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Reading Sacred Texts: A Qualitative Study of Religious Educators’ Literacy

Processes

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DOI: 10.1080/10656219.2020.1838366

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Reading Sacred Texts: A Qualitative Study of

Religious Educators’ Literacy Processes

Eric D. Rackley

To cite this article: Eric D. Rackley (2020): Reading Sacred Texts: A Qualitative Study of
Religious Educators’ Literacy Processes, Journal of Research on Christian Education, DOI:
10.1080/10656219.2020.1838366

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JOURNAL OF RESEARCH ON CHRISTIAN EDUCATION
https://doi.org/10.1080/10656219.2020.1838366

Reading Sacred Texts: A Qualitative Study of Religious

Educators’ Literacy Processes
Eric D. Rackley
School of Education, Brigham Young University-Hawaii, Laie, HI, USA

ABSTRACT
Conceptualizing religious literacy as the processes used to
construct meaning of sacred texts, this article focuses on how
three religious educators read scripture. Data were generated
through verbal protocols in which participants read scripture
and verbalized their thinking. Inductive thematic analysis
yielded a selection of scripture-reading processes in which
participants amended scripture by adding, omitting, and sub-
stituting words; recognized and evaluated scripture-reading
confusion; and tried to balance reading purposes with in-the-
moment points of interest. As an empirical examination of the
real-life, scripture-reading experiences of religious educators,
this study can help clarify how religious educators approach
sacred texts.

In their various manifestations, sacred texts occupy an essential place in

our lives. They can, for example, inform religious knowledge development
(Watt & Fairfield, 2008), facilitate identity formation (Baquedano-Lopez,
2000; Reyes, 2009; Skerrett, 2017), and shape how we conceptualize and
engage in the world around us (Heath, 1983; Sarroub, 2002). Sacred texts
can also shape our view of the human experience, help us “transcend very
oppressive situations” (Farr, 2000, p. 319; Guerra & Farr, 2002), and pro-
mote academic achievement (Skerrett, 2014, 2016). Although current evi-
dence suggests the enormous personal and institutional influence of sacred
texts, there is limited empirical research exploring how religious educators,
who work at the intersection of religion and pedagogy and play a key role
in the development of learners’ religious knowledge, read them. As such,
we have scant empirical knowledge about the tools, approaches, and practi-
ces religious educators use to make sense of sacred texts. This study attends
to this gap by examining in detail the scripture-reading processes of three
religious educators. This work can help clarify—and perhaps demystify—
the manner in which experts approach sacred texts and can provide an

CONTACT Eric D. Rackley eric.rackley@byuh.edu School of Education, Brigham Young University-Hawaii,

Laie, HI 96762, USA.
ß 2020 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC and Andrews University
2 E. D. RACKLEY

entry-point for reexamining scripture literacy processes and rethinking

aspects of scripture literacy instruction.

Theoretical frame and key constructs

Two related perspectives frame this study: a process view of religious liter-
acy and religious literacy events.

Conceptualizations of religious literacy

Religious literacy is a complex and fluid construct that has been concep-
tualized in a variety of ways and put to a variety of uses, each of which
emphasizes different aspects of “faith development and religious growth”
(Watt & Fairfield, 2008, p. 362). Traditionally, religious literacy has focused
on learning and using religious information. This might be called the
“knowledge” perspective because it conceptualizes religion as a body of
learnable information, such as religious ideas, events, narratives, and rea-
soning, that can help address important questions about life (Jackson, 2004;
Wright, 2007, 2016) and inform one’s views of historical, social, and aca-
demic issues (American Academy of Religion, 2010; Moore, 2007 ).
According to this view, literacy is characterized by the ability to understand
and use knowledge to engage in conversations about religious truth and its
influence in our lives and society (Prothero, 2007).
Much of the current religious literacy scholarship conceptualizes religious
literacy as the acquisition of religious knowledge. This makes sense, given
the fundamental view of literacy as the construction of meaning (Ruddell &
Unrau, 2013 ). Barnes and Smith (2015), for example, explained religious
literacy “as the acquisition of knowledge about religious beliefs and
practices” (p. 80) that can be used for understanding religious diversity and
to promote harmony. Conroy (2015) demonstrated the place of acquiring
knowledge as a key tenet of religious literacy by explaining religious literacy
as “an acquaintance with, an understanding of, the nature of religious lan-
guage, religious concepts and practices, and some grasp of the complexities,
contradictions and challenges of at least one religious tradition” (pp.
168–169). “Acquaint,” “understand,” and “grasp” attend to the acquisition
of religious knowledge in various forms, such as language, concepts, and
challenges. Wright (2016) conceptualized religious literacy as “the capacity
to pursue ultimate truth and live increasingly truthful lives sub specie
aeternatatis” (p. 233). This involved engagement with the ultimate order of
things, epistemic relativity, and wise and intelligent judgment in the pursuit
of truth. Here, literacy represented the ability to think, communicate, and
act reasonably and responsibly. Importantly, Wright’s view of religious
 JOURNAL OF RESEARCH ON CHRISTIAN EDUCATION 3

