This is the spiritual landscape: not many individuals go to church, and most of the ones who do either exit of habit or since it’s socially the done thing. There are numerous clergy, too, but a lot of them are only in it for money and standing. Large numbers of individuals are completely unaware of the Bible and know little if anything about Christianity. There are numerous atheists, but much more individuals who never give religion a thought. The Church is valued, if in any respect, as a part of the normal structure of society, good for marrying and burying people but not far more.
Are we in twenty-first century Britain? Not in any respect: we’re within the Britain of 1804. The Napoleonic Wars are about to take a brief break, but spiritually the situation is bleak. There are some vivid spots – Methodists and a few Nonconformist denominations are quite vigorous, there’s a growing evangelical movement within the Church of England, and stirrings of Catholic revival. But the brand new urban centres arising due to the Industrial Revolution are largely churchless, and recent generations are growing up with no knowledge of Christian faith in any respect (just just a few years later a nervous government would vote 1,000,000 kilos for church constructing, an enormous sum on the time).
It’s on this context that the British and Foreign Bible Society began, on 7 March 1804 – 220 years ago. A young girl, Mary Jones, had walked 26 miles through the rugged terrain of North Wales to purchase a Bible in Welsh from Revd Thomas Charles of Bala. The story of her deep desire for a Bible of her own had led one other minister, Revd Joseph Hughes, to argue for low-cost Bibles to be printed for Welsh-speakers. And in a daring flight of imagination, he asked: ‘If for Wales, why not for the dominion? And if for the dominion, why not for the world?’ Now, two years after his speech, on the London Tavern in Bishopsgate Street, around 300 people – Quakers, Anglicans, Baptists, Lutherans and plenty of more – would begin to make the dream a reality. The British and Foreign Bible Society was established, and the equivalent of nearly £30,000 was pledged on the day to fund the enterprise.
Bible Society – the name by which it’s now known – sparked a movement that is spread world wide; there at the moment are around 150 Bible Societies operating in around 240 countries and territories, co-operating through the United Bible Societies organisation. What marked it out from the start was its single-minded concentrate on the Bible. It didn’t become involved in theological controversy, and it deliberately included Christians from a wide selection of various confessions. Bible Society wanted the Bible – the foundational text for each Church – to be printed, distributed and skim.
At the identical time, it demonstrated the transformative power of the Bible. Its supporters – who included William Wilberforce – were lively campaigners against slavery. Others were prison reformers. One of the pioneers of social work was Bible Society’s Ellen Ranyard, who founded a movement of ‘Bible Women’ who visited the London poor. Wherever it was read, the Bible made a difference.
But what about today? Each local Society faces its own challenges, and Bible Society helps to resource them of their work – we help with printing and distributing the Bible, literacy programmes, translation, theological education and training pastors and church staff. In England and Wales, there are many similarities between the situation for the Church and wider society in 1804 and in 2024 – and plenty of differences.
Nowadays there is not any shortage of Bibles, and most of the people reading this text have one on their phones. And while it might sound counter-intuitive to say it, in some ways the Church is stronger than it was back then! There may be proportionately fewer people in church on Sundays, but today, in the event you go to church you actually mean it – and nobody goes into ministry for the cash.
It’s much more true today, though, that very large numbers of individuals have no real interest in the Bible or in Christianity – without delay, 86 per cent of individuals in England and Wales never or hardly read the Bible. Bible Society is committed to changing that. We need to recall the Church to a way of the ability of Scripture to vary lives, and encourage believers to place Bible mission at the guts of what they do. And we would like to see the Bible becoming a part of the national conversation about methods to live a very good life, just because it was once we began.
So we’re investing in resources to accumulate the Church, like The Bible Course and The Romans Course. We’re pioneering digital mission through working with recent online ‘tribes’. We’re connecting with spiritually curious people and showing them the wealthy resources of Scripture. We’re continuing to achieve out to people who find themselves marginalised because they’ve experienced trauma or are in prison. We’re including people who find themselves excluded from the ‘Bible reading norm’, through creating dyslexia-friendly Scriptures. The frontier for us today is not Bible availability, it’s Bible engagement – bringing people to a spot where the Scriptures turn into a channel for them to come across the living God.
Behind what we do is a solid body of unique research – and a few of its findings are really encouraging. Back in 2018 we surveyed nearly 20,000 people through polling organisation YouGov, asking them questions on their life and faith and churchgoing habits. We found that while there have been some individuals who were hostile to religion, way more were either indifferent or actually curious: 1 / 4 of adults in England and Wales need to know more in regards to the Bible. That represents a large opportunity. We’ve repeated the survey at intervals since, and we have found that – contrary to popular assumptions – the Church in England and Wales isn’t any longer declining. Parts of it are, definitely, but parts of it are growing. That’s tremendously encouraging!
We consider we’re seeing recent possibilities for mission and growth opening up, not only overseas but here at home as well. These are exciting times, and we’re excited to be living in nowadays.
Rev Mark Woods is Head of Communications for Bible Society.
