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Vlad Marinescu Comm 430 Final Paper 05/03/2011

The topic which I have researched examines whether Christians of any denomination have read, are currently reading or are planning to read the Bible. I have chosen to research this topic because I find it very interesting that I have heard of so many people that claim to be Christian but have yet to read the word of God. In this category I have to include myself, because I had no interest in reading the Bible until a few years ago. I believe that guidance from the family is very important in order for teenagers to take the right steps in life. The hypothesis that I have developed is that teenagers who have read the Bible and have a good understanding of the values, morals and life style which it teaches, are better persons in general. This includes the desire to help others, the respect and compassion for the elderly, the love and devotion towards family and the idea that every second is a gift. Furthermore, before conducting this research, I started off with the hypothesis that very few teenagers in our days read the Bible at all. The research questions that will help test both hypotheses would be if students have read the Bible and to what extent, what kind of help did they get from their families or friends, and how does the Bible help them with their lives. From the literature reviews which I have previously discussed, I have found that many people of all ages are losing their spirituality in general. Some also claim that children in our days do not have a strong set of morals, because most of their free time is spend playing violent video games, playing violent sports, watching pointless shows on television or interacting with children

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who do the exact same. Parents need to teach children a set of morals and values that come from a higher authority, with a higher purpose. It is not enough to desire a good carrier only for the material benefits, but rather desire to become a person who does not live only to serve his own purposes. Popular culture also has a critical role in building values for children who in our days desire to have fancy clothes and dream about driving exquisite cars but are ignorant when it comes to matters such as world poverty or the wars in which innocent people are dying every day. The articles which I have previously mentioned argued that teenagers with a good Bible study background are more interested in the arts and more opened towards literature. When it comes to new age topics such as genetic mutation, cloning, abortion, stem cell research and others, Bible believing Christians take a strong stance against such matters which deny are primary rights as humans. Furthermore, articles discussed how Bible students are also becoming very rare, as statistics show that few children and teenagers across the United States have even the most basic concepts about what the Bible is all about. This shows why a lot of teenagers are confused and have a lot of major misconceptions about the Bible in general. For this project I have gathered data in two different ways. First of all, a quantitative method used to determine how many children, teenagers and adults alike have read the Bible out of a random sample of 270 people from my list of Facebook friends. From the 270 people, I got responses from 236 within one week. Second, a qualitative method designed in order to better understand why teenagers chosen to read or not read the Bible, and how this affected their lives if it did indeed. For this method I conducted 28 interviews on campus, choosing people randomly but conducting the interview only if they tuned out to be Christian. I got information from all 28 interviews and the results were surprising.

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Out of the 236 people that answered the online survey conducted through Facebook, 107 answered Yes stating that they have read the Bible. That gave me a percentage of a little above 45% positive responses. These first findings were not very surprising because I believe that many which answered No were not Christian to begin with. In my opinion, the percentage showed that indeed there are many who read or have read the Bible even from a sample of totally random people from across the world. As for the second method, this is where the findings turned out to be very surprising and in contrary with my second hypothesis which said that few Christian teenagers read the Bible in our days. Out of the total of 28 interviews conducted, an amazing number of 26 students said that they have or are reading the Bible. The two students who claimed they have not read the Bible said they are only Christian by tradition and they do not really believe in God. They also claimed their families never talked about such matters and did not go to church at all. Percentage wise, this translates into a positive response rate of above 92% which proves my hypothesis wrong. Out of the 26 students who claimed they have read the Bible, 15 stated that they have only partially read the Bible, mostly referring to the New Testament. The primary reasons for why they have only read the New Testament were that the Old Testament is very lengthy and hard to understand which came with no surprise. The students answers for how the Bible has changed their life were very divers and touching. I will not quote because all of the students chose to remain anonymous (and had no problems with the information they have provided being used for a project). Some of the students claimed that the Bible made God more real for them, brought him closer and made him more personal as supposed to being just a myth; they said that the Bible is very poetic, even beautiful to read, helping them get past hard times, giving them advice drawn from different specific verses; some said that it offered them a sense of community, of belonging to a certain group of people who can help each other in times of need and offer comfort; a few

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talked about the Book of Psalms as being their favorite, one of them saying that she reads Psalms for hard times; some said that it gave them guidance in life, relief from anxiety, anger and fear; one person stated that she started reading the Bible very skeptical, with a lot of doubts, but after reading through many great passages she stopped denied the authenticity of the book and saw it with different eyes, claiming that it is a living word. Furthermore, many claimed that the Bible made them love life more, realize how important friends and families are and strive to become a better person every day, as one so claimed. I did not choses particular people to interview, ending up interviewing a person from Malaysia, two from Spain, one from Mexico and one from Africa. Analyzing the data I have gathered for this project I realize that I was wrong with the hypothesis that few teenagers in our day read the Bible. At least from this study, the conclusion can be draw that many Christian from all over the world, gathered on the Wichita State University campus have read or actively study the word of God and it offers them unlimited support with their lives. The conclusion that they are great, wise people cannot be drawn, although I will draw the conclusion that they have a great set of morals that guides their lives. Many of the students interviewed, claimed that they get a lot of help and guidance from their parents, who introduced the word of God early in their lives. The few that answered that they have not and do not plan to read the Bible, just so happened that they claimed their parents did not have a big interest in this topic, other than the usual traditions. As for the hypothesis that teenagers who read or have read the Bible are better persons in general, I will just say that the ones which I have interviewed showed a great amount of respect in general, were happy to talk about this matter and claimed that the Bible offers them an unlimited amount of help in their lives. In conclusion, I have showed how important it is to study something in order to be sure that your assumptions are correct. Also, it is very important to test a hypothesis with both quantitative

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and qualitative methods because both serve different purposes, of equal importance. The hypotheses which I developed helped me guide the research in a certain direction and the finding proved one to be right and the other wrong. All in all the findings were interesting and I will continue to research this topic hoping to further prove that the Bible is more than just a book, and offers much help, guidance and hope for Christians everywhere, with the support of the families being critical in every step of the way.