literacy as the ability to pursue truth represented a way of thinking about

truth that informs one’s construction of knowledge. Although a knowledge
perspective provides important insight into and direction in religious edu-
cation, religious literacy is more than acquiring information and truth and
making use of that in our lives.
A “process” view of religious literacy operationalizes the mechanisms for
pursuing truth, acquiring knowledge, understanding faith, and in other
ways generating religious meaning (Pike, 2007; Rackley, 2015, 2017, 2018;
Sullivan, 2007). The aim of a process view of religious literacy is the pro-
duction of knowledge. It attends to knowledge development by focusing on
the methods, manner, and practices of knowing, or how we engage with
and construct meaning of ultimate truth. This view of religious literacy sit-
uates literacy as the use of processes such as reading, talking, and thinking
to generate meaning. Sensitive to social and cultural contexts, a process
view of religious literacy may attend to the religiocultural influences that
inform religious knowledge development (Rackley, 2014; Sarroub, 2002). In
a word, a process perspective of religious literacy addresses the develop-
ment of religious knowledge by claiming that what we learn about ultimate
truth is driven by how we engage with it. From this perspective, religion
represents a special, yet varied, category of meaning-making that involves
religious texts and religious meaning-making processes.
Literature from a processing view of religious literacy includes a variety
of perspectives that all focus on exploring the how of religious literacy, or
the way individuals read religious texts. Using Rosenblatt’s (1968, 2013)
reader-response theory of reading, for example, Pike (2007) framed reli-
gious literacy as the transaction between readers and texts. Pike argued that
religious literacy involved specific methods of interaction between religious
texts and readers of religious texts to produce religious knowledge; there-
fore, a clearer understanding of the nature of these readers and texts could
inform how we engage in the construction of religious truth. Building
upon Pike’s view of religious literacy as a reader-text transaction, other
research has studied the ways in which religious individuals transact with
scripture. Work in this vein has identified a number of processing tools
such as readers’ purposes, experiences, and character, and the clarity and
quality of religious texts (Sullivan, 2007). Other research has identified
scripture literacy strategies such as making connections, inferring, and
problem solving (Rackley, 2015); recognizing confusion, drawing on prior
knowledge, and making personal observations (Rackley, 2018); and asking
interpretive questions, visualizing, and applying scripture to one’s life
(Rackley, 2017). These various processing tools facilitate the construction of
the meaning of religious texts by offering readers direction and insight into
“religious ways of reading” (Sullivan, 2007, p. 25). In this study, religious
4 E. D. RACKLEY

literacy is examined from a process perspective by identifying how religious

educators constructed meaning of religious texts by looking explicitly at
their meaning-making processes as they occurred during religious, liter-
acy events.

(Religious) literacy events

Heath (1982) explained literacy events as “occasions in which written lan-
guage is integral to the nature of participants’ interactions and their inter-
pretive processes” (p. 50). Because texts and speech lie at the heart of
literacy events, we may think of them as “a mixture of written and spoken
language” (Barton & Hamilton, 1998, p. 8). This text-speech interaction
influences readers’ text engagement, processing, and interpretation. We
must, therefore, be familiar with the various, and often nuanced, aspects of
literacy events as text-based learning experiences in order to participate in
them productively.
As activities in which individuals interact with texts, literacy events pro-
vide a lens through which to view the construction, use, and effect of
meaning-making practices, such as reading. Importantly, literacy events
have a reciprocal relationship with literacy practices insofar as literacy
events “arise from [literacy] practices and are shaped by them” (Barton &
Hamilton, 1998, p. 8). For this study, I conceptualize the relationship
between literacy events and literacy practices as described in Figure 1.
Literacy events can stand out for the clarity of their representation of spe-
cific, individual literacy practices or more multifaceted literacy processes.
Using footnotes, for example, may be a specific literacy practice used to

Literacy
Process

Literacy Literacy
Process Process

Literacy Event

Figure 1. Relationship among literacy practices, processes, and events.

 JOURNAL OF RESEARCH ON CHRISTIAN EDUCATION 5

clarify understanding of a word; yet, using footnotes may also be part of a

family of practices used together to accomplish a larger goal during a liter-
acy event, such as establishing the narrative context of a passage. In terms
of their relative “sizes,” several literacy practices constitute a literacy pro-
cess, many of which can occur during literacy events.
The literacy events in this study had a religious component because they
revolved around the reading of sacred texts. As such, they were religious,
literacy events. I examined the religious, literacy events of religious educa-
tors by focusing on “the nature of participants’ interactions and … inter-
pretive processes” (Heath, 1982, p. 50) with scripture. The religious,
literacy events in this study demonstrate important reading practices and
processes used as part of the participants’ experiences with sacred texts. For
the participants, reading scripture was a common literacy event. Whether
the religious, literacy events generated knowledge for the participants is
taken up only in an attempt to examine the processes that informed the
development of that knowledge. I make no claims about the truthfulness or
historical, theological, or cultural veracity of the participants’ insights.
Together, a process view of religious literacy and religious, literacy events
form a theoretical framework for an empirical examination of the mean-
ing-making processes of religious educators as they engaged with scripture.

Methodology
In this section, I identify the study’s participants, the primary methods
used to collect data, and the analytic procedures. In each of these areas, I
employed techniques informed by the standards and practices of social sci-
entific research to guard against potential researcher bias and enhance the
trustworthiness of the study. These included obtaining Institutional Review
Board approval before beginning the study, receiving informed consent
from all participants, selecting a purposeful sample of participants, estab-
lishing thematic coherence across data collection methods, employing peer
collaboration across the analytic procedures, and providing rich descrip-
tions of participants’ literary processes (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016; Patton,
2015). Given the researcher’s key role in qualitative research (Corbin &
Strauss, 2008), using these tools helped maintain the scientific integrity of
the study.

