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Is the Church aware of the wider culture’s revived interest in faith, especially among young people? And is it ready to meet them where they’re at?
In this episode, Andrew and Rhiannon discuss ways of increasing Bible confidence among churchgoers and seekers alike.
They look at two of Bible Society’s new resources: the new and improved edition of The Bible Course and Andrew’s new book God’s Story which addresses the current dilemma: young people are interested in the Bible but easily put off by its more challenging aspects.
Timestamps:
- (00:00) - Intro
- (01:45) - The dilemma of Bible confidence in and outside of the Church
- (04:45) - Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch
- (05:55) - The importance of increasing Bible confidence
- (08:00) - What is Bible confidence?
- (13:37) - Easy ways to build confidence in the Bible
- (15:46) - Trouble understanding the Bible
- (18:01) - Seeing the Bible as a challenge not a chore
- (21:51) - How The Bible Course helps increase Bible Confidence
- (27:31) - Troubling parts of the Bible for young people
- (31:26) - Facing challenging parts of the Bible head on
- (32:13) - God's Book: An Honest Look at the Bible's 7 Toughest Topics
- (36:01) - Highlights of the series
- (40:21) - Key message of The Quiet Revival
Discover new Advent and Christmas resources on our website including stories for chlidren and online reflections, to help you grow in your Bible confidence and share the good news with your community.
Bible Society:
The Quiet Revival Podcast is brought to you by Bible Society, a charity that translates, publishes, and distributes the Bible. We communicate its relevance and invite people to experience the transforming power of Scripture today. Visit our website to find out more.
Bible Society socials:
This is a Bible Society podcast, but it’s also a conversation between people exploring the Bible and culture together. We won’t get everything right – and we won’t always agree. Please be patient with us and join us on the journey. Bible Society is very proud of its generous orthodoxy.
Creators and Guests
What is The Quiet Revival Podcast?
The Quiet Revival report has taken the UK by storm. But how is your church responding to this missional moment? And how can you invite today’s spiritually open Gen Z to experience Scripture?
Join Dr Andrew Ollerton and Dr Rhiannon McAleer, co-author of The Quiet Revival report, as they unpack the data from our report, investigate how Scripture is speaking to the societal challenges of our day, and share a roadmap to increasing confidence in the Bible in your community.
With our research showing 26 per cent of people in England and Wales are interested in discovering more about Bible, this podcast will inspire, encourage and equip you to discover your place in The Quiet Revival. Hit play today.
Rhiannon McAleer (00:00)
increasing Bible confidence is the missional priority. It's not an optional extra.
Andrew (00:05)
How can we get ready in raising Bible confidence?
does it mean to be confident in the
the priority for me is we've got to help people not hide from, but face head on some of the more challenging things in the Bible because when we avoid things,
people just find them from other sources and often it's the voice of a skeptic who's going to misconstrue it deliberately, and then we have this kind of crisis of faith.
Rhiannon McAleer (00:27)
those who are most Bible confident,
are those who are most willing to agree with the kind of statement that says, there are parts of the Bible I find disturbing. it's not about smoothing away all the edges of the Bible,
able to handle it in such a way that your faith and
in the Bible is not undermined.
Andrew (00:46)
Well, welcome back to the Quiet Revival podcast. I'm Andrew Ollerton, joined by my usual suspect here, Rhiannon McAleer. Good to see you again, Rhiannon. And this is sadly the final episode of this first series that we've been doing in this podcast. I've had a blast. I hope you have as well, Rhiannon. And we're going to be thinking today about what it means for your congregation practically to raise confidence in the Bible.
Rhiannon McAleer (01:08)
I certainly have Andrew. We've spoken repeatedly in this series about how the church is growing, it's more diverse and there's increased engagement with the Bible, increased Bible confidence, but significant discipleship needs remain in deepening that confidence to engage with the Bible really well.
To us, increasing Bible confidence is the missional priority. It's not an optional extra.
Before we lay out the challenge we face in church, if you've enjoyed this series, please do give us a like, a review or a share and share it with those leaders and Bible communicators you think would find it useful. It really does help people find us.
Right, so Andrew, some questions for you. We sometimes, ⁓ in my line of work, talk about ⁓ theory of problem, but I just wonder if you could lay out for us, What is the dilemma we find ourselves in that might mean that Bible confidence was something to put our energy into?
Andrew (02:03)
Don't frighten me with your technical language. I'll leave the call if you start getting all researchy on me. thing this series has picked up on, is a paradox. I feel it's a paradox anyway, which is outside the church there seems to be this bubbling up interest in the Bible, a surprising rebirth, as Justin would put it, of belief, not just in God, but specifically of interest in the Bible.
whether we're having a quiet revival, a loud revival, or whether you prefer to think of it just as a revived interest in, there's definitely a revived interest in the Bible. We know this from Bible sales.
