Louisville, KY--While America’s evangelical Christians are rightly concerned about the secular worldview’s rejection of biblical Christianity, we ought to give some urgent attention to a problem much closer to home — biblical illiteracy in the church. This scandalous problem is our own, and it is up to us to fix it.
   Researchers George Gallup and Jim Castelli put the problem squarely: “Americans revere the Bible — but, by and large, they don’t read it. And because they don’t read it, they have become a nation of biblical illiterates.” How bad is it? Researchers tell us that it is worse than most could imagine.
   Fewer than half of all adults can name the four Gospels. Many Christians cannot identify more than two or three of the disciples. According to data from the Barna Research Group, 60 percent of Americans can’t name even five of the Ten Commandments.

“No wonder people break the Ten Commandments all the time. They don’t know what they are,” said George Barna, president of the firm. The bottom line? “Increasingly, America is biblically illiterate.”

Our recent study showed that the more a person knew of [The Da Vinci Code], the more likely they were to consider the claims of The Da Vinci Code to be true, or to consider neither The Da Vinci Code nor the Bible as “closer to the truth.”  Since more people are about to be increasingly familiar with the content, this should be a cause for concern.

According to our poll...23 percent indicated they had read the book, 43 percent indicated they had not read the book but were familiar with its content, and 34 percent indicated they were not familiar with the content.

Also, the more familiar they are with the content, the more likely they are to believe that Christianity is suppressing the "truth." 

• Read full report (pdf)