Surprised by the Bible

My students are … disproportionately unchurched (and unsynagogued and unmosqued). An astonishing number of them—15 out of 38 in the last class I asked—come to college having never set foot inside a house of worship. Despite the fact that they are extraordinarily well-read, many of them have never opened a Bible and are entirely ignorant of its contents…. Often I encounter … variations on the theme of biblical illiteracy. Recently, one of my students reported that he was surprised to realize that the Bible wasn’t a thousand-page screed against Jews, abortions, and gay people. —Susan McWilliams in The City, Fall 2012 pp. 4-5