Reading the Bible Outside the Church: A Case Study

In many places in the Western world, churchgoing is in decline and it cannot be assumed that people have a good grasp of the Bible's content.

In this evolving situation, how would "e;the person on the street"e; read the Bible?

Reading the Bible Outside the Church begins to answer this question.

David Ford spent ten months at a chemical industrial plant providing non-churchgoing men with the opportunity to read and respond to five different biblical texts.

Using an in-depth qualitative methodology, he charts how their prior experiences of religion, sense of (non)religious identity, attitudes towards the Bible, and beliefs about the Bible all shaped the readings that occurred.