I think it's just really captures a sense that we've been through a moment of major disruption. COVID has probably caused more of that and more behavioural change than we've realised. And as a result, there are just more people searching for the Bible outside the church, searching into the Bible. Sometimes, as we've said, full fat, deep dives into scripture. But the reason I say there's a paradox is because meanwhile,
There is a sense, isn't there, I think, that the church is almost feeling not always ready for this moment, in particular, not always confident in our own knowledge of the Bible, the confidence outside the church, that the Bible, in culture, that the Bible is a good thing and that we need it at this time seems to almost be outstripping the confidence in the church. And so I think that's the paradox. And it seems to me that when
some of these young men and women especially, who've been doing these deep dives in their own space online, on YouTube, through podcasts, actually reading the Bible, when they actually turn up at church, it's almost like the church doesn't know what's happening was at a...
I was at a gathering this Sunday where I was speaking and there was a Q &A afterwards and this young guy had obviously been in the gym a lot. he kind of sort of asked this really deep question about the Old Testament. And when I spoke to him afterwards, this was his second time in church. And yet he's deep into the Bible long before he's in church. So that's the paradox for me. I don't know what you make of that. I'd love to your thoughts, but there's a sense of a rising interest in culture.
and bit of a crisis of confidence in the church, I think.
Rhiannon McAleer (04:01)
Yeah, absolutely. I think we would certainly see the ⁓ interest in the Bible outside the church is present. It's about 18 % of non-churchgoers saying they're interested in discovering more about the Bible. That actually rises to a quarter of 18 to 24 year olds. So it really is remarkable and there'll be a spectrum of that interest, exactly as you say, Andrew.
But it's that spiritual marketplace we've spoken about before, it's not just Christianity. So we've got to get confident in understanding the Bible, speaking about it well, and challenging misuse of the Bible. I think that came up in our previous episode with Bell and Chine
Andrew (04:40)
I know I could sound, at risk of sounding like a broken record, I do find the story in the Bible itself of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts chapter 8. I just find it so...
It's such a great window to look through to see our moment in the scriptural story, because you do have there this curious seeker, the Ethiopian eunuch on a journey, literally and spiritually. And in his case, just like in our moment, he's reading a bit of the Bible. That's what he's turned to, to try and find sense and meaning. And then you do also get this confident believer, Philip, who God brings alongside the curious seeker.
and Phillips ready to help him, not to preach at him, you know, not to sort of overwhelm him, but just to start with his question, start with the scripture he's reading and take him on a journey to Jesus. And I just, think that begs the question, are we ready? How can we get ready in raising Bible confidence? And I love what you said at the very start. It's mission critical. I think in the past we might've thought, you know, if I was a church leader, I'd be thinking, yeah, it would be nice if our congregation understood the Bible a bit better.
But that's probably number 10 of a list of big priorities and so many other things seem more important, whether it's raising funds for a new building project or whether it's running an Alpha course or all these wonderful things, a social action project, all these wonderful things, they remain priorities. But I just think many church leaders are just waking up to the fact, gosh, raising Bible confidence is not number 10 in the list. It's mission critical because
There are more of these seekers and we want to be ready to help them on their journey.
Rhiannon McAleer (06:12)
Yeah, absolutely. churches have people of all ages in them. Many people will have learnt the Bible in childhood. my sense is many people coming into church now, these new zedders they don't even have that cultural awareness of the Bible. So there's real opportunity in that. There's real opportunity to explore. The story's fresh. We've spoken a few times on and off about being more first century now and that.
that fresh exposure to the Bible without cultural baggage, being a really interesting new opportunity for us. But there is challenge in that. We've got to help people ground in this complicated and, let's be honest, it's challenging and it's a difficult text. We've got to help people ground and put roots down. Otherwise, the moment will pass.
We'll be left wondering, did we seize the opportunities in front of us?
Andrew (07:02)
Absolutely. None of us want to look back with regret that we, think, were stepping forward with intention. That's got to be our desire. And I do think that point, you know, that so many people have made on our series and that I'm hearing is just, we may have people in church for a Sunday morning for an hour or an hour and a half, you know, they hear a bit of a sermon, hopefully a great sermon, but even if it is an outstanding sermon, how much more content, how much more influence are they coming under online?
So somehow I think it does cry out for a more intentional and perhaps intensive response to raising Bible confidence. It may be that even if it's gold, our 20-minute homily or 40-minute sermon on a Sunday needs to be complemented by a much clearer pathway of how do we raise Bible confidence in the church.
