The Bible and American Life

Despite great obstacles the influence of the Bible in American life has continued to grow

This sesquicentennial year of the American Bible Society is an appropriate time to assess the place the Bible has had in the life of the United States and the contribution of the American Bible Society to this.

On first thought, the Bible seems to have been a major force in shaping American culture. At the outset of our independence as a nation, the overwhelming majority of the population, except for the Indians and the Negroes, was Protestant in background. All but a small minority sprang from stock of countries that were officially Protestant.

Part of the genius of Protestantism is its emphasis on the Scriptures as the inspired record of God’s dealing with man, of the salvation God has wrought through the incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection of his Son, and of the creation of his Church by his Holy Spirit. For the continuing vitality and even the survival of Protestantism, therefore, its rank and file must know and study the Bible.

Moreover, again and again we are reminded of the part that Protestant refugees from persecution in Europe had in laying the foundations of our nation, and of the firm faith of these refugees in the Scriptures. One of the founders of New England declared that God had yet more light to break out of his Holy Word, and this faith has inspired much of the American dream.

Yet from the nation’s beginning, even in the years of foundation-laying, the Protestant heritage, and with it the influence of the Bible, has been threatened and has seemed to wane. The religious impulse was not present among the large majority of the immigrants in colonial days. Instead they were driven by an economic motive—the desire for more of this world’s goods. So far as can be ascertained, when the Declaration of Independence was signed only about five out of a hundred persons were members of churches. Moreover, as thousands left the Atlantic seaboard and moved westward, the slight association they might have had with the Church and its faith dwindled.

Early travelers on the frontier reported the seeming godlessness of the new settlements. Disregard of religion, the flouting of Christian moral standards, and the absence of worship prevailed. With the nineteenth century came new waves of immigration from Europe, and only a few of the arrivals had religion as a dominant purpose. Millions were Roman Catholics who in their homelands had only slight if any touch with the Bible. Since then, biblical faith has been further threatened by urbanization and the decline of the small town and the rural life that Protestantism and the Bible did much to shape.

Despite these great obstacles, however, the influence of the Bible in American life has continued to grow. This generalization will seem to many quite contrary to facts. No one with his eyes open can fail to be aware of the gross ignorance of the Scriptures, not only among the public at large but also among those who call themselves Christians, even the members of Protestant churches.

Yet some incontrovertible data support this seemingly untrue statement. Outstanding among them is the growing proportion of the population who are members of Protestant churches. With two exceptions, each decade in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries has seen that proportion advance. The exceptions are the decade of the Civil War, which brought a decline, and that of World War I, when there was neither advance nor decline.

Obviously, membership in a Protestant church does not insure a knowledge of the Bible. But Protestant instruction and Protestant worship are Bible-centered, and thus some familiarity with the Scriptures penetrates the church members and through them the national life. Moreover, the published totals of Protestant church membership are not an adequate measure of the influence of Protestantism, and so of the Bible. Some denominations include in their statistics only adult members and take no account of children who are under instruction that includes the Bible. Then, too, millions who have once been members of Protestant churches have, through one cause or another, been erased from the rolls. Yet they—and thousands of others who have occasionally attended churches or are members of fraternal orders whose rituals make a place for the Scriptures—have been exposed, though with tragic inadequacy, to the biblical message.

Moreover, sales of the Bible and of the Testaments year by year exceed those of any other book. The text most widely sold is the one that inaccurately bears the designation “Authorized” or “King James” Version. Yet in the last few years millions of copies of the Revised Standard Version have been sold, and other versions have from time to time had a wide circulation. In addition to all this is the encouraging fact that outside Protestantism, notably in Roman Catholic circles, study of the Bible is mounting.

How shall we account for this permeation of American life by the Bible? Obviously the chief reason is that the Bible was inspired by God and therefore speaks to men’s deepest needs. The fashion in which the biblical authors struggled with the basic issues of life has, in spite of changing historical situations, given answers to men’s persistent questions. The culmination of the Bible in the New Testament—the record of Christ with its mystery and unquenchable hope, and the record of the witnesses of the earliest Christians to Christ—has an inescapable appeal. Of secondary and yet crucial importance have been the means by which the Bible has been made accessible. Most Sunday school teaching is based on the Bible. Scripture readings are also a normal part of Christian worship. They are in the vernacular in Protestant worship and increasingly so in Roman Catholic worship. Many Protestant churches seek to encourage daily Bible reading by their members. Various nondenominational groups have as part of their discipline Bible study, both in groups and individually. The Gideons specialize in placing Bibles in hotels, motels, and other facilities for travelers.

An outstanding force in furthering the widespread use of the Bible in the United States is the American Bible Society. Since its organization in 1816 in New York City, the society has striven, with an amazing degree of success, to see that every American home and every American has a copy of the Bible or at least of the New Testament. From the beginning members have dreamed and acted with the entire nation as their objective. Four times in the society’s first hundred years a “general supply” was undertaken, with the purpose of placing a Bible in every family “destitute” of a copy. Between “general supplies” the society also endeavored to reach all the people. In its earlier years it was organized by “auxiliaries”—state, city, and county branches—and much of its achievement was through the voluntary labors of thousands in placing Bibles in the hands of individuals and families.

The society covered the growing cities in the East and emphasized the frontier. The area sometimes called the “Bible Belt” owes that designation in no small degree to the labors of the society in the days when that vast section was being settled. During the wars in which the country has been engaged, the American Bible Society has put Bibles and Testaments in the hands of men in the armed services. It has also helped to provide Bibles for the blind, for those in prisons and hospitals, for immigrants, and, after the emancipation, for the Negroes. And it assisted in translating and distributing the Bible in Indian languages.

The horizons of the American Bible Society have never been the national boundaries. From the beginning it has had in its purview the entire human race. Its organization was partly inspired by the British and Foreign Bible Society, twelve years its senior. Largely at the instance of this parent society, and later through the American society, Bible societies have been organized and aided in many countries.

In the present century all these bodies have been drawn together in the United Bible Societies, with the Archbishop of York as the current president. In celebration of the sesquicentennial of the American Bible Society, this global organization has as its breath-taking objective in this day of “literacy explosion” placing a copy of the Bible or at least a portion of the Bible in the hands of every literate person the world around. Already, through the efforts of many agencies, the Bible in whole or in part is available in more than a thousand tongues. The American Bible Society is helping to make Scripture available in the remaining hundreds of languages into which it has not been translated, some of which have not yet been reduced to writing. Here is a program to thrill every Bible-valuing heart.

Have something to add about this? See something we missed? Share your feedback here.