, and there’s nothing I can do to make it stop. Sadly, not writing exacerbates their illiteracy; writing is a muscle and dedicated writing is a workout for the mind as well as the pen."

We will be in deep trouble if our future leaders rely on AI to produce their sermons. I am not suggesting that every believer needs to be literate. Still, previous generations of believers taught literacy in Sunday Schools because they knew how valuable it was to read God’s Word.

God has given us His Word in written form. We need literate teachers and pastors to pass that Word on. We need leaders who can carefully examine Scripture, understand contexts, and take note of unfamiliar things, rather than just pick out the ideas they already know. We need pastors and teachers who will take the time to study a text to understand it. This is a demanding but necessary way of serving the church.

We can’t put the clock back. Technology advances and our children live with its consequences - the good, the bad, and the ugly. But we must not become post-literate. We need to encourage young Christians to persevere with reading in its many forms, but most of all, to help them read the Bible. We need our future leaders to be taught to handle the Word of truth with great care.

The Gospel Partnership training courses across the country and the Cornhill Training Course in London play a significant role in this. We should encourage the next generation to take time out to utilise these resources. But we must all play a part: carefully reading together God's Word; prioritising small-group Bible studies; parents reading regularly with their children. And maybe this year, returning to the gift of a book for Christmas.