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