A researcher who specializes in assessing Christianity in America said he recently “woke up” to the positive changes happening surrounding faith in America when he observed shocking spikes in Bible sales.
“I guess I woke up … when … the press reached out to me about the Wall Street Journal article that was published last October about a spike in Bible sales,” Dr. John Plake, chief program officer at the American Bible Society, recently told CBN News.
Plake said he often takes great strides to compare what’s happening anecdotally in his own church experience with the real numbers and statistics on the ground to ensure he’s rightly understanding real patterns versus what he’s “personally experiencing.”
Considering the spike in Bible sales and other positive measures, Plake and his team, who are preparing to release their new “State of the Bible” data April 10, were able to dig deep and ask important questions — inquiries that can provide more context to what’s happening spiritually in America.
“One of the things that is interesting is that there’s this undercurrent of a warming toward faith,” noting that this positive trajectory is happening in other nations as well.
“I think from a lot of angles, from Europe, from the United States, from Canada, from data, and from experience, we’re starting to get a sense that there is something going on,” Plake said.
Among the shifts, Plake said young people are increasingly turning back to faith.
“They’re seeking better, timeless wisdom and they’re finding that the church is still there, that the Bible is still there, and it still speaks to our issues today,” Plake said.
One of the biggest signs something positive is afoot came from the Pew Religious Landscape Study, which recently found a flattening of the decline of Christianity in America. Since 2019, the percentage of Christians in America has remained between 60% and 64%, a notable finding considering that faith has been on a downward trend.
“The decline of Christianity has slowed and the rise of the ‘nones’ seems to have plateaued,” Plake said. “And, so, I think there’s a lot of head scratching going on.”
The researcher also teased soon-to-come research from The American Bible Society, detailing the many waves of results that will be released in batches.
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“We’re going to release nine chapters between April and December,” Plake said. “There’s a ton to report in this study … when we look at this first chapter, we’re going to be looking at changes in Bible use, at changes in Scripture engagement, at changes just across generations within America.”
While Plake held back on offering specific numbers, he said he believes Christians will be “pleased at what’s going on” when in-depth data is released — and “really in some surprising ways.”
“What I’m noticing in the data is that groups of people who previously had been some of the most resistant to the Bible — or they seemed immune to the Bible’s message — are suddenly showing much larger than the margin of error increases in the way they interact with the Bible,” Plake said.
He continued, “And, so, I think, taken as a whole, that that batch of data taken together with Bible sales are up, taken together with what we’re hearing from Europe, taken together with what we’re seeing on college and university campuses — and not just Christian colleges and universities — but secular colleges and universities, there is something going on that I believe creates for us a moment where the church needs to be able to respond, to innovate, and to welcome the opportunity that we have again to tell the story of Jesus.”
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