'...until the Reformation, people heard the Scriptures in church - and only in church. That meant the natural question when interpreting the Bible was, "What does this mean to us?" With the double-edged gift of Gutenberg's printing press, the process is often reduced merely to writing-reading. Now we read the Bible alone in our homes. This allows a communal process to become individualized. Worse, one can own the Word of God (meaning a book), rather than hear the Word of God, which is actually a communal act. The act of carrying around a book gives the individual the perception: I have the Word of God. Now instead of asking, "What does this mean to us?" our instinctive question is "What does it mean to me?" The shift to individual, reader-centered interpretation was natural, post-Gutenberg. But we must never lose sight of the implications of that shift.'
E Randolph Richards and Brandon J O'Brien, Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes, p.197.
