In recent news, the American Bible Society (ABS) released its “State of the Bible” report, which gauges how relevant Christianity is to Americans. ABS tries to paint a rosy picture of recovery from decline, but their data actually points in the opposite direction. This report is a bombshell, revealing a vivid story of demographic collapse. Today, let’s go over this report and see what it says between its optimistic lines.
(This post first went live on Patreon on 4/22/2025. Related tag: State of the Bible, for analyses of past reports. I can’t do a voicecast today, but I wanted you to have this text post at least! I anticipate being able to do the voicecast for the next post, though.)
SITUATION REPORT: The State of the Bible 2025 reveals worries about how relevant Christianity actually is to people’s lives
For years, I’ve followed the yearly American Bible Society (ABS) report, “The State of the Bible.” (Here is the first part of their 2025 report and local archive.) Of late, they’ve adopted a tone of hopeful watching and waiting. Last year, they discovered an uptick in Bible sales, which they took as a sign of recovery. So this year, they tried extra-hard to convince their readers that recovery is near.
This year, ABS focuses on some slight increases in Bible engagement and minor demographic shifts. However, the report ignores broader signs of Christianity’s growing irrelevance. It reveals, instead, a religion in crisis that struggles to connect with most Americans.
ABS chose to offer optimistic hope that a “Movable Middle” segment of Americans might become more engaged with Christianity. But I see little reason for hope. If they wanted to be more engaged, they already would be.
Even worse for Christians, this year ABS uncovered a very serious lack of engagement with Gen Z and Millennials. This is a critical issue because these generations represent the future of Christianity. Religiously-disengaged parents usually produce children who are even more disengaged. A small number might convert to one religion or another, but most don’t—and their children, in turn, only become more disengaged.
Relevant: It’s not just a Christian magazine aimed at Millennials
Many years ago, Hector Avalos drew back the green curtain on his field, Biblical Archaeology. In 2007, he told an audience of atheists this:
Let me tell you what scholars know. Modern biblical scholarship has demonstrated that the Bible is the product of cultures whose values and belief about the origin, nature, and purpose of our world are no longer held to be relevant—even by most Christians and Jews themselves. [. . .] [Scholars] know that this book is alien once you know what it really says. And most people don’t. [. . .]
What do I mean by irrelevant? Well, I mean a Biblical concept or practice that is no longer viewed as valuable, applicable, or ethical. [Source: About 4:50 in this video]
One example of this irrelevance, Avalos says, is the modern understanding that diseases aren’t caused by supernatural agents, but by bacteria and viruses and the like. That hit me hard because nowadays, when Christians pray instead of seeking medical help for their kids, most people see that as abusive—or at best, driven by fears about medical costs.
(See also: The gaze of dead children follows me today.)
In that video, Avalos refers to surveys on the sorry state of Bible use in America: fewer than half of Americans surveyed could even name the first book of the Bible (Genesis), while somewhere around 21% of mainline Protestants and 33% of Catholics never read it at all. He asserts that Christians don’t read it, don’t study it, and most certainly don’t live by its rules—not even the so-called literalists, who got furious over Rachel Held Evans’ book A Year of Biblical Womanhood. In her book, Evans gave living by the Bible’s rules a sincere try.
To live her year of Biblical Womanhood, though, Evans first had to read the Bible and become literate in its concepts. But that’s where the Bible’s relevance crumbles: Americans don’t want to engage with a complex, archaic book full of magical stories, myths, and endless genealogies. Perhaps that’s why Rachel Held Evans’ husband often reacted to her experiment with surprise, horror, and even embarrassment. Though they were both Christian, neither wished to follow the Bible’s rules for their relationship.
(See also: ‘If Only He Knew’ book review series tag.)
Christian relevance depends on biblical literacy, and that’s a big problem for Christian leaders
Despite ABS’ hopeful tone, the news about biblical literacy just keeps getting worse. Without biblical literacy, Christian relevance can’t thrive.
Little has changed since Avalos’ 2007 speech. Often, Christian leaders freely acknowledge that Christians don’t read or care about the Bible. Here are various sources confirming this truth:
- Modern Reformation (2010); hardline Calvinist evangelicals
- Al Mohler’s blog (2016); he’s the president of the flagship SBC seminary
- Answers in Genesis (2017); Creationist site
- The Gospel Coalition (TGC) (2020); hardline Calvinist evangelicals
- Logos (2022); they appear to sell a Bible study app
- Denison Forum (2023); a conservative Christian evangelical news site
Avalos was—and is—right. The Bible is largely irrelevant, and it has been for decades. Maybe it’s always been that way, and Americans have only recently realized it. For years, the loudest Christians have been show their true opinion by ignoring the Bible’s commands, only cherry-picking verses to excuse their hypocrisy. In many ways, they use their religion as a substitute for being decent human beings.
(See also: Why the Religious Right is wrong about this anti-gay clobber verse.)
A hilarious sign of the Bible’s failure to be relevant
In their report, ABS highlights a large number of “not religious” people who still watch religious TV shows like The Chosen. ABS sounds certain that this trend will result in lots of new Christians. As they write of that show’s viewers (on p.20 of the PDF):
Its producing team “estimates that the show has been watched by more than 280 million unique viewers worldwide, a third of whom it says are not religious.”
This “not religious” audience intrigues us. That’s 90 million-plus, in the U.S. and elsewhere, who presumably are not Bible readers, yet have tuned in to a creative, Bible-based account of the life and teachings of Jesus.