We're going to talk in this episode, I think more intentionally about just some of the resources we have, including the Bible course and other things that just put in a layer of understanding and of confidence to the church. But before we get to that, Rhiannon, could you just, we're saying, you we need to raise, we need to build Bible confidence, does it mean to be confident in the Bible? Because what we've probably all encountered, and I've certainly been guilty of is,
not Bible confidence, but Bible arrogance, just because you know lots of facts, you you try and impress people with the amount of facts you know, but that isn't what we're talking about, is it? So how would you define Bible confidence?
Rhiannon McAleer (08:20)
Right.
I would say Bible confidence is something we use in Bible society as a way of thinking about people's posture and skill when it comes to the Bible. And we've done a lot of research in this. Some of it is presented in the quiet revival So, please do have a little look in there. But some of it is work that we haven't yet published.
And basically we think of Bible confidence in three dimensions. So we think about head confidence, heart confidence, and hands confidence. So head confidence is your confidence that you can understand and navigate the Bible and that you can speak about it with confidence with others. So it's about when I want to read the Bible, can I follow it?
Do I understand what parts this bit of the Bible, how it relates to other parts of the Bible? Do I understand its position in the big story? It's not about deep, deep biblical studies and ⁓ very, know, years and years of work of theology. It's that basic kind of, do I understand what, you know, one Kings is doing to the big arc? Do I know where to go if I don't understand?
And do I have some kind of trust in it? It's about this kind of, I, do I believe the Bible to be credible? Do I experience the Bible to be credible? Similarly, related to that bit in different dimension is what we call heart confidence. So heart confidence is about, do we relate to the Bible in a way that it grows and deepens our spiritual life? Do we find the Bible to be a site of encounter with God?
Now, this is something in general that Christians are pretty good at when it comes to the Bible. They do find the Bible fueling and deepening. It speaks to them on a personal level. It's quite different to non-Christians. Non-Christians tend to have very low heart confidence. And you can well imagine that both Christians and non-Christians could, in theory, have high head confidence. And then we have hands confidence. And that is...
trying to think about the outworking of what you know and what you feel about the Bible. Does it affect the way you act? And are you able to take what you know and believe about the Bible and apply it into your everyday life? And that is one of the biggest challenges Christians have. Now, against all of those dimensions, there is indication of low Bible confidence in significant proportions.
of the church. about a third of churchgoers say they're not confident they could find relevant passages in the Bible. 38 % say they find it challenging to apply the Bible to their everyday life. And one of the big Bible confidence barriers, particularly for older Christians, is confidence to speak about the Bible with non-Christians. So if we're thinking about meeting this mission or moment,
Those are big challenges and they are things that we think do need to be addressed.
Andrew (11:17)
It's interesting, it, listening to you there, think what's going through my mind is that actually we may have a church with quite high levels of heart confidence, know, a deep spiritual assurance that the Bible is good for me and that it brings me closer to God, which is a brilliant thing, absolutely. And then we might have seekers with quite surprisingly high levels of head confidence, you know, because in their case, they've never been taught to read the Bible in a spiritual way. They're not even sure that's what they want it for.
but they have been learning detail and experiencing argument and the more sort of analytical and rhetorical approaches to the scriptures. in a sense, we've got a bit of a disconnect there, but it sounds from what you're saying that we've got a general challenge, which is in the church, on all of those indicators, head, heart and hands, there's some work to be done. My sense is, for the sake of today, we could concentrate a bit on the head.
confidence, how do we build that? And then in season two, we'll get into how does that flow out into heart confidence and hand confidence. But it is really important, isn't it? Because I think, you know, like I say, it's not Bible arrogance we want, it's Bible confidence.
Rhiannon McAleer (12:21)
Yeah, I mean, I think it's really important to say, but the confidence is not a finite thing. And it's not a linear thing that you're 30 years old and you're a certain confidence with the Bible and you will therefore continue in that level of confidence with the Bible, just as faith ebbs and flows. There are times when our posture and our relationship with the Bible changes and what Bible confidence looks like in early life.
might look different to what it looks like in later life. We're on a continuing journey. similarly to this idea that the Bible is a pool that a toddler can paddle in and an elephant can swim in. It's the same with Bible confidence. We can all go deeper.
And yeah, we're going to focus on head confidence now, but there are some very high level things that I think church leaders and those passionate about the missional moment can put in place
quickly to help grow Bible confidence. And these are things like modeling really good Bible engagement habits, right? Let's help people learn how to build the Bible into their everyday life. Like how do we make time for it? We're all time pressed.
Many of us don't know where to begin with the Bible, that regular devotional reading, making space to read the Bible with others. I think this is absolutely key, especially when you've got people, as you say, Andrew, reading the Bible by themselves. How do you then take them into this whole new way of reading the Bible when you read it with others and you're challenged by reading it with others? And then also, so this is mentoring, but also a really good
⁓ resourcing as well, which I think we'll get into. But there's very high level things like model it, do it together, and don't wait for adults either. You can start that Bible confidence journey in childhood and that's a very significant and important foundation for later Bible confidence in adulthood.