Participants
Representing a subset of the wealth of religious educators’ backgrounds
and worldviews, the participants in this study were religious education fac-
ulty at a private, religious university in the United States with a
6 E. D. RACKLEY

predominant Latter-day Saint population. Given the limited amount of

research examining Latter-day Saint religious educators’ scripture-reading
processes, Latter-day Saint participants from a Latter-day Saint-affiliated
university provide an important perspective that remains unexamined.
Unlike current multi-faith, pluralistic religious education in much of the
world, religious education for the participants of this study was redolent of
the Christian confessional tradition (Jackson, 2004; Wright, 2007, 2016). At
the target university, the Department of Religious Education’s primary aim
was to develop students’ knowledge of and faith in the tenants of
Mormonism. Seeking “to cultivate the spiritual formation of the pupils,”
(Wright, 2016, p. 213) the religious educators in this study used Latter-day
Saint beliefs, practices, and scripture to nurture students into and within a
Mormon worldview.
Henry (all participant names are pseudonyms) was a recently retired reli-
gious educator, who at the time of data collection was serving as an adjunct
professor at the target institution. Stephen was a full-time religious educa-
tion faculty. John was a full-time religious educator associated with the uni-
versity. All of the participants had a variety of academic interests and
taught a range of religion courses. Participants were selected for inclusion
in this study based on their knowledge of religion and expertise in religious
education (Table 1). Participants received email invitations to join the
study. Seven religious educators agreed to participate. This study focuses
on three of them because data for these participants were the most com-
plete and provided the clearest representations of specific scripture-reading
processes. Given the participants’ knowledge of religion and their practical
experiences in religious education, they represent a purposeful and infor-
mation-rich sample (Maxwell, 2013; Patton, 2015) of experts who could
provide insight into the nature of scripture reading.
The number and nature of participants were informed by similar studies
examining the literacy practices of experts (Reynolds & Rush, 2017;
Shanahan et al., 2011). Studies of this type represent an opportunity to
develop a rich, detailed understanding of participants’ experiences and
ways of thinking. They also lend themselves to explanations of complex

Table 1. Description of participating religious educators.

Pseudonym Position(s)
Henry Recently retired religious
education faculty; part-time
religious education faculty
Stephen Full-time religious
education faculty
John Full-time religious educator
Years of
experience Academic interests and courses taught
45 20th Century Latter-day Saint history, Book of
Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, New
Testament, Old Testament
7 Book of Mormon, Church History, Early Christian
Texts, Gospel Doctrine, Jesus in the Gospel,
New Testament
6 Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, Family
History, New Testament
 JOURNAL OF RESEARCH ON CHRISTIAN EDUCATION 7

situations (Barone, 2011), such as individuals’ experiences with sacred texts.

The present study was designed to identify and describe (Yin, 2014) the
nature of religious educators’ scripture-reading practices and their underly-
ing reading processes. As such, this study aims to explain “instances of
states” or meaningful, real-life situations and behaviors (Crouch &
McKenzie, 2006) occurring in the scripture-reading experiences of the
participants.

Interview process
Participants completed two-three interviews, each lasting 30–60 min,
depending on type of interview, number of questions, and the participants’
responses (Table 2). The first interview gathered relevant background infor-
mation including participants’ conceptions of key constructs related to the
study. Interviews 2 and 3 were reading process interviews in which partici-
pants read passages aloud and verbalized their thinking (Ericsson, 2006;
Hilden & Pressley, 2011). As a source of data on readers’ experiences with
texts, verbal protocols of reading offer unique advantages, including in-the-
moment access to individuals’ thinking and reading processes (Pressley &
Allington, 2015). Using concurrent and retrospective reporting (Pressley &
Hilden, 2004) participants shared their thoughts, processes, and experiences
as they read, often prompted with “Please keep talking” and “What are you
thinking?” After the reading process interviews, participants were invited to
reflect on their reading experiences.
For the second interview, participants read self-selected chapters from
scripture. John and Stephen read chapters from the Book of Mormon (3
Nephi 27 and Alma 4, respectively). Henry read chapters from the Bible
(James 1–2, KJV). Doctrinally, Latter-day Saints believe that the Authorized
Version more closely aligns with other Latter-day Saint scripture (Benson,
1992), which include The Book of Mormon, The Doctrine and Covenants,
and The Pearl of Great Price. The portion of the interviews in which par-
ticipants verbalized their thinking lasted 15–20 min. For the third interview,
each participant read 2 Samuel 17:32–37, an excerpt about David before his
encounter with Goliath. Neither interview was designed to assess

Table 2. Interview foci and interviews completed.

Interview 1 Interview 2 Interview 3
Interview Foci Scripture-reading practices, Scripture-reading processes with Experiences reading scripture,
conceptions of scripture, self-selected texts, scripture-reading processes
teaching students to read retrospective on scripture- with assigned text,
scripture, experiences in reading processes retrospective on scripture-
religious education reading processes
Henry Completed Completed
Stephen Completed Completed Completed
John Completed Completed Completed
8 E. D. RACKLEY

participants’ knowledge of religion or religious texts. Shorter and more tar-

geted interviews were conducted electronically and in-person to clarify par-
ticipant responses and flesh-out ideas that surfaced during the analysis
process. All interviews were transcribed prior to analysis. This paper draws
primarily from the second interview but is informed by the others.

Analytic procedures
Guided by inductive thematic analysis (Boyatzis, 1998) and methods of
constant comparative analysis (Corbin & Strauss, 2008) the analysis proce-
dures sought to identify how religious educators read scripture.

