Hitting the Book : In Small, Grass-Roots Study Groups, Adults Raised on the Bible Are Actually Reading It

A professional storyteller is playing all the parts in a tale as old as the hills.

She slumps into the character of craggy Naomi, then straightens into dewy- voiced Ruth. Her audience of 25 or so adults is dressed for work. They read along, silently, from the hefty books on their knees, looking as intent as hard-pressed students. Yet this is not a conventional classroom. It’s a Monday morning, 7 o’clock, Bible study group.

Today’s reading is from the Book of Ruth, an Old Testament story about the faithful friendship of two women. The session ends an hour later, and the conference room at Westwood’s St. Paul the Apostle Catholic Church clears. Students hustle off to the office: banks, universities, law firms, hospitals. But at the end of the day if you asked them, “Learn anything new?� they might well recall the lessons of Naomi and Ruth.

This early morning gathering is part of what appears to be a grass-roots movement among Protestants, Catholics and Jews: Adults who were raised on the Bible are finally starting to read it.

Signs of interest appear in all the likely places--and a few unlikely ones.

* This fall, a banner flew above Grace Lutheran Church in Culver City, announcing the start of a Bible study program.

* At the Pentecostal Church of God in Christ at Vermont Avenue and 89th Street, Bishop B.R. Benbow has been leading Bible study sessions for 34 years. Just lately, something has changed. “Teachers are teaching more, leaders are teaching more,� he says, adding that he feels more demanding of his students. “I demand that people read. I encourage them to read with me, verse by verse.�

* A group of seven Jewish women not accustomed to reading the Bible started a weekly group. They study the first five books of the Bible, an essential part of Jewish religious literature, and are led by Tamar Frankiel, who teaches at Claremont School of Theology this semester.

* In Santa Ana, high school and college-age athletes gather weekly to talk about sports, life and the Bible in a group organized by coaches.

Such meetings are not limited to Southern California. A recent ad in a small-town New England newspaper conveys the same grass-roots spirit: “Moms offering moms support, Biblical-based discussions on motherhood.�

“There are tantalizing suggestions that there may be a resurgence of interest in the Bible,� reports George Gallup, director of the Princeton Religion Research Center in New Jersey.

As of 1990, 21% of Americans were involved in Bible study groups, according to a survey by Gallup. That is up from 19% in 1981 but down from a 26% high in the mid-80s. Still, the current tendency toward meeting independent of church or temple suggests that the official count might not reflect the actual number of people involved.

Consider: The Gallup numbers go way up when the research centers on small groups such as Frankiel’s. Forty-two percent of Americans meet weekly for Bible studies of some sort. Among other things, Gallup finds that these groups offer a sense of community, which frequently is missing from daily life.

Many such groups start small. Four people showed up for that first 7 a.m. Monday session at St. Paul’s five years ago. Now the group averages about 35 regulars. The class is taught by Bill Creasy, who is on the faculty of UCLA’s writing program. He also leads a Monday evening session that meets at 7 and is four times the size of the morning group.

Earlier this year, Rabbi David Wolpe started a Bible study group with about 20 people in San Francisco. Now he leads two groups in San Francisco and two more in Los Angeles.

“There is a deep hunger,� says Wolpe, who is on the faculty at the University of Judaism in Los Angeles and leads Bible studies in his spare time.

“Certainly the times are ripe,� Gallup notes. “The public has been dissatisfied with most institutions, including organized religion, and may look for direct comfort and inspiration from the Bible.�

And it’s getting easier to relate the Bible’s lofty contents to real life. A mounting stack of specialty Bibles fills bookstores this holiday season. They aim to attract everyone from rap fans to recovering alcoholics. (See accompanying story on E1.)

“Publishers are coming out with a proliferation of Bibles for niche markets,� says Rob Stone, a Belleville, Mich., Bible distributor. “There are more types than ever.�

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Experts and amateurs use the same terms to explain the growing interest in reading the Bible. “People are searching,� says Michael Iannazzi, editor of religious publishing for Doubleday, New York. “They are hoping to make a religious connection. The Bible is a place to start.�

“We see such a decline in our values, and so much violence in our society the further we separate religion from the rest of our lives,� says Tom Barron, a businessman who attends Creasy’s sessions.

“We Catholics have never been exposed to studying the Bible. We might not start out saying, ‘I want to become holy, I think I’ll read the Bible.’ It’s more the idea that this is the word of God, what does it say? Once people get exposed to it by a good teacher, they get hooked.�

Traditionally, Jews have learned the stories of the Bible in Hebrew school. Catholics hear the New Testament during the Mass. But experts say that a regular reading of the Bible is not typically part of the daily Jewish or Catholic experience.

Protestants read more from the Book at services. And they are twice as likely as Catholics to read and study the Bible outside services, Gallup says.

“Catholics don’t know how to do Bible studies,� Creasy says. His way is to teach the Bible line by line. He figures it will take his Monday evening group five years to finish the entire book. The early risers move even slower.

“I think it’s very important to teach the whole Bible,� he says. “People duck the difficult parts. If it’s the word of God, you have to study the whole thing.�

“It is new for American Jews to be reading the Bible with serious intent,� Wolpe says. “The problem for most of them is, they think they already know what’s in it. The fact is, it’s much richer than people think.�

He sees the growing interest in reading the Bible as part of a return to the study of Jewish history and culture. “American Jews have been ravenous about general education, not so good about educating themselves about Jewishness,� he says. Baby boomers are seriously studying the Bible so they can teach it to their children. He notes that Bible study groups have been slowly gaining in numbers. Lately, he finds, “It’s a younger person’s interest.�

Alyssa Ganezer is a rabbinical student who also attends Creasy’s meetings. “I had read parts of the Bible previously, but I’ve never studied it,� she says. “It’s a lot like a guide book. I think it really comes from God. What you get out of it is not just your response, it’s God forming a response in you.�

She reads from one part of the Bible, the book of Psalms, each morning. But, she says, “Studying with other people, you hear their thoughts. It helps you understand your own.�

As more Catholics and Jews have started reading and studying the Bible in groups for the first time, Protestants have found new ways of doing what has been a longtime practice. Increasingly, their small groups form around a special interest.

Ignazio Bahena, who is on the wrestling team at Santa Ana High School, attends the weekly Bible study session sponsored by the Christian Fellowship of Athletes. “I thought I ought to give it a chance and maybe find out things I didn’t know,� he says. What has he learned lately? “In wrestling, you face a tough opponent. In the Bible, Jesus faced the devil. It’s a little like that.�

Other meetings are support groups for people recovering from divorce, a death in the family or an addiction. “The group helps us problem-solve about places in our lives where we might be stuck,� Linda Salladin says. She became a member of such a group several years ago when she suffered from a serious weight problem. Now she maintains a normal weight and helps organize other support groups at Vineyard Christian Fellowship, an interdenominational Anaheim church.

Like similar groups elsewhere, those at Vineyard are based on the 12 Step program for recovering alcoholics, with techniques borrowed from such bestsellers as “Co-Dependent No More,� by Melody Beattie. Meeting in small groups is not new, says the Rev. Jack Hayford, pastor of the Pentecostal Church on the Way in Van Nuys. “What is new is the increase in recovery groups that make the Bible their resource.�

As the interest in reading the Bible grows, small group meetings seem integrally connected to it. “Study of the Bible in this way is meeting a real need in our highly individualistic society,� observes William Dyrness, dean of Theology at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena. “It is interesting about Americans, we have a need to get together and pray.