Major latest research into worldwide attitudes to the Bible, described as “unprecedented” in its scope and detail by those behind it, is ready to be released later this month.
Over a period of three years, 90,000 people in 85 countries were questioned, in depth, about their views on the Bible and faith as a part of the research conducted by Gallup on behalf of the British and Foreign Bible Society (BFBS) and United Bible Societies (UBS).
Called, “The Patmos Initiative”, the research will reveal the “most comprehensive and rigorous picture of attitudes to Christianity, the Bible and religion in a generation”.
While the outcomes of the extensive survey should not yet public, BFBS has offered a sneak peak into among the insights gained through the project.
The research apparently will point to “significant interest” within the Bible amongst non-Christian societies and can give “unprecedented insights” into the similarities and differences between generations of their attitudes to religion.
Other insights are said to incorporate a transparent idea of how Christianity is practised in other ways all over the world and “surprising patterns of Bible engagement across secular and spiritual societies”.
Richard Powney, project lead on The Patmos Initiative at BFBS, said, “This study provides the primary truly global picture of how people view and interact with the Christian Bible, arguably probably the most stable marker for understanding global Christianity, and paints an interesting picture of attitudes to God and faith more generally.”
As a part of the research, most interviews were conducted face-to-face. The 90,000 people interviewed were spread kind of equally between the entire countries surveyed, with roughly 1,000 people being interviewed from each nation.
Powney added, “Getting a greater understanding of world attitudes to the Bible, Christianity and faith goes to be of immense value to the Church, in addition to the worldwide understanding of faith in society. All of us profit from robust, trustworthy data about religion.”