Phase 1: identifying reading practices

Together, a colleague and I read the transcripts for Interview 2 to identify
the participants’ specific reading practices. Through collaborative micro-
analysis we coded one transcript at a time, line by line, to break open the
data (Corbin & Strauss, 2008). Guided by seminal reading research (e.g.
Duke et al., 2011; Pearson et al., 1992), we labeled the participants’ reading
practices as we encountered them. For example, if a participant anticipated
what might happen next, then we coded it as “predicting.” If he wrote in
the margins, then we coded it as “annotating.” Disagreements about codes
were settled through discussion, returning to the data to review previously
coded sections, and consulting relevant research to determine how well our
codes aligned with the literature. Specifically, disagreements included the
identification of specific practices, assigning labels to the practices and
larger processes, and determining the boundaries of the practices in the
data. This level of coding continued until all of the reading process inter-
views were coded. Phase 1 provided evidence of a variety of similar meth-
ods participants used to make sense of scripture across the interviews, but
the codes did not provide a coherent explanation of the data within
each interview.

Phase 2: unpacking literacy events

Returning to the interviews, we tried to identify internal consistencies
among the codes to explain how each participant read scripture. Together,
as we attempted to organize the codes into more inclusive categories
(Boyatzis, 1998), we noticed that participants’ literacy practices often clus-
tered around certain passages. Participants tended to spend more time with
these passages and use a variety of meaning-making practices to examine
them. The participants’ interactions with select passages were redolent of
readers’ engagement in literacy events (Barton & Hamilton, 1998; Heath,
 JOURNAL OF RESEARCH ON CHRISTIAN EDUCATION 9

Table 3. Identification and description of select literacy processes.

Pseudonym Key literacy event Select literacy process Description of literacy process
Henry James 2:3, 18 Amending the text Altering the text in the process of reading.
Alterations include adding words and
phrases, omitting words and phrases, and
substituting a word or a phrase
for another.
Stephen Alma 4:5 Recognizing and Identifying moments when one’s
evaluating understanding of a text falters, and then
reading confusion examining the nature of the confusion in
an effort to overcome it.
John 3 Nephi 27:13–14 Balancing purpose Striking a balance between attention to an
and interest initial line of inquiry and examination of
in-the-moment points of interest.

1982). This led us to examine the practices around key passages as text-
based learning experiences and focus on participants’ interpretive processes,
which allowed us to explore the participants’ reading within the frame of
specific interactions with specific parts of scripture. Within the literacy
events, analyses revealed clusters of literacy processes consisting of numer-
ous individual literacy practices (Figure 1). We created diagrams to help
clarify the relationships among the practices and processes. By the end of
Phase 2, we had identified key scripture literacy events in each interview
and began to unpack them by describing the reading practices within these
events and organizing the practices into larger, more robust liter-
acy processes.

Phase 3: examining literacy processes

In the final phase of analysis, we looked more carefully at the literacy proc-
esses. Similar to the diagrams in Phase 2 that sought to understand the
relationship among practices and processes, the diagrams we created in
Phase 3 articulated the features of the literacy processes. This helped clarify
how the processes were structured and functioning in the literacy events.
Because we also wanted to understand how the literacy processes influ-
enced the participants’ reading of sacred texts we returned to the data, dia-
grams, and preliminary analyses to identify what the processes offered to
the participants’ scripture reading. Specifically, we wondered what the par-
ticipants’ scripture-reading processes allowed them to do with scripture,
what affordances they offered, and what constraints they imposed.
Analyzing the literacy processes embedded in the literacy events provided a
clearer, if narrower, understanding of each participant’s meaning-making
with scripture. The three phases of analysis yielded a selection of literacy
processes drawn from each of the participants’ scripture-reading interviews
(Table 3).
10 E. D. RACKLEY

Religious educators’ literacy processes

Using exemplars from the data, I identify some of the religious educators’
key scripture-reading processes and examine how they influenced their
understanding of scripture. Although presented separately for clarity, in
practice the religious educators used these and other scripture-reading
processes flexibly and in combination with each other as they navigated
sacred texts.

Henry: amending the text

Henry’s scripture reading was characterized by frequent additions, omis-
sions, and other alterations to the text. The various changes Henry made as
he read were specific manifestations of his larger “amending the text” pro-
cess. In total, he amended the first two chapters of James 89 times. In add-
ition to omitting, adding, and replacing words and phrases, Henry added
transitions between verses, omitted verses (James 2:19), and summarized
groups of verses instead of reading them (James 2:21–25). Each omitted
and summarized verse counted as one amendment. Henry amended scrip-
ture during his entire reading process interview but did so much more fre-
quently in James 2 than in James 1.
Amending scripture included adding “and” in places to smooth out lists
and adding additional words to identify other ways to understand a pas-
sage. In James 1:4, for example, he read it as follows, adding “endurance”:
“But let patience [or endurance] have her perfect work, that ye may be per-
fect and entire, wanting nothing.” Other times, he included a transition
between verses to more clearly connect one verse to another. Before read-
ing James 1:5, for example, Henry said, “So, because of this,” referring to
James 1:4, “If any of you lack wisdom let him ask of God” (James 1:5).
These additions seemed to function as narrative links. He included them
when the ideas between verses could use stronger conceptual connections.
Henry also omitted words and phrases. He omitted the phrase “and the
Father” in James 1:27 so it read, “Pure religion and undefiled before God
and the Father is to visit the fatherless and widows in their afflictions.” In
addition to adding and deleting words and phrases, Henry also made
numerous substitutions.
His substitutions consisted of replacing the Elizabethan English of the
Authorized Version with common English equivalents. In James 1:26 he
substituted “doesn’t hold his tongue” for “bridleth not his tongue” and
“deceives” for “deceiveth.” Henry amended most verses by rephrasing them
in more colloquial language. His amendments to James 2:18 represent
word-level substitutions across the verse (Table 4). Henry’s alterations of
James 2:3 trimmed the passage from thirty-six to twenty-six words and
 JOURNAL OF RESEARCH ON CHRISTIAN EDUCATION 11

Table 4. Sample of Amending Scripture (James 2:18).