Andrew (14:12)
I wonder for our listeners, you know, what are you finding?
you think about those head, heart and hands, which is the biggest challenge and the most important thing that in your context to raise confidence in? it the head knowledge? Is it just the lack of biblical literacy? Is it the heart? Is it the sense of it being a spiritual growth point? And is it the hands? How does this join the dots into my Monday and my Tuesday and my Wednesday? So let us know how you're getting on and also what you're doing, you know, because there's some great practice already happening out there. We'd love to hear your thoughts on what's working to raise confidence. And you mentioned
just at the end there around in young people. Maybe it's church leaders, but also maybe as church leaders or small group leaders, your parents as well, what are you doing? We've got three teenage kids ourselves. I have to say, that is my absolute highlight of all Bible engagement I do is always what I get up to with our kids. And I just think it's so good to share our stories of what we're doing and what's working. So let us know about those
But for now, Rhiannon, you you talk about, as I'm listening to you, think under the head confidence category, we're hearing two areas perhaps from the quiet revival, Firstly, there is this kind of navigation challenge. So that is basically, can you find your way around the Bible and can you make sense of it?
in the general sense. How does this fit into the bigger story? But there's also another challenge, is kind of, once someone's found their way around the Bible, they then bump into things that they find really challenging. It's not that they don't understand it, it's that
They're struggling to make sense of it. is there things in the Bible that we wouldn't expect to be there? Are those two of the main challenges in the headspace, would you say?
Rhiannon McAleer (15:46)
Yeah, there's certainly very significant challenges. The only one I would add is that confidence to speak about the Bible, but that kind of comes a little bit later. I think two thoughts to build on that, Andrew. One of them is you mentioned about Bible arrogance. I think it's related to this sort of, you named it as apologetics, this kind of coming up against difficult things. We know from the wider survey work that those who are most Bible confident,
are those who are most willing to agree with the kind of statement that says, there are parts of the Bible I find disturbing. And that is a really key part of head confidence, basically, this sense of it's not about smoothing away all the edges of the Bible, but being able to handle it in such a way that your faith and your credibility in the Bible is not undermined.
⁓ these are perennial issues I need to say, we'd observed these well before the quiet revival research. And I have a couple of quotes from some focus groups here that I wonder if just helps illustrate it a little bit. So one churchgoer said to us, the difficulty in finding passages which apply to everyday life at that point in life, if experiencing an emotion like jealousy, what part should I read?
I often hear both from churchgoers and non-churchgoers, like, it'd be great if the Bible came with an index. It's that just sort of sense of, I think the answers are here, but I have no idea where to, where to begin. And it's not that those answers aren't out there online, but over-resourcing is perhaps a different challenge to navigate as well. And then this other, um, quote that I speak about a lot, because I think it's very important, is, lots of the language is heavy and old fashioned.
It does feel like a chore. And that language of chore, I think, is very significant around head confidence. So we're not saying that the Bible isn't challenging. It's okay that the Bible is challenging. People can do challenge. They take on challenges all the time, right? Running marathons, learning to build their own websites, learning really difficult knitting patterns. people can do challenge. They don't like chores.
So that's kind of what we want to build in Head Confidence, that ability to take on the challenge and not feel overwhelmed.
Andrew (17:53)
All right, so that sort of begs a question then. How do we, if you imagine a church leader or a small group leader and they're thinking, well, how do I help people experience the Bible for myself as well? How do I experience the Bible more as a positive challenge than a negative chore? What can we do to help people in that?
Rhiannon McAleer (18:10)
Well, I would also add that it'd be really great to hear from listeners here about what they've put in place that really helps people start to deepen that Bible hunger. But I'd say across multiple data sets, there's something really interesting when you get deep into the Bible that it almost becomes self-fueling experience that we do tend to see in multiple places that
The more you read about the Bible, the more you discuss it with others, and the more that you kind of get to address the meat of it, the more you want to know more. You kind of want to go deeper and deeper. And I think this is a very contextualized kind of question. It will look different for different groups. But that really, that regular Bible reading, in a way, where you're addressing questions that are relevant to everyday life, but also doesn't hold back.
that doesn't skip over the sticky bits that says, like, I don't have all the answers, but let's discover this together. Let's pull in different scholars and different perspectives and different thoughts. And let's kind of this out. I think that's how you move from chore to challenge. It's kind of like that this is, it's that personal experience that this is something that I want to stretch myself into rather than feeling like I ought to do it. No one wants to do the thing they feel they.
they ought to do. So it's kind of like just getting into that rhythm. And I think the Bible would do the rest of it.
