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Words Upon the Word

Bielo: Bible Study Shapes Identity and Action

In this final post on James Bielo’s Words Upon the Word: An Ethnography of Evangelical Bible Study, I’m writing about both his final chapter — “Negotiating Self and Others” — and his conclusion. Both are relatively short, and in some ways, they work well together.

Negotiating Self and Others

In this chapter, Bielo uses as his case study a women’s Bible study at the same Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (LCMS) church as the men’s group from an earlier chapter. Specifically, Bielo focuses on how the women in this Bible study define themselves and their Lutheranism through dialogue, grounded in their discussions of the Bible.

Based on my observations and analyses of eighteen group meetings, I cannot overstate the attention paid to the theme of denominational identity by the LCMS Women. The marking of textual materials alone was remarkable. The denominational affiliations of Bible commentators, authors, speakers, hymn writers, and Bible translators were constantly inquired about, if not immediately identified (usually by Sandy [the group facilitator]). The words and lives of Lutheran theologians — from Martin Luther to Dietrich Bonhoeffer to Erwin Lutzer — were repeatedly recontextualized to help explain [Beth] Moore’s commentary and biblical texts. [1. The LCMS Women were studying one of Beth Moore’s To Live Is Christ.] Self-deprecating jokes about this preoccupation concluded intense discussions, indexing a keen awareness of how much they talked about “being Lutheran.” (140) [Read more…] about Bielo: Bible Study Shapes Identity and Action

Bielo: Bible Study as “Backstage” for Witnessing

Street Evangelism (ca. 1961)
This is not the kind of witnessing that Bielo has in mind — though I’d love to attend a Bible study with an accordion.

This week, the chapter I’m covering from James S. Bielo’s Words Upon the Word: An Ethonography of Evangelical Bible Study is all about “witnessing.” More on what that means in a moment. First, however, I’d like to mention an unexpected cameo.

In this chapter, Bielo focuses on a United Methodist Bible study led by Bill, a 51-year-old pastor with a degree from Asbury Theological Seminary. The group, made up of older men, has been reading Acts together.

They used the Life Guide series published by InterVarsity Press to structure their weekly readings. The series has study guides for all sixty-six books of the Christian Bible. The series is a favorite of Bill’s and one he has used in a variety of other groups. (114)

I wonder if they were using this guide by Phyllis Le Peau, wife of IVP associate publisher Andy Le Peau. It’s great to see InterVarsity appear in a book about Bible studies, and even better to see us in a chapter about witnessing.

Evangelicals and Witnessing

Bielo notes that “witnessing” — which others might call evangelism — is central to evangelicalism, regardless of the immediate outcome. [Read more…] about Bielo: Bible Study as “Backstage” for Witnessing

Bielo: The Textual Economies of Bible Studies

Wall of Books
Who needs wallpaper when you have bookshelves?

James Bielo’s Words Upon the Word: An Ethnography of Evangelical Group Bible Study closely observes several Bible studies in Lansing, Michigan. I’ve been reading and blogging about the book this summer as part of my efforts to gain a sense of the academic perspective on evangelical Christians[1. You may have noticed that Bielo capitalizes “Evangelical,” while I don’t. The style of our blog has generally been not to capitalize the word, but I’ve maintained Bielo’s own usage in my quotations.]. In this week’s chapter, titled “Integrating Participant Interests,” Bielo profiles a United Methodist Bible study that has been brought together by a shared love of history. During Bielo’s case study, the group is reading Philip Yancey’s The Jesus I Never Knew, a popular book that attempts to place Jesus in his historical, first century context.

This is a common book for evangelicals to read together. When you think about it, though, isn’t is a bit strange for a Bible study to read anything other than the Bible? Bielo is careful to note that the Bible study members don’t invest Yancey with the same authority as they do the Bible, but he also observes that there is a large “secondary canon” of literature that evangelicals embrace. This canon, in many ways, defines evangelicalism as a movement.[2. Indeed, later in the book, Bielo recounts a story of an evangelical member of a mainline Bible study, who leaves the group over its decision to read something by Deepak Chopra.]

