Steve Benen at the Carpetbagger Report is getting a good laugh out of Rick Santorum's admission that he hasn't read the Bible "cover to cover."
What's more, Santorum says that his views on religion are shaped by his reading of magazines and journals. Benan is flabbergasted by this:
I...find it a little odd that a senator, who frequently offers his religious perspective on political issues, has shaped his entire life, worldview, and governing philosophy on a book he hasn’t read.
It’s one thing to accept the idea that Scripture offers believers a guide on how best to lead one’s life. It’s another thing to accept that belief while relying on magazines to tell you what Scripture says.
Santorum is obviously a would-be theocrat, but I don't think he's ever passed himself off as a bible-thumper like a lot of his fellow Republican theocrats. He boasts that his politics are guided by his faith and he routinely, and hypocritically, offers religious justifcations for what are wholly political, and partisan, opinions.
But his faith isn't a faith that requires regular Scripture reading or even recommends it.
Santorum is Catholic. A very conservative Catholic but still a Catholic. Catholicism is not an evangelical religion. Catholics aren't required to read the Bible.
In fact for a long time the Church actively discouraged it.
Universal literacy is a Protestant invention. Protestant churches encouraged their flocks to learn to read so that they could read the Bible on their own in order to have a direct, personal connection with God.
But the Catholic Church wanted to keep the priests between the people and the Bible because the Bible is a very strange book, full of internal contractions, bad history, dietary laws appropriate for living in a desert but without much application in the Italian alps or the bogs of Ireland, fairy tales, allegories of doubtful origin and meaning, lunatic or drug-induced ravings by mad holy men (Ezekial, Revelation), and just plain weirdness---Lot's daughters, the Levite's concubine---all presided over by a God of unstable temperament with a distinctly split personality.
The Church insists that the authority of its teachings is Scriptural, but it is also adamant that the interpretation of Scripture is a job the Faithful should leave to the Church's scholars and that individuals who usurp the job for themselves are risking their immortal souls.
A Catholic whose faith is based on a personal, emotional encounter with Scripture is a heretic.
So Catholics don't need to read their Bibles cover to cover. They only need to be familiar with a few parts of it---the Gospels, the Epistles (Paul's first of all, Peter's next, and then, if you have time, that bleeding heart James'), Isaiah, and the Psalms. After that you're free to enjoy the Books of Ecclesiastes and Wisdom and, if you're hurting for entertainment, a prophet here and there. Certain stories from the Bible are important---Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah, Abraham and Isaac, Jacob and the angel, Joseph and his amazing technicolor dreamcoat, Moses, David, Solomon, and Daniel in the Lion's den. But only the historical stories are meant to be taken literally.
Little Catholics don't begin their education in the faith with the Bible. They don't get to read the New Testament until they're in fifth grade, and the Old Testament in sixth, if at all.
Children are taught bible stories as stories---as exemplary tales, fables, and history lessons, not as the revealed word of God.
No Catholics believe that the whole Bible is literally true. I should say, Catholics aren't supposed to believe it is.
Every mass includes four readings from the Bible---one reading from the Old Testament, one from the Epistles or the Acts of the Apostles, and one from the Gospels, plus a Psalm, which isn't usually done as a reading but as a song. And those readings are pretty much the same readings recycled over the course of three years. Which is to say on any given Sunday the reading you are listening to you heard already three years ago today and you will hear again three years hence.
I think Protestant ministers are free to choose their Scipture readings from the whole Bible---except the Apocrypha, which are not included in their Bibles, anyway, although several books are part of the Catholic bible, which is a potential source of argument between Protestant bible thumpers and Catholic bible thumpers. If they didn't have abortion and faggots to get mad about together they'd be at each other's throats.
But Catholic priests can't pick and choose. Their readings are set by the Church calender, which is handed down to them from Rome.
So there is nothing inherently silly, contradictory, hypocritical, or theologically improper about Santorum's lack of Bible training. Getting his understanding of Scripture through reading magazines isn't the wrong way for a Catholic to go about it. Good, studious Catholics do and should keep themselves schooled in their faith through outside reading. How well-schooled they are depends on the books and journals they read.
I'd be surprised if Santorum was a regular reader of Commonweal or if there's a dog-eared copy of Summa Theologica on his bookshelf.
But if the last time he opened the family bible was to record the date of his kid's confirmation, that doesn't make him a bad Catholic.
Even if it did, that's his business. How a man comes to his faith is between him and his God. I just wish he felt the same way.
Santorum's politics are open to criticism---and to condemnation---because they are un-American. Santorum and his fellow priest-ridden God-botherers want to make the rest of us believe what they believe and worship the god they worship or at least conduct our lives as if we do.
I don't care if Santorum aquired all of his Scripture knowledge by reading comic books and watching Veggie Tales.
I do care that he somehow came to his beliefs about how this country is supposed to run without having read Jefferson, the Federalist, or Lincoln, or, if he has, without understanding a word.
And I do care that he is on the take and that he is a liar, a hate-mongerer, and a pandering demogogue.
His contempt for the poor and groveling to the rich makes him a bad Catholic, much more than does his choice of religious reading matter, but in both those pursuits he is no worse than most bishops and no different than most of his fellow Republican senators.
But if he hasn't read the Bible cover to cover, so what? It would be nice, though, if he could spend some time studying one small part of it.
(Hats off to Shakespeare's Sister, John Byrne at The Raw Story and Will Bunch at Attytood. And thanks to Susie for pointing the way to Will's posts and to Avedon Carol for the link to the Carpetbagger Report.)