Andrew (19:30)
Hmm. It's got to be something about motivation there, isn't there, in the end as well? Because I think, you know, why do you go to the gym and hurt yourself intentionally and pay money to do it? Well, because the experience of doing it has some, you know, incredible sense of energy to it. And then the benefits that come from it, that's what you want. Why do you eat healthy food and, you know, turn down the sort of junk food well, because you believe it's just going to do you a lot more good and
and in the end you're going to feel so much better through life. So guess that sense of motivation, isn't it? Like actually, I know this is one of the things I loved about the quiet revival is it did show that basically, I I'm simplifying here, but it's almost like basically if you go to church and you're part of a community of faith, and if you read the Bible actively on your own and with others, you're just going to, on average, have a better life. I mean, you know, in terms of wellbeing and other indicators.
There's something just about saying to people, you know, it's good for you, isn't it?
Rhiannon McAleer (20:25)
Yeah, absolutely. And the interesting things about both of your analogies that are healthy eating and exercise is it certainly kind of doesn't feel it at first when you start it. But you often find when you're in a healthy eating sort of space that your body doesn't want junk food in the same way. Like you want more of it because you recognize it as good. So kind of, that that motivation. And this is where that community is so important, that modeling of behaviors and that that modeling of ⁓
how to live a full kind of Christian life which includes encounter with the scripture. But Andrew, I wonder if we can perhaps come down a level, get it a little bit more tangible and speak about very specific resources around this head confidence dimension we've been focusing on. This is your area now, so moving out of research, we're coming into your expertise here.
Shall we start with maybe the Bible course? So a small group resource that's been running a number of years now and is very much focused around overcoming some of these very core ⁓ head confidence barriers around understanding how the Bible links together and being able to place ourselves within that big story. Why don't you tell us a little bit more about where it's come from and how you understand its position in this missional moment.
Andrew (21:45)
Yeah, it's interesting that we've just landed a new edition of the Bible course and that had been in motion for years. that dropped just almost, I mean, within a couple of months of the quite revival research. And I just felt that was God's favor actually, that these are things we humans can't plan, but something of God's providence and favor on it. And it's always been that way with the Bible course from its earliest conception.
which was basically, I was leading churches down in Cornwall and I wasn't trying to create a resource, but I noticed that when we baptised people who were often not from the Christian background, that we used to give them a Bible as a gift, a copy of the Bible. And I can remember just one Easter Sunday, especially seeing the look in their eyes of both gratitude and just like bewilderment. And what am I meant to do with this? And it's that navigation thing, if they just have no way to find their way around it, no sort of working operating model, if you like.
And so I gave them a crash course in the Bible and basically that's turned into the Bible course over several years and with the investment of Bible Society now. So I think in terms of where it fits, it is in that navigation space especially and a bit of interpretation. How do we make sense of the big story and how does that actually make sense of our lives practically as well? And it's an eight session small group resource effectively with video content.
discussion guides, small group readings, daily readings, all those things. So people can check out the new edition, but I am so excited that it's dropped at the moment it has and I'm hearing so much now. I mean, it's interesting. I pitched it originally for those people in front of me who've just been baptized, in other words, new Christians. But what surprised me is people who've been Christians since before I was born have never often had the chance to see how the whole story of scripture fits together.
⁓ and how the library of books integrates with the story that centres on Jesus. So it surprised me how much it's done the deep work for people who've been Christians for a while. And I met just on Sunday, I met two people. They came and spoke to me at this church I was speaking at and they said, just said, I wanted to meet you and say thank you because I, we both became Christians through doing the Bible course. And this is a couple of years ago. So it's always amazed me how the range it's reached of, of Christians and
new Christians and seekers, and I think never more valuable than now, right? I mean, what is it? Is it 35 % of young men aged 18 to 24 who are outside the church say they would like to understand the Bible for themselves? Or it's something like that, wasn't it? I'm not making that up.
Rhiannon McAleer (24:07)
Yeah,
it's hugely high. Yeah, very high.
Andrew (24:10)
Yeah. So all
that to say, you know, if there's that much interest in the Bible outside the church, what a great time to run the Bible course and not just for the faithful few, but throw the doors wide open. And this is what I'm hearing actually, is that more and more people are saying, just, again, another course just started or started a month or so ago and they said, ⁓ about half of the people on our course are Christians and about another half of them.
Some of them we never met before, but they heard that we were running the Bible course and they wanted to understand the Bible. So I'm excited, as you can probably tell, about the moment that this new edition's landed in.
Rhiannon McAleer (24:42)
Yeah, absolutely. I'm one of Bible course's biggest cheerleaders, and not just obviously because of the quality of your work, Andrew, but as much because we do monitor the impact of resources that we invest in, like the Bible course and others as well. And so over the years, we've been collecting data on how people are experiencing it and is it making a difference to Bible confidence and
Yeah, one of the really remarkable things about the Bible course is that regardless of where you are in your faith journey, it seems to make a difference. We see that it really increases Bible confidence across the board, but particularly that head confidence. And it seems to spark this interest in learning more. So that's one of the big impacts that we see after the Bible course is this desire to go deeper and to try other parts of the Bible as well.
