Taking The Pulse

is the name of a Bible Society survey of attitudes to the Bible by leaders and non-leaders in the British church. The Executive Summary is available here. It covers the following topics:

1. The Bible in terms of society and churches;
2. The Bible and spiritual growth;
3. Bible resources;
4. Bible literacy and application.

Overall, church leaders are more positive about the Bible than non-leaders. The most sceptical leaders, though (generally Liberal, Catholic, Methodist and URC), are also those most dissatisfied with congregational understanding.

Blood and gore makes the Old Testament the biggest challenge to teaching the Bible, and more resources are needed here. The OT seems to be a greater concern for affecting faith than Richard Dawkins is.

There is a welcoming of multimedia approaches, but a scepticism about the reliability of Internet sources.

For more, click the link above.

Technorati Tags: BibleSociety, Bible, RichardDawkins