Words upon the Word

James Bielo's Words upon the Word is a short, intelligent, and well-written analysis of what happens when Protestant Christians who live in the United States come together in small- and medium-sized groups to read the Bible. Scholars working in a number of different disciplines—anthropology, American studies, religious studies, women's studies, political science, and sociology, for example—have produced a rich scholarly literature on contemporary American Protestantism. A great many of the texts those scholars have written indicate that group Bible study plays a large role in shaping contemporary Protestantism in the United States. But few scholars have focused their attention on what Bible study groups are and on how they work. Bielo's exploration of group Bible study is based on fieldwork in Lansing, Michigan, that he conducted in 2004 and 2005. Although he collected data on 19 groups, the evidence Bielo presents to support his arguments are drawn primarily on what he saw and heard while attending five study groups. One of those groups was associated with the restoration movement, three with a United Methodist Church, and one with the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod. Quite generously, the women and men who participated in those groups allowed Bielo to tape record their study sessions. Recording and transcribing the conversations that took place in those study groups gave Bielo a listening post from which he could gather data about American Protestants that is different from, and in some ways superior to, the data that can be gathered by using structured interviews or observations of congregational worship services. Words upon the Word is studded with long quotations that come directly from the participants in the groups that Bielo was studying. Those quotations sometimes interrupt the flow of Bielo's argument. But they also give the reader remarkable glimpses into the way that the participants in the study groups understood the world in which they live.

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