The data is pretty strong on it. With the new edition that you've mentioned, obviously you know that we were in focus groups quite a lot trying to improve it and tweak it from the previous edition. But one of the things that really stuck out to me when we did some of the groups with people who'd never heard of the Bible course but were Christian were like, why didn't I know about this? This is brilliant in a sense that it doesn't matter where you are in your faith journey. It really meets that.
that need of bringing things together. And one of the big things we see in the feedback is that the idea, it lands for us that we are part of this story. That yes, our lives are not recorded in the Bible, but we are still part of it. That seems to really inspire Christians of all ages and stages.
Andrew (26:20)
Brilliant, thank you for your support, it really has been so kind. And I think, you know, I do feel that right now, like we said earlier, just Sunday sermons are great, but we've got to put layers of pathways of understanding in place for Christians as well as, and new Christians especially, people who are journeying to faith.
And what a great time, I think, just to lay out the pathway of the Bible course. It's by no means the last word, it's very introductory, but then people, as you say, it catalyzes an interest and then off people go, they'll find their way forward and there's other resources that can help with that. So that's kind of on the navigation side of finding your way around the Bible. But the other interesting sort of feature of the Quart revival is this thing we talked about earlier that once people are into the Bible, actually reading it,
they may no longer have the navigation problem in the same way. But almost the other problem raises, which is they now can find their way around the Bible, they are reading it and they sometimes are really troubled by what they're reading. One of the statistics that really stood out to me was something like, was it 35, 34, 35 % of 18 to 30 year olds who are in the church, these are church going young adults, said that when they read certain parts of the Bible,
it undermines their faith. Firstly, is that the right fact? And secondly, what do make of that? If it is.
Rhiannon McAleer (27:39)
Yeah,
it is the right fact and I think it's important to contextualize that that is much higher than Christians who are older than them. So as we've said earlier, it's not that finding the Bible difficult is a problem, but there's clearly something a bit significant there for younger Christians.
Obviously within the data, we don't know if those are the quiet revival Christians or they might be cradle Christians, right? But it's, it's clear that while we've got an age cohort in the church who are so Bible passionate, honestly, throughout the survey, they just look really, really Bible confident. Like they want to talk about it with others. They're not afraid of reading it in public. They want to know more about it. The Bible hunger, Bible love is strong. There is this element of I'm wrestling with it and it's a little bit.
difficult and in that stat you've pulled out there, I think there's some warning signs. So there's this kind of real opportunity, this real hope moment and much to be celebrated, but definitely a warning sign that maybe a bit more support needed here.
Andrew (28:44)
Yeah, and I think especially
because I was talking to a friend who heads up UCCF, the student work, and he was just saying, you know, how one of their concerns is they often use through their brilliant uncover initiatives, they use one of the gospels as the point of entry to the faith and lots of students becoming Christians, which is brilliant. But what they're finding is almost that the students become Christians through the gospels, so they feel like I've committed to this truth, this Jesus. And then...
they start reading the rest of the Bible and they're like, hang on, what's all of this? You know, why are there so many wars and wars even that God commands in the Old Testament or laws about holding slaves or whatever. So it's that potential disconnect between what you think you're believing in. If you've just done an Alpha course or come read one of the gospels, then whatever the initiatives may be, all brilliant. And then the disconnect between that and all the other things you're going to find in the Bible, which frankly is, is knotty and challenging in places as we all know. And the other thing,
really important to note, and we've said this several times on the podcast, but of course, Bible sales are up. Young people especially, but not exclusively, are just buying Bibles. Well, where are they going to start? It's not at all obvious to them that you would start two-thirds of the way through with one of the Gospels. They're going to start with Genesis. So, you know, it doesn't work to say, you know, we're kind of emphasizing just the New Testament for two reasons. One is I think there's plenty of knotty things in the New Testament, frankly, if people actually read it.
Rhiannon McAleer (29:42)
Mm.
Andrew (30:03)
And then the other, but the other is that people aren't going to start there anyway. They're to start the beginning, deep into the Old Testament from the beginning. Jordan Peterson, you know, who we've mentioned several times, he's camped out a lot in Genesis. So I think helping people make sense of the whole Bible and not shying away from or thinking we can hide off any areas of it that we find difficult seems, seems like a new priority.
Rhiannon McAleer (30:24)
And Andrew, obviously this is something that you have been giving a lot of focus and a lot of thought to you and you've wrapped this up in a book quite recently that's looking at some of the big knotty themes of the Bible. And I wonder if you could maybe spell out what you think these particular knots, are we okay to say that, knots of the Bible are and what your recommendation to church leaders
who know that they need to address these would be.