ABS’ optimism seems very misplaced. People didn’t become Catholic after watching The Young Pope. Nor did they become feudalists with pet dragons after watching Game of Thrones. The truth is right there in this very report, which reveals still-tanking Bible usage (p. 21 of PDF; relink):
On p.22, ABS defines “Bible Users” as anyone who encounters a Bible verse at least 3 times a year outside of church services. That’s a pathetic bar to clear. It could mean looking up a verse on a Bible app, getting a verse-of-the-day delivered via email, or even stumbling across a verse while watching a Christian’s culture-war videos on YouTube (p.34 of the PDF). It’s all but meaningless as a metric. And I’m sure that’s no accident. If they used stricter definitions like they do with “Scripture Engagement,” “Bible Use” would only look worse.
Either way, Christians can’t blame their slump on the pandemic itself, though they do try. Biblical Recorder, an SBC-related site, claims in an April 17 story:
An estimated 10 million more adults qualified as Bible users in January 2025 than in 2019, the American Bible Society (ABS) said in its new State of the Bible release, but usage still lags pre-COVID-19 readership by 14 million adults.
But the data tells a different story. In 2021, reflecting 2020’s numbers, the percentage of Bible users actually rose slightly from 48% to 50%. In 2022, it dipped to 40%, then to 38% in 2024. Then, in 2025, it’s back up to 41%. That’s an increase, yes, but it’s still way lower than the 2019-2021 numbers.
The pandemic didn’t cause the the drop. More likely, it caused a brief rise. Many Christians (like this one) even saw pandemic lockdowns as a great excuse for beginning a big Bible study program at home! But many of these folks quickly discovered that the Bible held no answers for them, so usage dropped again.
The Rev. Dr. House Rule: Christians may be fibbing about their devotions
Self-reported data can be quite unreliable. That rule applies even more when the topic involves religion. On p.35 of the PDF, ABS admits as much:
For years we’ve noticed a recurring anomaly. When we ask whether people’s Bible reading increased or decreased in the previous year, more people say they’ve increased (usually 15% claiming increase with 10% admitting decrease). This has occurred consistently, even in years when Bible reading was dropping.
So this year, ABS is thrilled that in 2025, “it’s not just wishful thinking.” Bible use actually appears to have risen slightly from 38% to 41%. But this admission highlights a key issue with religion research: Respondents often overstate their engagement.
Indeed, here’s a case in point: The graph on p.22 shows 3% of respondents claiming to “use the Bible” 4+ times a week, while 9% claim to use it every day and 7% “several times a week.” That odd deep dip between “several times a week” and “four or more times a week” seems way out of place.
Either way, ABS downplays the real story here: 38% of Americans “Never” use the Bible. But the report doesn’t talk about them or the high number of “Bible Disengaged” people in their “Scripture Engagement” graph (p.28 of the PDF):
“Scripture Engagement” measures how seriously respondents take the Bible and its role in their day-to-day lives. And it, too, peaked in 2021 before dropping again.
Among younger adults, the picture grows even more bleak for Christian leaders: ABS celebrates tiny increases in “Bible Use” among Gen Z and Millennials. That sounds nice, but 64% of Gen Z and 61% of Millennials remain disengaged (p.23).
And when we ask how “Scripture Engaged” these young adults are, we get an even bleaker answer (p.30):
Where does the 2025 rise in Scripture Engagement come from? The two youngest generations. While they are still the least-engaged age groups, both have increased by about a third over last year (11% to 15% for Gen Z and 12% to 17% for Millennials).
That means 83-85% of Gen Z and Millennials are not “Scripture Engaged,” meaning the Bible simply isn’t relevant to their lives even if they do accidentally trip over a verse from it every blue moon. For these two generations, Bible literacy is already dismal—with Christianity’s relevance lagging far behind it. Christianity is increasingly irrelevant to most Americans.
And nothing Christian leaders have done up to this point has significantly changed that trend.
The “Movable Middle” might not be very movable at all
In the ABS report, we find frequent mention of a “Movable Middle.” This is the segment of Americans who are open to using the Bible more, but for whatever reason they just haven’t. For them, the Bible is almost completely irrelevant. On p.32, ABS declares that this segment of people “is where future growth in Scripture Engagement will come from.”
But is it?
Even among “Practicing Christians,” who attend church at least once a month and consider their faith “very important” to their lives, 32% don’t count as “Scripture Engaged.” Enjoy another graph (p.30):
The high number of “Movable Middle” people might spark hope in ABS hearts, but it actually signifies a deeper problem: For a lot of people, the Bible—and by extension Christianity—just isn’t compelling enough to take seriously. They might think they should care more about reading the Bible, especially if they’re already Christian. It’s not like Christian leaders don’t push the idea constantly! But that wistfulness doesn’t translate into action.
People reveal their priorities by how they behave. If they’re not acting like the Bible is relevant to them, then even if they say they want to read it more often or live by its rules, their actions tell the real story. Converting those wishes into action has already proven nearly impossible for Christian leaders.
That’s not to say they aren’t trying, though. We’ll cover their strategies next time. For now, just know that their responses are just as divinely-inspired as everything else they do.
Bible attitudes changing over time
One revealing part of this study involves how Americans’ beliefs about the Bible have changed. Here is the graph from the 2022 report (p.37; local archive):
And here’s the one from p.36 this year’s 2025 report:
Comparing 2022’s apples to 2025’s oranges is tricky, but we can map out neutral, favorable, and unfavorable opinions about the Bible.
For 2022, we learn that 20% of people agreed that the Bible is “just another book” (p.36). