Monday, January 30, 2006

Catholics Don't Read Bible?

Why Don’t Catholics Read the Bible?

by Dwight Longenecker

Dwight Longenecker, with his evangelical church background, has some important points to make about the oft heard question, "Why Don't Catholics Read the Bible?".

The independent Evangelical church I went to as a boy gave me a fantastic amount of Bible knowledge. There were Bible drills in Sunday School classes, Bible memory contests and Bible quizzes, not to mention a complete grounding in all the Bible stories—illustrated with those wonderful flannelgraph figures. As I got older I listened to long Bible sermons, went to home Bible studies, youth Bible camps and a Bible holiday club. I ended up going to a Christian University where Bible study was part of our everyday schedule.

Our Christian home wasn’t particularly anti-Catholic, but some of our preachers were, and the general impression I got was that Catholics not only didn’t read the Bible, but that they weren’t allowed to. They didn’t go to church with their big black Bibles under their arm. They didn’t have long Bible sermons or home study groups or youth Bible camps. How could Catholics believe the Bible if they didn’t read it and study it like we did? Continue reading...

Posted by Richard Mascarenhas

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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Dear Sir,

Most Catholic families do keep a copy of the Bible in their homes(this includes mine too), but due to our busy schedule (like watching TV, Going for movies, Browsing the Net, Karate classes, Piano classes etc. etc., where have we got the time to read the Bible. But one thing is for sure, the Bible certainly has a prominant place in our homes, where it can be seen by everyone.

We the parents like to give our children the best of everything, but this does not include daily prayers at Home or reading the Bible. We feel that our children do not have the time, since the world has become very competitive, and moral education has no part in it. In the old days there used to be a compulsory daily prayers at home, come what may, with all family members joining and there used to be compulsary Bible reading too, after which each had to give his comments on the days reading. Unfortunately, this has stopped too. And this is the reason why most children today are not interested even to go to church and only do so under pressure from parents, and even while in church their thoughts are else where.

I do know that the Protestants (both Lay and Clergy) have long sessions of Bible reading in their homes and churches. Is it not time we did the same too and also encourage our children to Pray and read the Bible every day, without fail.

SO LETS START TODAY

Regards