ActiveFaith.us
 
 
I’m not a big fan of NPR (although I’ve been on a few times), but on Friday they played a piece about something that I’ve heard the “secular” media mention before: former Arkansas Governor (and presidential candidate) Mike Huckabee’s frequent use of biblical allusions in his speeches.
 
In this piece, though, NPR took a different tack: they went to the National Mall (in front of the Capitol in D.C.) and interviewed tourists from across the nation, asking them if they understood some of the allusions Huckabee used during his “victory speech” on Super Tuesday.
 
All of the people they spoke to “were raised in Christian households and had attended Sunday school.” And almost every one of them were clueless as to what the former Baptist preacher was even talking about!
  1.  
  2. We started by recounting this story: In November, as Huckabee surged in the polls, a student at Liberty University asked him what was driving his startling success. Huckabee responded, "It's the same power that helped a little boy with two fish and five loaves feed a crowd of 5,000 people."
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  4. We played the tape for Leitha Anthony, who was waiting to go into the Washington Monument. Did she know what he was talking about?
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  6. "That's when Moses ... had to feed all the people, the multitude of people that left Egypt," Anthony hazarded. "That's what it was?"
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  8. Anthony, who is from Mississippi, was close -- the Bible story did involve food -- but it was Jesus feeding the hungry crowd. Most of the other people we talked to near the Washington Monument got it wrong, too.
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Holy cow.
 
Then they played a clip which was an obvious reference to David and Goliath (a good comparison, one would think):
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  2. "Sometimes," the former Arkansas governor told his supporters, "one small smooth stone is even more effective than a whole lot of armor."
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  4. "Maybe something to do with the war," guessed Dan Booth, who was visiting from Alabama.
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  6. "He's talking about peace, the resolution of peace?" ventured his friend Mike Allen.
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These people attended Sunday School?
 
How about one more Huckabee quote:
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  2. "We've also seen that the widow's mite has more effectiveness than all the gold in the world."
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  4. We asked Daria Teutonico and Richard Pettit about the widow's mite as they walked to lunch on Pennsylvania Avenue.
  5.  
  6. "I have no clue," was Teutonico's answer. "I thought a mite was a bug."
  7.  
  8. "Is it a spider?" Pettit added. They both laughed.
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The problem here, of course, is simple: biblical illiteracy. There was a time in this country (basically coinciding with its founding) when everyone knew and understood Scripture, even if they weren’t firm believers.
 
Now, they don’t understand squat. And the fault lies, ultimately, with America’s pastors. We have become a nation whose churches are filled mostly with pastors who lack the guts -- or maybe just the knowledge -- to speak the Truth forcefully as it applies to ALL of life, including politics. But even more so, our churches just aren’t teaching the BIBLE any more. Church services are more like pep rallies or self-help seminars than training grounds for the army of the living God.
 
Boston University professor Stephen Prothero, the author of Religious Literacy, hits the nail on the head: “Half of Americans can't name any of the four Gospels, and that includes the Christians. And half don't know that Genesis is the first book of the Bible. Those are much easier questions than things like, you know, 'What's the loaves and the fishes story?'"
 
God help us. We’ve got a lot of work to do if we want our prayers for revival and reformation in America to be answered.
 
(Check out Focus on the Bible ministries, the “heart child” of my friend Dr. Ed Bez. A great start!)
 
William Greene is the author of Christian Political Activism: Biblical Principles for Active Faith, a “work in progress.” Read the latest chapters at ActiveFaith.us.
“And he looked up, and saw the rich men casting their gifts into the treasury. And he saw also a certain poor widow casting in thither two mites. And he said, Of a truth I say unto you, that this poor widow hath cast in more than they all: For all these have of their abundance cast in unto the offerings of God: but she of her penury hath cast in all the living that she had. ” (Luke 21:1-4)
Sunday, February 10, 2008
There’s a Lot of Work To Be Done