(CP) New research reveals that the share of young adults who think the Bible has had a transformative effect on their lives has increased whilst a majority of them remain “Scripture Disengaged.”
The American Bible Society released the primary installment of its State of the Bible USA2024report Thursday. The first chapter, titled “The Bible in America Today,” examines the incidence of Bible usage and Bible reading within the United States along with sampling respondents’ views on the results of the Bible on their lives. The information within the report is predicated on responses collected from 2,506 U.S. adults between Jan. 4 and 23, 2024, with a margin of error of +/-2.73 percentage points.
One query included within the survey asked respondents in the event that they agreed that “the message of the Bible has transformed my life.” A rather higher share of those surveyed in 2024 (58%) either “somewhat” or “strongly” agreed that the Bible had a transformative effect on their lives in comparison with 2023 (57%).
The percentages of adults belonging to Generation X, born between 1965 and 1980, who “somewhat” or “strongly” agreed concerning the transformative effect of the Bible on their lives in each 2023 and 2024 matched the figures for the population as an entire.
The share of respondents in Generation Z, the youngest group of American adults defined as those born in 1997 or later, that cited the Bible as a source of transformation of their lives increased from 50% in 2023 to 54% in 2024. American Bible Society Chief Program Officer and Editor-in-Chief of the State of the Bible series John Farquhar Plake, reacted to this statistic in a statement published Thursday.
“Our youngest adults show signs of interest within the Bible, curiosity about it, and transformative interaction with it,” he said. “If this trend continues, we’ve good reason for hope.”
Baby Boomers, adults born between 1946 and 1964, were the one generation that saw a bigger increase in the proportion of respondents who credit the Bible as a transformational influence of their lives. Sixty-nine percent of Baby Boomers “somewhat” or “strongly” agreed that the Bible had such an effect on their lives in 2024, a 5% jump from the 64% who said the identical last 12 months.
On the opposite hand, the proportion of millennials, referring to the adults born between 1981 and 1996, who either “somewhat” or “strongly” agreed that the Bible transformed their lives dropped from 50% in 2023 to 48% this 12 months. Millennials were also the one generation to have more people say they read the Bible less often in 2024 in comparison with 2023, with 12% of respondents on this age group reporting that their Bible reading has decreased as 11% told pollsters that their Bible reading has increased.
Overall, 15% of respondents said their Bible reading increased up to now 12 months while 10% said the alternative. More than twice the quantity of Generation Z users surveyed (21%) said their Bible reading increased over the past 12 months than those that said it decreased (9%). Sixteen percent of Boomers and people born before 1946 witnessed a rise in Bible reading together with 15% of Generation X adults. By contrast, 10% of the oldest adults and 9% of Generation X adults reported a drop in Bible reading.
The survey also recorded a decrease in each the proportion and raw variety of Bible users in 2024, each of which reached the bottom level on record within the history of the State of the Bible report. The report defines a Bible user as someone who interacts with Scripture at the least three or 4 times a 12 months outside of church services. The variety of Bible users fell to a record low of 99 million in 2024 as the proportion of Bible users dropped to a record low of 38%.
The variety of Americans who meet the standards to qualify as “Scripture Engaged” based on their responses to questions examining how often they read the Bible, what impact it has on their relationships with God and others in addition to the importance of its teachings on the subject of their decision making barely budged over the past 12 months. However, the 47 million “Scripture Engaged” recorded in 2023 and 2024 represents a considerable dip from the 71 million measured in 2020.
“Increasingly, the Bible must compete for our attention in an ever-busier world,” Plake stated in response to the findings about scripture engagement. “The State of the Bible survey bears this out as we see Scripture engagement decreasing over the previous couple of years, especially in younger generations.”
As Plake’s remarks suggested, scripture engagement is significantly lower amongst Generation Z adults (11%) and millennials (12%) than amongst Generation X (21%) and the oldest American adults (24%). A solid majority of Generation Z (61%) and millennial adults (65%) fall into the “Bible Disengaged” category, which is assigned to respondents who receive the bottom scores on the Scripture Engagement Scale.
A smaller majority of Generation X adults (58%) are “Bible Disengaged” while lower than half (49%) of the oldest American adults are.