James 2:18 James 2:18 Amended
Passage Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, And a man says, Thou has faith and I
and I have works: shew me thy have works, show me your faith
faith without thy works, and I will without works, and I will show you
shew thee my faith by my works. my faith with works, and then
you judge.
Word count 29 30
Antiquated Words or Phrases Ye, hast, shew, thy, thee
Omissions Thy
Additions And then you judge
Substitutions Yea And
Hast Has
Shew (2) Show (2)
Thy Your
Thee You
By With

Table 5. Sample of amending scripture (James 2:3).

James 2:3 James 2:3 Amended
Passage And ye have respect to him that weareth And you think better of one than the
the gay clothing, and say unto him, other, and you say to one, “Well, you
Sit thou here in a good place; and say sit here,” and the poor guy, “You
to the poor, Stand thou here, or sit stand over there.”
here under my footstool.
Word count 36 26
Antiquated Words or Phrases Ye, respect to him, weareth, gay
clothing, thou, footstool
Omissions Or sit here under my footstool
Additions n/a
Substitutions And ye have respect to him that wearth And you think better of one than
the gay clothing the other
And say unto him And you say to one
Sit thou here in a good place Well, you sit here
And to the poor And the poor guy
Stand thou here You stand over there

removed or replaced five antiquated phrases (Table 5). Henry’s changes to

these and other verses appeared to capture the gist of the passages by using
fewer unfamiliar and more common words. After this interview, but prior
to data analysis, the interviewer indicated that Henry’s reading seemed to
be clearer and easier to follow than other participants’, suggesting that his
amendments had an agreeable auditory and cognitive effect.
For Henry, amending scripture appeared to serve as a cueing system that
indicated how well he was making sense of passages. If, for example, he
could make changes to the text, or to borrow his word, “translate” it into
more meaningful language without much effort, it signaled that he was
understanding what he was reading. If, however, he struggled making
changes it suggested that he needed “something to understand the passage,
i.e., background knowledge, context, or language specifics,” such as a better
understanding of the Greek translation. As an indicator of understanding,
amending scripture provided Henry with immediate feedback on his
12 E. D. RACKLEY

reading. He did not need to ask himself, “How well am I understanding

this?” Instead, his ability to make in-the-moment changes seemed to func-
tion as direct feedback on his comprehension. If he could translate easily,
then he was understanding what he was reading. If he struggled translating,
then he was not understanding the text and something needed to be done
to address it.
Amending scripture represents a literacy process through which Henry
translated ancient text for modern consumption. When asked about this
process, Henry called it a “purposeful strategy [used to] reconstruct the
meaning of an archaic text.” Clearly interested in making the Bible current,
Henry engaged in a word- and phrase-level alterations, which indicated a
willingness to make micro-level changes to facilitate more robust macro-
level understanding of scripture. Henry believed these changes were faithful
to the intent of the passages he was reading. Henry’s approach represents a
conceptualization of reading scripture as intentionally about constructing a
specific type of meaning, such as understanding what scripture says, which
is markedly different than reading for other purposes, such as to clear
one’s mind, draw closer to God, feel the Holy Spirit, or find answers to
one’s questions.
Henry stated that it could take some time to get into the “flow” of
amending scripture. He called it “becoming immersed in the text,” and
compared it to surfing: “I am surfing the scriptures, looking for the feel of
the text that enables me to connect with it. For me, there is a sweet spot
that comes where I can feel I can best reconstruct meaning.” Searching for
the “sweet spot” in his reading demanded an attentiveness to how the text
felt, or how and where he was able to interact with it in ways that
improved his understanding of it. As an indicator of the time it could take
to “feel the text” and the influence it could have on his reading as he
added, omitted, and substituted words and phrases, 18 of Henry’s amend-
ments occurred in James 1. Seventy-one occurred in James 2.

Stephen: recognizing and evaluating confusion

In a previous reading, Stephen had written “Numbers” in the margin of
Alma 4:5. When he came across it in our interview it reminded him of an
“ongoing thought” about the size of the Nephite civilization. Alma 4:5
states that 3,500 people were baptized in one year. “How big is this civi-
lization?” Stephen asked. “Is this evidence for a larger civilization? Or is
this a smaller one? I don’t know.” He, then, began reading the next verse.
Curious, I asked him why he moved away from his line of thinking.
Stephen’s response draws attention to the process he used to recognize and
evaluate his reading confusion (Table 6).
 JOURNAL OF RESEARCH ON CHRISTIAN EDUCATION 13

Table 6. Process for recognizing and evaluating reading confusion.

Features of General literacy Representation from Sample
reading confusion description literacy event statements
Asking Questions Wondering about a Stephen was curious how “How many Nephites were
passage and posing the passage informed there?”
questions that address a lingering question “How big is this civilization?”
one’s curiosity. he had about the size “Is this evidence for a larger
of the Nephite civilization?”
civilization. “Or is this evidence for a
smaller one?”

