USA - New Generation Buying Bibles
According to the Pew Research Center, about 28% of adults in the U.S. today define themselves as not religiously affiliated, yet, sales of the Bible increased from 9.7 million in 2019 to 14.2 million in 2023, and have already reached to 13.7 million in the first 10 months of 2024.
“People are experiencing anxiety themselves, or they’re worried for their children and grandchildren,” said Jeff Crosby, president of the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association. “It’s related to artificial intelligence, election cycles…and all of that feeds a desire for assurance that we’re going to be OK.”
Publishers say the books are selling well at religious bookstores, as well as on Amazon.com and at more mainstream retailers. People buy print copies to make notes in and highlight, but often supplement them with audiobooks as well.
HarperCollins, which markets itself as the largest U.S. trade publisher in the Bible category, attributes the demand to two distinct groups: the spiritually curious, perhaps purchasing their first Bible, and those seeking a deeper sense of spirituality and expanding existing Bible collections.
According to the group’s president and CEO, Mark Schoenwald, buyers are even more enthusiastic about celebrities who decide for the first time to share their faith with the general public.
-www.ynetnews.com, 2 December 2024
Arno's Commentary
Within the context of this report by Ynetnews.com, the article highlights so-called celebrities who conspicuously own or recently purchased a Bible.
The Pew Research Center reveals that almost a third of the US population is “religiously unaffiliated.” Yet the Bible continues to be the all-time bestseller. For Christianity at large, this is welcome news: Bibles are being bought at unprecedented volumes.
Our take: Now is the time to pray that many of those who have their new Bibles will read, understand, and believe—thus being added to the Church of Jesus Christ.
Another interesting fact: According to the 23 May 2013 issue of The Economist, “China government-approved Bible publisher Amity Printing Company is the largest Bible producer on the planet.” Two-thirds of the production is exported, as many Bible purchasers realize upon seeing, “printed in China.”
Incidentally, the Lee Greenwood “God Bless the USA” Bibles are also printed in China. Here we see how God works in mysterious ways: Communist China is flooding the world with Bibles.
This writer is reminded of the words of Midnight Call’s founder, Dr. Wim Malgo [1922–1992], “God can hit straight with a crooked stick.”
Arno Froese is the executive director of Midnight Call Ministries and editor-in-chief of the acclaimed prophetic magazines Midnight Call and News From Israel. He has authored a number of well-received books, and has sponsored many prophecy conferences in the U.S., Canada, and Israel. His extensive travels have contributed to his keen insight into Bible prophecy, as he sees it from an international perspective.