Post script that really ought to be a separate post: As the Carpetbagger admits, Santorum's lackadaisical interest in the Bible makes him no different than most Americans who claim to be Christian.
Coturnix has the numbers from a poll that shows this. Some of the results:
* Perhaps 15 percent of Americans participate in Bible studies.
* The number of people who read the Bible, at least occasionally is 59 percent.
* Less than 50 percent of Americans can name the first book of the Bible (Genesis).
* Only 1/3 of Americans know who delivered the Sermon on the Mount (more people identified Billy Graham rather than Jesus).
* Twenty-five percent of Americans don't know what is celebrated on Easter (the Resurrection of Christ, the foundational event of Christianity).
* Twelve percent of Christians think that Noah's wife is Joan of Arc.
* Eighty percent of born-again Christians (including George W. Bush) think it is the Bible that says "God helps them that help themselves." (Actually it was said by Benjamin Franklin.)
You have to take these stats for what they're worth. They come from the webpage of a professor of anthropology at McNeese State University in Louisiana, but he doesn't say where he got them. But, as I wrote in a comment at Coturnix's place, this fits with my experience living and teaching in Indiana, one of the Godbotheringest states north of Alabama. Folks there talked a good game when it came to religion---Fort Wayne even calls itself the City of Churches, with good reason---but when you tried to get into detail with them, they were lost. Most of my students claimed to be practicing Christians, but they were routinely stumped by Biblical allusions in the books and poems I assigned and I would have to tell them stories like Jonah and the Whale, Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, and Sampson and Delilah.
"What did you talk about in Sunday School?" I'd ask them, because they'd all gone to Sunday school.
Shrugs all around.
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Great post. George Orwell got into a lot of trouble with a newspaper column during WWII making a similar point. He dared to suggest that people didn't really believe in hell, or at least, not in the same way they believed in another far-off land they'd never seen, such as Australia.
As I Please
14 April 1944
Attacking Mr. C. A. Smith and myself in the Malvern Torch for various remarks about the Christian religion, Mr. Sidney Dark grows very angry because I have suggested that the belief in personal immortality is decaying. "I would wager," he says, "that if a Gallup poll were taken seventy-five percent (of the British population) would confess to a vague belief in survival." Writing elsewhere during the same week, Mr. Dark puts it at eighty-five percent.
Now, I find it very rare to meet anyone, of whatever background, who admits to believing in personal immortality. Still, I think it quite likely that if you asked everyone the question and put pencil and paper in hands, a fairly large number (I am not so free with my percentages as Mr. Dark) would admit the possibility that after death there might be "something." The point Mr. Dark has missed is that the belief, such as it is, hasn't the actuality it had for our forefathers. Never, literally never in recent years, have I met anyone who gave me the impression of believing in the next world as firmly as he believed in the existence of, for instance, Australia. Belief in the next world does not influence conduct as it would if it were genuine. With that endless existence beyond death to look forward to, how trivial our lives here would seem! Most Christians profess to believe in Hell. Yet have you ever met a Christian who seemed as afraid of Hell as he was of cancer? Even very devout Christians will make jokes about Hell. They wouldn't make jokes about leprosy, or RAF pilots with their faces burnt away: the subject is too painful.
Posted by: Kit Stolz | Sunday, May 22, 2005 at 01:18 PM
As a Hoosier, I can certainly, if regretfully, confirm your findings.
Posted by: Shakespeare's Sister | Sunday, May 22, 2005 at 01:29 PM
Regarding the poll, I seem to remember a standup comic's joke a long while back which had the punch line "Mr. and Mrs. Vark and their daughter Joana."
Of course there's also Cosby's famous "Noah" routine; one of the best lines is when God is defining the size of the Ark and says build it "X cubits by Y cubits," and Noah says, "Right. What's a cubit?"
I can imagine many of those surveyed saying "What's a Beatitude?"
Posted by: Linkmeister | Sunday, May 22, 2005 at 02:24 PM
I'm from Indiana too and have learned to be skeptical of all these people who say they're bigtime Christians-- Indiana has a very high divorce rate and unwed birth rate. The two loudest "Christians" I know here are serial adulterers and claim that it's okay to sin because they're saved and Jesus doesn't consider anything they do a sin. I've given up trying to understand this but it's very common around here.
Posted by: allie | Monday, May 23, 2005 at 01:53 AM
A Catholic whose faith is based on a personal, emotional encounter with Scripture is a heretic.
Heresy is rampant in the land because few people believe exactly what they are taught. That is the curse of learning and its salvation as well.
Posted by: The Heretik | Monday, May 23, 2005 at 09:13 AM
Favorite bumper sticker here in Arkansas:
Christians: We aren't perfect: Just Forgiven!
So, you know, it's OKAY for them to beat their kids and sleep around and be jerks, cause Jesus loves'em anyway!
Unlike us evil unsaved heathens who are going straight to hell.
Posted by: delagar | Monday, May 23, 2005 at 11:48 AM
Living back here in the Hoosier state, I should say I'm not surprised to hear of such Biblical illiteracy. Every day I find myself incredulous when talking to people--otherwise educated to judge by the responsible jobs they hold--who don't know jack about shit. These are people who can recite in great detail the personal particulars of every Survivor cast member that ever was, but danged if they can find their own state on a map. Pray for the Rapture. Please do. Truly it will be cause for great uplift among those of us who remain.
Posted by: alex | Monday, May 23, 2005 at 07:14 PM