Bruce Feiler: May 2008 Archives

Zogby has released a new survey of book-reading habits in America. Over 80% said they prefer to curl up with a printed book over using the latest in reading technology. Women (85%) are more likely than men (79%) to say they prefer reading printed books. Reading printed books also has greater appeal among older respondents, although it is by far the preferred method among all age groups. Just 11% of respondents said they are comfortable reading books in other formats, such as online or with an e-book reader or PDA.

Some other highlights include the number of people who sneek a peak at the ending and the (clearly low) number of people who confess to having a library book sitting around the house.

More than half (52%) admit to judging a book by its cover, with younger respondents more likely to acknowledge a book's cover influences their opinion - 66% of those younger than 30 said they judge a book by its cover, compared to just 34% of those age 65 and older. More than a third (35%) said they have purchased a book because of a quote from another author. When they find a book they like, the vast majority (89%) said they make a special effort to look for other books by the same author. Women (92%) are more likely than men (86%) to seek out books by authors they already enjoy. Other findings about reading preferences and habits include:

Most said they typically read just one book at a time, but a sizable 40% said they usually are reading between two and four books at once. Another 3% said they generally read more than four books at one time.

While 19% said they borrow most of the books they read from the library, the vast majority of Americans (78%) said they own most of the books they read. And while 71% are quick to loan books to friends, just 32% said they are in the habit of borrowing books from friends.

Respondents were also asked to own up to their bad reading habits - 35% admit to folding over the pages, while 13% confess to sneaking a peek at the ending before finishing a book. Just 6% divulged that they have neglected to return a library book.

If current trends continue. These sorts of metrics are often silly -- and this one seems so, too -- but it does prove a point. Want a growing business: Converting churches into condos. European languages required.

Church attendance in Britain is declining so fast that the number of regular churchgoers will be fewer than those attending mosques within a generation, research published today suggests.

The fall - from the four million people who attend church at least once a month today - means that the Church of England, Catholicism and other denominations will become financially unviable. A lack of funds from the collection plate to support the Christian infrastructure, including church upkeep and ministers’ pay and pensions, will force church closures as ageing congregations die.

In contrast, the number of actively religious Muslims will have increased from about one million today to 1.96 million in 2035.

According to Religious Trends, a comprehensive statistical analysis of religious practice in Britain, published by Christian Research, even Hindus will come close to outnumbering churchgoers within a generation. The forecast to 2050 shows churchgoing in Britain declining to 899,000 while the active Hindu population, now at nearly 400,000, will have more than doubled to 855,000. By 2050 there will be 2,660,000 active Muslims in Britain - nearly three times the number of Sunday churchgoers.

Apparently Italians think so.

Cheer up, Americans, your Bible knowledge is better than Italians. Pasta is bad for your piety.

Italy professes to be a Catholic nation - but a majority of Italians do not know "even the most basic facts" about the Bible, according to a survey.

The international poll, conducted by Eurisko for the Catholic Biblical Federation, showed that in Italy only 14 per cent of those questioned were able to answer a series of questions about the Bible correctly. They included whether Moses or St Paul featured in the Old Testament, whether Jesus had written any of the Gospels, and whether the Gospels form part of the Bible. Another question which defeated most Italians was: which of the following - Luke, John, Peter and Paul - wrote the Gospels?

Among the respondents 88 per cent of Italians described themselves as Roman Catholics, three quarters said they kept a Bible in their home, and 79 per cent said they felt their lives were "protected by God". But only 32 per cent described themselves as "regular churchgoers", and only 28 per cent thought the Bible should be taught in schools.

Whereas in the US 75 per cent of Americans claim to have read a Bible passage recently, in Italy the figure is 27 per cent. Vatican officials said the survey, co-ordinated by Luca Diotallevi, a Rome University sociologist, offered "food for thought" for the Synod Bishops in Rome this autumn on the Word Of God, where its implications would be discussed.

Yet more news today in the Obama and Exodus front. In an interview that Jeffrey Goldberg has now posted on his new blog, Obama talks about his appreciation of the Leon Uris novel Exodus.

