Church of England faces "Bible Shortage"

It seems almost unimaginable here in the States, but the Church of England is facing a "Bible shortage". It is not that churches can not buy Bibles, but that many Church of England churches have been maintaining low stocks of Bibles in the building, so that visitors/parishioners have no chance to confirm the preaching from he pulpit.

The Church's General Synod has voted to ensure that every visitor to a church should have "easy and unfettered" access to the Word of God.

Opening a debate on the issue at the Synod this week, Tim Cox, from Blackpool, said that many churches failed to make Bibles readily available.

Canon Marilyn McCord Adams, the Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford University, said she had grown up the American Bible Belt "on the choruses of Jesus Loves Me! This I Know, For The Bible Tells Me So and The Bible, Yes, That's The Book for Me."

She said Bibles should be in churches so that people in the pews could object to interpretations of it by the "higher ups"...

It was "critically important" that the Bible was in church buildings and available for people to use.

Those of you who were Quizzers last year may remember Acts 17:11: "Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true." Scripture clearly encourages us to read the Bible in order to check the teachings of our teachers. So, I am glad to see the CoE is looking to fix this problem.