Recognizing Recognizing the gap Stephen realized that his “I don’t know.”
Confusion between what one understanding of the “I don’t know enough.”
wants to know from a passage was limited
passage and what one and that he
can know from it. was confused.
Evaluating Examining the nature of Stephen evaluated the “I don’t know that [this verse] is
Confusion one’s confusion and likelihood of going to tell me.”
trying to overcome it. overcoming his “I actually have no conceptual
confusion by idea of how much 3,500
considering what he people really is.”
needed to know/do to “How big is a town, like in an
answer his questions ancient world?”
and overcome “Could I look it up? Yeah, but
his confusion. you’re just going to get
other people’s opinions.”

Determining After recognizing and Stephen accepted that “[This issue] is not interesting
Next Steps evaluating confusion, this verse was not enough to pursue.”
one must make a going to answer his
decision about how to question, so he
deal with one’s continued reading.
reading confusion.

Although the Nephites are not the largest civilization in the Book of
Mormon, the text purports to be a record of their spiritual, political, and
cultural experiences in the Americas after their arrival in 589 BC. The size
of the Nephite civilization is difficult to determine. There are no population
counts and numbers must be inferred through army strength, casualty
counts, baptisms, and relative size comparisons to other groups (Smith,
1994). Geography is also a problem. Although geographic references are
common in the Book of Mormon (Olsen, 2010) they are generic and diffi-
cult to piece together into a cohesive representation of the Nephite’s phys-
ical location. Together, inconclusive evidence of the size and geography of
the Nephite civilization make it something of a puzzle that Stephen had
wondered about for “a long time.”
For example, was the hemispheric model correct; did the Nephites
encompass North and South America? Or was it a smaller, local civilization
that existed in a specific part of the Americas? Initially, Stephen believed
the reference to the number of Nephite baptisms in Alma 4:5 could inform
his question about the size of the civilization. At some point, however, he
realized that this reference was not as helpful as he thought because he was
unclear about how to use the number to inform his question. “I actually
14 E. D. RACKLEY

have no conceptual idea of how much 3,500 people really is,” he said.
“Like, how big is a town … in an ancient world? I just don’t know.”
Demonstratively, Stephen’s reading progressed linearly: He read a verse,
asked questions, recognized he was confused, and then moved on. But a
closer look reveals an underlying literacy process with Stephen’s reading
confusion at its center. Stephen first realized that the passage could inform
a long-standing question; he was intrigued by the possibility of learning
more about the nature and size of the Nephite civilization. His question
seemed to serve as the intellectual context for this literacy event. He asked
questions that externalized his broader question: “How many Nephites
were there?” “How big is this civilization?” He then looked in the passage
for evidence. Thinking through the available information, he realized that
the passage did not provide sufficient material, or more to the point, he
could not interpret the passage in a way that helped him address his ques-
tion. This is where his confusion manifested itself. Stephen recognized the
gap between what he wanted to know from the passage and what he could
know from it. And, importantly, he acknowledged this gap. Twice he said,
“I don’t know” when referring to his attempts to make sense of the num-
bers. He realized that he did not have the necessary information to draw
conclusions about the size of the Nephite civilization from the passage.
Evaluating his confusion and trying to determine if he could overcome it
finally led Stephen to lay the question aside for a moment and continue
reading the chapter.
Unpacking his decision to move on suggests that Stephen intentionally
ended a line of inquiry in order to maintain his understanding of the text.
Stephen realized, through an evaluation of his confusion, that the current
information in the verse could not help him answer his question. He,
essentially, had two choices: He could continue examining the verse as part
of his inquiry into the size of the civilization, or he could concentrate his
efforts on something else. He wondered aloud, “Could I look … up [the
size of ancient towns]? Yeah, but you’re just going to get other people’s
opinions. It’s not interesting enough to pursue.” Mentally weighing the
affordances of his decision to continue his line of thinking or continue
reading the chapter, Stephen chose the latter, perhaps believing that the
return for focusing on the size of the civilization did not warrant further
investment of time or effort. Perhaps, he was more interested in other ideas
that would present themselves as he continued reading. In the end,
Stephen’s decision to continue reading was informed by the result of the
evaluation of his reading confusion.
Stephen’s experience with this verse suggests that he was not reading in
an intellectual vacuum. He was clearly aware of bigger questions with
which he was wrestling, which informed how he interacted with scripture.
 JOURNAL OF RESEARCH ON CHRISTIAN EDUCATION 15

As he read about a specific number of people, the lingering question about

the Nephite civilization was reignited. The question turned an ostensibly
common verse into a point of intellectual interest by making it part of a
larger, more involved issue. Informed by the broader question about the
Nephites, Stephen’s scripture reading became part of a larger conversation
with(in) his field of study. He was no longer reading on his own. By read-
ing to address a field-specific question, Stephen had engaged in a dialogue,
or a type of heteroglossia (Bakhtin, 1981), in which he was speaking into
and informed by the scholarship surrounding the size of the Nephite civil-
ization. His broader question not only formed a disciplinary and intellec-
tual context for his reading, it also provided an evaluative lens to help him
determine if he was making progress in his reading experience. Ultimately
unable to make a contribution to the question, Stephen withdrew from the
conversation and continued reading.

