The Biblical Literacy Crisis & What It Means for Israel’s Future
By ICEJ USA President Dr. Susan Michael
We are witnessing a strange paradox. A recent Barna Group State of the Church report showed a rise in Bible engagement alongside a profound decline in biblical literacy and conviction.
Weekly Bible reading among self-identified Christians reached 42% in 2025—the highest record in over a decade, with young adults leading the way, according to Barna CEO David Kinnaman. However, Kinnaman also stated that the number of Americans who believe the Bible is completely accurate in its principles dropped to 36% in 2025. In a similar vein, a 2022 Ligonier study found 53% of US adults viewed the Bible merely as a collection of ancient myths. “Engagement is outpacing conviction,” says Kinnaman.
A Decline in Biblical Literacy
This decline in biblical literacy and conviction is more than a crisis of personal faith. It creates a vacuum that is quickly filled by cultural narratives and theological errors. Even Christians can fall prey to significant misconceptions. And when they don’t know the story of the Bible or believe it to be true, it impacts more than their relationship with Jesus: it reduces the significance of the covenantal land promised to Abraham and his descendants to a tale.
When this happens, said Eagle’s Wings Founder Bishop Robert Stearns on a recent Out of Zion Podcast interview, the people of the Bible (the Jews) and the land of the Bible (Israel) become less important. Israel becomes known as “just another country,” and Jerusalem—the place where God has placed His name and to where Jesus will one day return—becomes just another city.
And the modern state of Israel ceases to make sense.
Without a structured understanding of the Bible’s geographic home, with Jerusalem as its center, the biblical narrative, with the Jewish people as key players and Jerusalem as its fulcrum, unravels. We are watching it happen—the ripple effect of this vacuum is manifesting in our streets and on our screens.
How Biblical Illiteracy Impacts Theology & Antisemitism
This lack of scriptural understanding plays out in several ways.
The Adoption of the “Apartheid” Myth
Without the historical context provided by a biblical foundation, Christians may accept the false narrative that Israel is an “apartheid” state—discriminatory and oppressive against non-Jews, and segregated. Stearns says this lie often collapses when a person visits the land and sees diverse communities, such as Muslim doctors and nurses, working freely within Israeli society.
God’s Character Erodes
Biblical illiteracy often leads to a disconnect with the Old Testament, which, in turn, can lead a person to adopt a theology in which God can “replace” His original covenants or change His mind. However, if He breaks covenants, He is unfaithful. This contradicts Scripture, such as Deuteronomy 7:9, which says God is faithful and “keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations,” and 2 Timothy 2:13, which says even if we are faithless, God remains faithful, for “He cannot deny Himself.”
The Rise of Replacement Theology
Once God’s covenant with Abraham is dismissed as invalid, it becomes easy to embrace Replacement Theology—the belief that the church has permanently superseded Israel in God’s plan. The church is redefined as “spiritual” Israel, and the Jewish people are no longer set apart for a specific purpose, rendering the modern State of Israel irrelevant to God’s plan of redemption. This view ignores the scriptural narrative that affirms that God will use the Jewish people as a primary instrument in His end-time activity, fulfilling a prophetic plan that began in Jerusalem and will ultimately culminate there.
The De-Judaizing of Jesus
Removing the land and the covenant from theology inevitably removes the Jewishness from Jesus. He becomes “Western-centered,” a modern cultural figure depicted as a light-skinned, English-speaking man rather than a first-century, Middle Eastern Jew born in Nazareth from the line of King David. By stripping Jesus of His context, Christians lose the ability to see the Jewish people as the family from which their Savior came.
Passive Antisemitism through Indifference
If the Jewish people are no longer God’s people—the “hinge” in His plan of redemption—attacks against them are just political conflict, not an attack on God and His Word. When the thread that knits the Bible together—God’s enduring commitment to a particular people in a particular piece of land—is relegated to myth, Israel is downgraded from a biblical priority to a geopolitical nuisance. Consequently, antisemitic narratives often go unchallenged in Christian circles; when the “spiritual home” of Jerusalem is no longer valued, the people who belong to it are no longer defended.
“A Reset Moment”
However, all is not lost. Kinnaman sees the issue as a “reset moment” for the American church—and I agree. We stand at a crossroads where rising biblical engagement must be met with radical biblical reeducation. If we continue to raise a generation that opens the Bible and enjoys its stories but disconnects them from the divine blueprint of God’s work over all time, we will leave them with nothing but “helpful myths”—and leave the nation of Israel to face a rising tide of global hostility without its most natural and informed allies.
Key Biblical Concepts to Know about Israel
Click each grey box to learn more about each topic and related Scripture:
The foundational biblical concept regarding Israel is God’s unconditional covenant with Abraham. God promised to make Abraham into a great nation, bless him, and give a specific geographic land (the land of Canaan) to his descendants as an everlasting possession.
Genesis 17:7–8 (NKJV) – “And I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be a God to you and your descendants after you. Also I give to you and your descendants after you the land in which you are a stranger, all the land of Canaan, as an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.”
The Bible frequently refers to Israel as God’s “chosen” or “special treasure” (segullah in Hebrew). This election was not based on Israel’s size, power, or inherent righteousness, but solely on God’s sovereign love and His faithfulness to the oaths He made to their forefathers.
Deuteronomy 7:6 (NKJV) – “For you are a holy people to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for Himself, a special treasure, above all the peoples on the face of the earth.”
Israel’s chosen status was never meant to be a privilege to hoard, but a responsibility to fulfill. They were called to be a “kingdom of priests”—mediators between the one true God and the rest of the world—and a light that would draw all nations to the knowledge of the One True God..
Isaiah 49:6 (NKJV) “Indeed He says, ‘It is too small a thing that You should be My Servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved ones of Israel; I will also give You as a light to the Gentiles, that You should be My salvation to the ends of the earth.’”
The Mosaic Covenant established blessings for obedience and consequences for disobedience. God warned Israel that if they turned to idolatry and violated His laws, they would be removed from the promised land and scattered among the nations (today known as the Jewish Diaspora). However, this discipline was never meant to be final destruction.
Deuteronomy 28:64 (NKJV) “Then the Lord will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other, and there you shall serve other gods, which neither you nor your fathers have known—wood and stone.”
A key theme throughout the prophetic books is the ultimate physical and spiritual restoration of Israel. The prophets foretold a time when God would gather His people from the corners of the earth, bring them back to their ancestral land, and give them a “new heart” to walk in His ways permanently.
Ezekiel 36:24–26 (NKJV) “For I will take you from among the nations, gather you out of all countries, and bring you into your own land. Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.”
Hear Dr. Susan Michael’s conversation with Bishop Robert Stearns on biblical illiteracy and how it impacts a person’s understanding of Israel:
Get your FREE PDF download The Simple Guide to the Story of Modern Israel:
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