Queries & Comments

In his First Person column in the July/August 2001 issue (First Person, BAR 27:04), Hershel Shanks noted that in a survey of 14,000 churches, including 41 denominations or faith communities, 82 percent of respondents cited sacred scripture as the source of religious authority; more than 90 percent of the congregations offered scripture study to their members. Given those numbers, Shanks asked, why doesn’t BAR have an even more healthy circulation than it does? More broadly, he asked, “Does history matter? Is what really happened important to America’s faith communities? Or is the Biblical text enough?” We received many responses to his question, of which the following are a sample.

Faith Need Not Fear

I am a Protestant Fundamentalist who believes that “If the Bible says it, it must be true!” Yet I love your magazine. I frequently take it to Sunday school to show the current state of archaeological study. I love having a magazine with very beautiful photography, a secular viewpoint that did not come off my denomination’s presses and peer review.