diacrisis

"Please turn in your Bibles to..."

Heard that one before? Oh, every sermon ever? Yeah.

I don't want to knock the good people who have donated so much time and money to buying Bibles for their local church pews, but is it really a good idea to have your entire congregation reading the Sunday passage off a page? Maybe I'm just lazy, but in case you didn't notice, someone always reads it aloud anyway. And here I am using my own oculomotor nerves like a sucker.

Stop reading along in your Bibles in church. Listen instead of reading.

Text spoken by another is more understandable than text which is read to oneself. I proved this when I ran my spontaneous Shakespeare company; there were plenty of occasions when a spontaneous actor would read lines aloud from a script and not understand those words themselves, yet the audience understood them quite well (and that was Shakespearian English!). Studies of aphasic injury to Wernicke's area show us that subvocalization is critical to understanding what we read with our eyes, but there's something about actually hearing audible words that makes that comprehension more resonant.

When hearing speech, our other senses (especially the kinesthetic) produce an associated emotional response that aids in comprehension. Reading, which requires us to minimize movement and the distractions of our other senses, can't do that. Reading printed text can also lead to "passive" reading, where the visual cortex processes symbols but the auditory/semantic processing is quiescent. Surely you've done this many times, especially with the Bible and especially with well-known verses--you read a passage and are completely unable to explain or even remember what you read just moments before.

Closing your Bible and listening will do several things:

1. Increase your understanding.
2. Express solidarity with the billions (trillions?) of Christians throughout history who never got to read the Bible.
3. You'll understand better the actions and reactions of Biblical characters, most of whom rarely read, if at all. Jesus' audience for the Sermon on the Mount had no recording equipment other than their own ears. You might also start to believe that oral traditions can actually be better transmitters of semantics than written ones, which tend to transmit syntax more accurately.
4. You can use it as an opportunity to improve your phonographic memory. But keep in mind that memorization can actually reduce comprehension--recollection from memorized text can actually skip some of the semantic-processing portions of the brain.

Ignorance is strength, and that ignorance is maintained through shared hatred, triumph, and self-abasement, so maybe I'm crazy for asking you to experience more emotional impact during a sermon. Definitely read the passages again in the pew or at home until you've supported whatever febrile spirit-led conclusion your pastor threw out this time. But take the opportunity every Sunday to focus your attention on the spoken word when it's read for you.