John: balancing purpose and interest

As he read, John was drawn to words, phrases, and punctuation. After
noticing a hyphen, for example, he predicted what it might suggest and
then tried to understand its role in the passage. His attempts at under-
standing, however, did not lie along a straight path. Employing twenty-
seven literacy practices such as recognizing confusion, making connections,
summarizing, making predictions, applying the passage to his life, and
annotating, John examined a hyphen’s impact on the content of two verses
in 3 Nephi 27. The nature of his examination represents an approach to
understanding scripture characterized by a delicate balance between attend-
ing to an initial line of inquiry (purpose) and examining in-the-moment
points of interest (interest).
Each data point in Figure 2 represents a specific literacy strategy John
used as he examined the role of the hyphen. The x-axis represents the use
of literacy strategies. The y-axis represents the construction of meaning.
The diagonal lines represent the use of literacy practices aligned with the
purpose of his initial line of investigation—to understand the role of the
hyphen. After recognizing the hyphen (first data point), John predicted
what he thought would follow (second data point). He expressed his confu-
sion when his prediction did not materialize (third data point), reasoned
through what he thought would occur (fourth data point), and then made
a connection to another passage of scripture that related to his initial
observation about the hyphen (fifth data point). These practices built on
each other to help John understand how the hyphen functioned in the pas-
sage, therefore, they trend upward and to the right, signaling the use of
16 E. D. RACKLEY

Construction of Meaning

Use of Literacy Strategies

Figure 2. Balancing purpose and interest.

specific literacy practices (x-axis) as part of a larger literacy process to con-

struct meaning (y-axis).
The horizontal data points represent the use of literacy practices that
John used to explore interesting phrases—“this is my gospel,” “lifted up,”
and “judged of their works”—but that did not improve his understanding
of the role of the hyphen. Importantly, each horizontal string ends with a
nearly vertical line indicating a return to the initial investigation of how
the hyphen functioned in the passage, or a return to the use of literacy
practices to construct meaning. The vertical lines suggest that John recog-
nized that his scripture reading was more than scratching an intellectual
itch by pursuing interesting phrases.
Returning to his examination of the hyphen indicates a refocusing of his
reading; a realization that his current line of investigation (interest) was
not helping him understand his initial question (purpose). He could have
concluded each investigation and moved to the next passage in the chapter
without ever understanding the use of the hyphen, but he returned to his
examination of the hyphen on three occasions. These repeated returns indi-
cate a literacy process that maintained a tenuous balance between explor-
ation and resolve, interest and purpose. John held in his mind these often
competing drives. He thought, “Is this something I want to pursue right
now? Is this somewhere I want to go?” Walking a fine line as he investi-
gated ideas that could ostensibly derail his understanding, each line of
inquiry appeared to be tempered with John’s resolve to understand the
function of the hyphen. He could only explore interesting phrases unrelated
to the hyphen so far before being brought back to his self-identified reason
for reading.
Navigating the push to examine intriguing lines of inquiry and the pull
to stay on-point indicates a process redolent of skilled readers. They may
be drawn off course, but not too far and not for too long. As John
explored, he appeared eager to pursue his exploration of scriptural language
 JOURNAL OF RESEARCH ON CHRISTIAN EDUCATION 17

(interest) while simultaneously mindful of the need to maintain his initial

focus (purpose). In deciding whether to investigate an interesting phrase,
John stated that he often thought, “I’ll save that for another time.” Had he
continued examining the ideas that emerged during his reading, the trajec-
tory of literacy strategies would have continued horizontally, representing
an inability or unwillingness to facilitate the construction of meaning about
how the hyphen functioned in the text, but it would have also signaled that
he had found something ostensibly more interesting to pursue.
After 27 attempts to make sense of what followed the hyphen, John rec-
ognized another hyphen in close proximity and concluded that the inter-
vening space was “just commentary.” He said, “If I take out the
commentary, then … it seems like he’s just repeating what he said.” The
final data point in Figure 2 represents the moment John disconfirmed his
hypothesis about the hyphen. He paused, and before continuing to the next
verse said, “So maybe it’s not about that dash.” It is striking that John
would spend so much effort examining a punctuation mark only to dismiss
as repetitive commentary what he thought was initially important. Clearly,
scripture reading practices and processes are important in the construction
of meaning, and in John’s case they provided him with insights he had not
considered. The insights may not have been revelatory, but they were
clearly new, unexpected even.
In the end, the delicate balance John maintained between situational
curiosity about intriguing phrases (interest) and attention to understanding
the influence of a punctuation mark on scriptural content (purpose) repre-
sents an approach to making sense of scripture that is itself layered with
multiple literacy practices. Unpacking his, and the other participants’, expe-
riences with scripture suggests something of the density embedded in reli-
gious literacy events than can easily remain obscure, and
therefore, unexamined.

Implications
As an exploration of the reading processes religious educators use when
reading scripture, this study raises important issues for religious education
and religious literacy. Heretofore, inquiry into religious educators’ mean-
ing-making practices has received scant empirical attention; as such, under-
standing of religious experts’ engagement with scripture may be informed
more by anecdotes and personal experiences than by research. Yet, research
in this area can be difficult to apply. How, for example, can the analysis
presented here—set within a confessional religious education setting—
inform the use of sacred texts in a wider variety of religious education con-
texts? Because qualitative research is exploratory in nature it seeks to
18 E. D. RACKLEY

