Morning Bell: Religious Faith Is Still Good News for America

Jennifer Marshall / April 22, 2011

The year 2011 marks the 400th anniversary of the publication of the King James Bible. Leland Ryken, a scholar of Christian literature and the Puritans, describes this as one of the most important cultural developments in the history of the English-speaking world. In his new book The Legacy of the King James Bible, Ryken records its sweeping influence on our language, education, religion, and culture.

The King James Bible has been “the greatest vehicle of literacy in the English-speaking world,” by one account. Statesman Daniel Webster credited his famous oratory to its shaping: “If there be anything in my style or thoughts to be commended, the credit is due to my kind parents in instilling into my mind an early love of the Scriptures.”

For almost four hundred years, the King James Bible provided for England and America what Ryken, quoting a sociologist, calls “the mythology of a culture”: “the framework of beliefs, values, expressive symbols, and artistic motifs in terms of which individuals define their world, express their feelings, and make their judgments.” (more…)