Andrew (30:56)
the priority for me is we've got to help people face head on, not hide from, but face head on some of the more challenging things in the Bible for two reasons. One is I believe when they're framed within their context, the Bible stands up to the test of time. It has done for 2000 years, you know, so we've nothing to hide, nothing to fear, but also because when we avoid things,
people just find them from other sources and often it's the voice of a skeptic who's going to misconstrue it deliberately, isolate certain verses to make the Bible sound horrendous and then we have this kind of crisis of faith. which so often I think for a lot of people unfolds when they leave home, particularly university experience if that comes their way, there can be moments where they've almost just been sheltered too much from challenges and then it all can blow up when they're exposed to skeptics.
All that to say, there's a priority here. The book I've written is hopefully a helpful resource, but it's not the only thing. But what I've effectively done, trying to stay in my lane, which is through the Bible course, helping people understand the big story of the Bible, Genesis to Revelation. I was helping people into the Bible, navigation, and then they were struggling with some of the things they were landing on. And so I thought, well, what I'll do is I'll go back through the same storyline, Genesis to Revelation.
and I'll tackle in their context the seven toughest things you're going to bump into in the Bible. So I open with creation stories and the challenge of modern science. Can we believe this account of how the world came into being in the light of science? And then I move through sequencing through the Bible to the law of Moses and particularly difficult laws about holding slaves and the strange laws, cleansing laws and sacrifices and things. And then I think about the conquest of Canaan and the issue of warfare and violence, which I find the most troubling.
When I ask people which of these topics, certainly in the Old Testament, this is the one that really concerns people.
and it raises the issue of why is there so much warfare and violence that's often in God's name? And I think this troubles people a lot. Is the Bible in some way condoning modern day conflicts as well? And then I move from the conquest of the land to being thrown out of the land, the story of exile. Why does God let his people suffer in that exile story? And then as you can see on the visual here, the miracles of Jesus.
and the exorcisms of Jesus, I felt it was really important to think about not just the positive miracles, if you like, but what about these evil spirits and the demonic element and the interest in the supernatural realm today seems to make that important to address. Then I thought I couldn't dodge this bullet. It's so important. for Paul's letters, I focus on the issue of sex and sexuality and what does the Bible teach about that and how actually are so many of the values we hold dear today rooted in scripture and its influence.
And then finally, Revelation. I said it was Genesis to Revelation and then in Revelation, the visions of judgment, heaven and hell. So I'm not saying they're easy topics and I didn't find it an easy book to write, but I really enjoyed facing these things head on, not hiding from anything. And what I've tried to do is bed down the problem in its context. Like, how do we understand these things? Not in the abstract, but in the narrative and cultural context of the Bible.
And that seems to be what's helping people really feel more confident.
Rhiannon McAleer (33:53)
Thank you, Andrew. it really again does feel like it's coming at a really great time. And I think particularly valuable is this just narrative and storyline approach to some of the tricky bits.
Andrew (34:05)
Yeah, and I
think also just on that, think we've got to pitch these things in at a level that's accessible, haven't we? That's what we've tried to do with all our resources. It's based on really good scholarship, so it's got a depth to it, but it's never trying to sort of showcase that. It's leading out with a kind of accessible approach that the Bible course, you know, this new book, the new book is called God's Book, An Honest Look at the Bible's Seven Toughest Topics, and I wrote a letter to one of...
each of our children as the endpoint of each of the seven topics because they're teenagers now and I thought I want to help them based on the conversations we've had think how does this affect the way I live? We're trying to help ordinary people. And this is why I think for church leaders this is important, isn't it? We're trying to put resources in the hands of leaders to say, you know, this can help you do your job and part of your job needs to be to raise confidence in the Bible.
Rhiannon McAleer (34:53)
and you know let's be encouraging the vast majority of churchgoers want to know the Bible better, the vast majority of them and they want to face it head on because exactly as you say other people are talking about the Bible and people want to be able to understand what it is that is being spoken about and want to be able to contribute.
Andrew (35:00)
They do. Yeah, they do.
Yeah. So yeah, absolutely Rhiannon. there'll be links, I'm sure, to these resources we've mentioned But look, I think it's time to wrap up and we're not just wrapping up this episode, but this season of the podcast, series one.
So I wonder if you could just give us, Rhiannon, what's been your most memorable moment or couple of things you've heard from a couple of the guests maybe that's really helped you kind of think about what's going on in this quiet revival.
Rhiannon McAleer (35:39)
Hmm. mean, firstly, it's been so great, the range of guests that were able to join us. And I feel that we just managed to get such different perspectives. And the thing that always strikes me, both through this podcast and many presentations that I do, is how common certain themes are.
