Paul Griffiths’ distinction between religious and consumerist reading is oversimple, but religious readers do belong to a distinctive (yet variegated) type of seriously attentive and personally interested reading. The most tenable position in the problematic of deriving individual life-guidance from scripture is broadly collegial and oriented to general principles rather than divinatory solutions. While scripturalism is not invariably the strongest communicative means of developing desirable individual capacities, it can at least be supportive of thoughtfulness, curiosity, objectivity, coherence, humility and charity, empathy, and practicality (using categories from Peter Levine’s work on moral networks). In its inflections by the basic religious attitudes of piety, love, and faith, scripturalism can threaten but also support rational clarity, social reasonableness, and prudential intelligence. Using the platform of scripture, the individual can undertake an ambitious program of sharing in a communal realization of the purport of the Guidance. Vivekananda’s modernist gestures toward post-scripturalist religion actually confirm key elements of scripturalism and may imply a multiscripturalist way forward.