Evangelicals as “Voracious Readers”

Bielo earlier remarked on the fact that evangelical Christians value learning. In this chapter, he returns to that theme to pay more attention to their reading:

Throughout my research with Evangelical Bible study groups I returned to a curious social fact: these Christians are voracious readers with a hunger for all manner of texts. Individuals pride themselves on how well read they are, not just in scripture and scriptural commentary, but also in books such as Yancey’s that use scripture as a springboard into all topics imaginable. Books are central to many of the processes and activities that define Evangelical life, such as attempts at conversion. A favored method of witnessing among Evangelical is to give theology, fictional, and inspirational Christian books to those who are not “saved.” (109, emphasis added) [Read more…] about Bielo: The Textual Economies of Bible Studies

Bielo: Intimacy in Evangelical Bible Studies

Holy Smokes Bible Study
A small group Bible study is a place where you can share feelings, food, and a good cigar (depending on your Christian tradition and local smoking ordinances).

Why do evangelical Christians join – and remain in – Bible studies? That’s how I would characterize the basic themes of this and next weeks’ chapters of James S. Bielo’s Words Upon the Word: An Ethnography of Evangelical Group Bible Study, which I have been blogging through as part of my research project on academic perspectives on evangelicals. In chapter 3, “Cultivating Intimacy,” Bielo observes the close relationship between evangelicals’ view of God and their desire for relationships with fellow Christians. Next week, we’ll look at chapter 4, which deals with the role of shared interested in shaping and maintaining Bible study groups.

Do you agree that intimacy is a primary goal for evangelical Bible studies? Have you find Bible studies to be a good support system for evangelicals in the academy?

In this chapter, Bielo focuses on a “Prayer Circle” at a Restoration Movement church in Lansing, which he feels “exemplifies a defining theme of American Evangelicalism: the conceptualization of Christian spirituality as an intimate experience” (74). [Read more…] about Bielo: Intimacy in Evangelical Bible Studies

Bielo: How Do Evangelicals Read the Bible?

Bible Study 2
Despite appearances, this is not my Bible. Yes, I always use Pilot Precise V5 pens, but never for marking in my Bible.

This summer, I’m reading — and blogging about — several books that reflect academic understandings of American evangelicals. The first of these is James S. Bielo’s Words Upon the Word: An Ethnography of Evangelical Group Bible Study. Previously, I wrote about Bielo’s discussion of Bible study as a social institution and how he decided to answer questions of identity about being a Christian and an academic.This week, I’m going to look at the actual act of reading the Bible in a small group Bible study.

At the beginning of this chapter, Bielo summarizes “three general conclusions” about evangelical Bible reading from the work of several other sociologists of religion. The rest of the chapter goes into more detail about evangelical views of Biblical authority and textuality, using transcripts from an LCMS men’s small group as a case study, but I want to focus on these points of academic consensus in this post (and, of course, give you some good reasons to buy Bielo’s book and read it yourself).

Do you agree with Bielo’s summary of the academic consensus? Are these general traits of how evangelicals read the Bible? 

Biblical Literalism as Identity, Not Hermeneutic

This first point is probably the most unexpected.

1. Despite the claim of adherents, literalism does not constitute a hermeneutic method. That is, it is not a self-conscious or tacit means of actually reading and interpreting biblical texts. In his extensive account of Evangelical biblicism, Brian Malley ([How the Bible Works: An Anthropological Study of Evangelical Biblicism] 2004: 92-103) argues that literalism functions primarily as a signifier of theological and religious identity. To identify as a literalist is to claim affiliation with certain Christian traditions (conservative, born-again, Evangelical, fundamentalist) and separate oneself from others (moderate, liberal, mainline, progressive). (49, emphasis added)

I’ve not read Malley’s book, but this take on “literalism” strikes me as largely accurate. In my own experience in leading and participating in Bible studies, evangelicals are quite comfortable with figurative readings of Scripture — in fact, “literal” is often defined as meaning to read according to the genre of the text, so that figurative, metaphorical, and poetic passages of the Bible would be read figuratively, etc. Even LaHaye and Jenkins’ “literal” reading of Revelation in the Left Behind series relies heavily on metaphorical interpretations of the Bible. [Read more…] about Bielo: How Do Evangelicals Read the Bible?