But I think two episodes for me are really interesting. Chine and Belle, I loved Belle's reflection on
the need to be able to communicate both about the Bible and faith in this marketplace of ideas. And that is so important. We've got to be able to understand both the nature of the marketplace, like what else is on sale there, because it's not just Christianity. And how do we express the uniqueness of what it is that Christianity and the Bible have to offer when so much else?
is there competing for attention. And she also spoke about a fear, a dislike of people co-opting the Bible from non-Christians. So non-Christians always feel feeling protective about the Bible when they see it being weaponized. And I think that's so fascinating when it comes to Bible confidence. There's a sense from non-Christians they want to see Christians stepping up.
and using the Bible wisely or speaking from the Bible wisely perhaps. And then a completely different context, John in Wales, who spoke about ⁓ young men, one of the most deprived ⁓ areas of Europe and how he's seen this most incredible.
church growth driven by men who have had some of the toughest starts to life but who gather around the Bible and deal with the difficult bits. His call to not, let's not dumb it down, let's not be patronising, these are people who can handle big ideas. It just needs to be kind of facilitated in a way that makes sense for people of, know, particular experiences and their backgrounds and his particular call to ⁓
yeah, you might be interested in the apocalypse and Nephilim and conspiracy theories, like if that's how you've encountered the Bible, that's your starting point, fine, but what does this mean for how you live out your life? How does this make you a better father, a better person in your community? Yeah, really, really fascinating discussions. Can I turn it back on you, Andrew? What are you taking away?
Andrew (38:00)
yeah, we've been through so much, haven't we? I love The Way. I mean, I love what The Way, the team at The Way do.
think Michelle particularly just highlighting that actually there's this simple return to Bible study among Gen Z, know, and Gen Alpha. They just want to do Bible study. I just also, I mean, he's a friend of mine, but Pete Winter, who came on was just brilliant. His passion, his faith was so infectious really, wasn't it? In a brilliant way. ⁓
Particularly though him just saying how he didn't really have faith for it actually, but just some people in his church were like, we want to go and give out some Bibles. And it's just absolutely taken off in the sense that on the high street, you know, the Bible is perceived as a gift rather than a threat or something to be wary of by so many people. Just that sort of front foot missional stance. Let's have a go. Let's be bold. Let's offer it out. Let's not hide away.
Rhiannon McAleer (38:26)
Yes.
Andrew (38:44)
I think we need to raise confidence in the Bible and the church, but we also just need to get out there and try some things we've not done and be on the front foot right now.
Rhiannon McAleer (38:53)
Yeah and maybe retry things ⁓ that didn't work 10 years ago and kind of understand that this is a new moment and maybe it is time to try again. I completely agree with you on Pete's observation there, his sense that actually well don't think that's going to go well and being pleasantly surprised at how well it did. I think there's something for us all to learn in that.
Andrew (38:56)
Mmm.
Yeah.
Yeah. ⁓
There is, and I heard
a great message on this, someone gave on the story in Luke 5, and it also recurs in John 21 of Jesus saying to the disciples who'd fished all night, you know, go again, throw your nets over the other side of the boat. And it's not that their technique had changed necessarily, it's just that something had shifted in the waters. And I think something shifted in the waters, hasn't it? That's what the quiet revival is saying. And so it's time to go again and step beyond our frustration or disappointment. Some of us have fished all night for...
Rhiannon McAleer (39:28)
Mmm.
Yeah.
Andrew (39:44)
difficult times for mission and it's time to go again with faith and confidence that something's different now.
Rhiannon McAleer (39:50)
Yeah, absolutely.
Andrew (39:51)
So if you were to think now, Rhiannon, we're at the end, what's the headline over the whole thing? I mean, other than obviously run the Bible course, which is the top headline. But apart from that, as you think about the quiet revival that we've learned, what's the big message to take home?
Rhiannon McAleer (39:59)
That was cool.
We're moving into a new landscape. It's different to what we've seen before. It's contested. It's really fast moving. We've all got to get out there and try and listen and learn and share ideas. And really, I would say there's two priorities. We've got to prepare for this spiritual openness that might turn up at the door or we will go out and meet it in our communities. And we've got to prioritize growing Bible confidence and Bible discipleship.
And a really great way to do that, Andrew, would be the Bible course.
Andrew (40:36)
Yeah, the checks in the post. Brilliant, Rhiannon, thank you. I think that's a wrap. Thanks again for listening to this podcast. We'll be back in the new year with season two, teasing out more on this Bible Confidence stuff and the mission we have in this quiet revival moment. But for now, please do like and share and subscribe and all those things that help us get the word out there. And have a great Christmas. We'll see you in the new year.
Rhiannon McAleer (40:38)
Thank