Obama and I spoke over the weekend about Hamas, about Jimmy Carter, and about the future of Jewish settlements on the West Bank. He seemed eager to talk about his ties to the Jewish community, and about the influence Jews have had on his life. Among other things, he told me that he learned the art of moral anguish from Jews. We spoke as well about my Atlantic cover story on Israel’s future. He mentioned his interest in the opinions of the writer David Grossman, who is featured in the article. “I remember reading The Yellow Wind when it came out, and reading about Grossman now is powerful, painful stuff.” And, speaking in a kind of code Jews readily understand, Obama also made sure to mention that he was fond of the writer Leon Uris, the author of Exodus.

Goldberg then asks him about the concern in some Jewish quarters about his presidency, and thsi is Obama's answer.

I find that really interesting. I think the idea of Israel and the reality of Israel is one that I find important to me personally. Because it speaks to my history of being uprooted, it speaks to the African-American story of exodus, it describes the history of overcoming great odds and a courage and a commitment to carving out a democracy and prosperity in the midst of hardscrabble land. One of the things I loved about Israel when I went there is that the land itself is a metaphor for rebirth, for what’s been accomplished. What I also love about Israel is the fact that people argue about these issues, and that they’re asking themselves moral questions.

Sometimes I’m attacked in the press for maybe being too deliberative. My staff teases me sometimes about anguishing over moral questions. I think I learned that partly from Jewish thought, that your actions have consequences and that they matter and that we have moral imperatives. The point is, if you look at my writings and my history, my commitment to Israel and the Jewish people is more than skin-deep and it’s more than political expediency. When it comes to the gut issue, I have such ardent defenders among my Jewish friends in Chicago. I don’t think people have noticed how fiercely they defend me, and how central they are to my success, because they’ve interacted with me long enough to know that I've got it in my gut. During the Wright episode, they didn’t flinch for a minute, because they know me and trust me, and they’ve seen me operate in difficult political situations.

The other irony in this whole process is that in my early political life in Chicago, one of the raps against me in the black community is that I was too close to the Jews. When I ran against Bobby Rush [for Congress], the perception was that I was Hyde Park, I’m University of Chicago, I’ve got all these Jewish friends. When I started organizing, the two fellow organizers in Chicago were Jews, and I was attacked for associating with them. So I’ve been in the foxhole with my Jewish friends, so when I find on the national level my commitment being questioned, it’s curious.

As regular readers of FeilerFaster know, I've just completed a book about the influence of Moses in America that looks at the Exodus as the great American story, linking the Pilgrims, founding fathers, Abolitionists, civil rights leaders, and almost every American president from George Washington to George W. Bush. Obama has made his hewing to the Exodus story one of the meta-themes of his run for the presidency.

Interesting language in a Bob Novak column:

John McCain, who has spent the last two months trying to consolidate right-wing support as the Republican candidate for president, has a problem of disputed dimensions with a vital component of the conservative coalition: the evangelicals. The biggest question is whether Mike Huckabee is part of the problem or the solution for McCain.

An element of the Christian community is not reconciled to McCain's candidacy but instead regards the prospective presidency of Barack Obama in the nature of a Biblical plague visited upon a sinful people. These militants look at former Baptist preacher Huckabee as "God's candidate" running for president in 2012. Whether they can be written off as merely a troublesome fringe group depends on Huckabee's course.

Plague? Biblical? Is this going to be the Exodus campaign all of a sudden? Obama has likened his candicacy to the "Joshua generation," saying on several occasions that the leaders of the civil rights movemement with the Moses generation and his generation is the one that follows, designed to take African-Americans (and the rest of the country as well) into the Promised Land. Now suddenly we have language coming out of the evangelical wing of the GOP that he is a biblical plague. And not the good kind, like the ones God sends to free the Moses generation. The 2008 Presidential Election is shaping up to be, among other things, an exegetical battle over the Book of Exodus.

This year's newest explanation. A Cuneiform clay tablet which for over 150 years defied attempts at interpretation has been "revealed" to describe an asteroid impact which in 3123 BC hit Köfels, Austria, leaving in its wake a trail of destruction...

A friend in London who travels a lot around the world was visiting New York recently. We had a sobering conversation in which this very sophisticated traveler, who's written numerous books about China, said she concerned that the growing impact...

The NYT looks at Black Liberation Theology and its declining significance in the black community -- only a quarter of churches now follow the theology that stresses that God's commitment to free the Israelites in the Bible, among other places,...