understand experiences, processes, and the meaning of things in emerging

areas of study, such as religious educators’ approaches to scripture. Claims
of generalizability of this study are without merit given its narrow context
and small number of participants, yet it still has implications for conceptu-
alizing and approaching religious literacy.
As scripture-based learning experiences that are “integral to the nature of
participants’ interactions and their interpretive processes” (Heath, 1982,
p. 50) religious, literacy events hold promise for understanding the relation-
ship among sacred texts, talk, and knowledge development. What is the
nature of each component? What affordances does each provide? What are
some of the constraints? How do the components work together in reli-
gious contexts? Examining the nature of talk, text, and knowledge develop-
ment can help articulate the (unspoken) rules, purposes, and processes that
bound and inform religious literacy events. Moreover, conceptualizing
scripture reading as literacy events can open the door to examining the
various meaning-making practices, such as cognitive strategies, cultural
tools, talk moves, and social interactions used as one reads scripture. This
approach can also facilitate the identification, complexification, and
unpacking of religious, literacy events embedded in routine religious practi-
ces, offering potentially new ways of understanding common experiences
with sacred texts.
It is not advisable to teach students to read sacred texts in the ways rep-
resented by the religious educators in this study. In religious education,
wholesale transfer from one context to another suggests an overly simplistic
approach to religious instruction and learning and could undercut students’
and educators’ rich theological, social, and cultural literacy tools. Instead,
consistent with the theoretical and empirical thrust of this article, religious
educators might adopt a stance that promotes a sacred text ethos that
attends to students’ scripture-reading processes. This “process ethos” can
stand alongside the more traditional focus on content learning and provide
students with opportunities to attend to the ways they are engaging with
sacred text. Specifically, greater attention to religious literacy processes can
draw attention to the nature of students’ engagement with sacred texts and
the types of insights these processes can generate. A religious literacy pro-
cess ethos can also highlight the affordances and constraints of particular
approaches to sacred texts, shedding light on which processes may be
appropriate in certain situations, for certain purposes, and which ones
may not.
To help develop a religious literacy process ethos, religious educators in
various contexts can demonstrate for their students how to engage with
religious texts. Taking an emic, or inside, approach, we might begin by
slowing down and stretching out our reading by being more intentional
 JOURNAL OF RESEARCH ON CHRISTIAN EDUCATION 19

about how we construct meaning with sacred texts. What, for example, is
(or should be) occurring as we engage with a word, an idea, a symbol? It
may help to pay attention to where our eyes go, what our minds do, what
draws our attention, when and where we get confused and how we try to
overcome the confusion, and how we feel. Being attentive to our reading
processes can help us notice what is occurring in the act of reading, which
may not necessarily be what we think is occurring. Are we accomplishing
our reading purposes? If so, how? If not, why not? What connections are
we making to other texts or ideas, and how are those informing our read-
ing? What types of questions appear to provide the most traction in our
search for understanding? Are we privileging certain questions in certain
texts? Identifying the actual work we do to construct the meaning of sacred
texts can clarify the how of religious literacy. The development of a reli-
gious literacy process ethos can help identify, evaluate, and challenge how
sacred texts get read. Absent a religious literacy process ethos, the manner
in which we pursue truth can remain unarticulated and unexamined. As
stated previously, what we learn about ultimate truth is driven in large part
by how we engage with it. A process ethos attends to the nature of
that engagement.

Limitations
The findings from this study should be understood in light of some of its
limitations. First, although the participants in this study represent an infor-
mation-rich and purposeful sample (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016; Patton,
2015) that is aligned with current research on experts’ literacy practices
(Reynolds & Rush, 2017; Shanahan et al., 2011) the study’s findings are not
generalizable. Instead, as examined above, this work raises questions and
identifies tensions that may be serviceable for readers interested in the
processes of constructing meaning of sacred texts. In the end, the manner
in which this study informs instances, issues, and contexts beyond its con-
fines is properly left to the purposes of individual readers. Second, this
study represents a narrow slice of the participants’ range of possible scrip-
ture-reading processes. Given that the construction of meaning is informed
by a variety of factors, such as the nature of the text, the reader, and the
context (RAND Reading Study Group, 2002) it is reasonable to assume
that given different passages, reading purposes, or social contexts partici-
pants would employ different (combinations of) literacy practices and proc-
esses to construct meaning (Gee, 2012). Relatedly, verbal protocols of
reading can provide robust representations of a wide-range of readers’
meaning-making processes (Israel, 2015). However, because readers use lit-
erary processes in response to the demands of the reading experience
20 E. D. RACKLEY

before them, the focus in this study on 15–20-minute segments of readers’

verbalized thinking offer important but limited insight. To capture the
“massively active” experience of skilled readers (Pressley & Hilden, 2004,
p.309) further research is needed to help clarify, refine, and problematize
the particular processes examined here and identify others that religious
educators use across a range of texts.

Conclusion
Reading is clearly “an extraordinarily complex process” (Lee & Spratley, 2010,
p. 2), and reading scripture may be even more so (Rackley & Kwok, 2016).
This study has sought to contribute to the developing empirical base of reli-
gious literacy research by drawing attention to the nature of religious educa-
tors’ scripture-reading processes. Clearly, there is more work to be done, in
part because exploratory research examining experts’ literacy practices “is
intended to identify potentially valuable insights about how reading may pro-
ceed, rather than to warrant claims about [the] universality” with which all
experts in a field read texts (Shanahan et al., 2011, p. 423). As argued above,
more targeted investigations into the literacy practices of religious educators
and other religious experts can develop a more robust understanding of the
approaches that inform the manner in which one makes sense of sacred texts.

ORCID
Eric D. Rackley http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9298-9690

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Eric D. Rackley is an Associate Professor in the School of Education at Brigham Young

University-Hawaii. His research focuses on the literacy practices and motivations of reli-
gious experts and novices.

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