The Crisis of Biblical Literacy and Fluency
The Crisis of Biblical Literacy and Fluency One of the challenges facing the Christian church is a decline in Biblical literacy and fluency. Christians are not reading and understanding the Bible. Some scholars and pastors state it is a crisis. We all, the church, the school, and parents, have a role to play in building Biblical literacy and fluency. Celina Durgin in an article called, “Are You Bible-Literate? How about Bible-Fluent?” defines these two terms this way. Bible literacy is a thorough familiarity with the key narratives, people, order of events, and basic, clear themes throughout the whole Bible—yes, even the minor prophets. Bible Fluency is the (habituated) ability to faithfully extend biblical principles from their original contexts into our modern context in a potentially infinite number of ways. Being Bible-fluent means that you can confidently identify and apply what the biblical authors say or would say about an important issue without proof-texting, overlooking the text’s basic literary elements, or otherwise misinterpreting the pertinent passages. It also requires reading Scripture as literature, which is necessary for being shaped by its teaching so that you can faithfully apply it. Biblical literacy and fluency are important to us because it is the foundation for faithful living. We know this is important to you because you have told us that the main reason for sending your children to a Christian school is for faith formation. We are here to help in building Biblical [...]