Bible societies mount effort to revive view of Scripture as source of ancient wisdom

June 6, 2024

An international group of Bible societies, which publish and promote Christian scripture, has launched an extensive study of how people use the Bible and what it means to them.

Religion News reports that the study was launched 3 years ago in an effort to encourage people in historically Christian regions to rediscover the Bible as a source of wisdom and universal truths. So far, the study has conducted more than 90,000 interviews according to senior researcher Richard Powney.

Powney stated, “Bible societies are heavily invested in translating the Bible into many different languages. But that is not the final frontier. We want to understand more about how people engage with it in different parts of the world. If there are cultural gaps opening up between people and the Bible we want to unpick that and work out why.”

The first stage of that research divided the world up into geographical regions based on social, economic and demographic connections.

According to Religion News, one of the surprising findings of the study is that, in a time when 90% of the world’s population has access to the Bible, relatively few people consider it foundational in their lives.

Another finding is that in countries like England and Wales, 63% of residents say they’ve never read the Bible. Both the U.S. and Great Britain saw measurable disengagement in Bible reading among younger demographics.

The study reports that nearly three quarters of the young adults surveyed reject the idea that people need religion to know the difference between right and wrong. A similar percentage of young respondents said the Bible is outdated, homophobic and irrelevant to their lives.

Research is expected to conclude in December with final results released in early 2025.

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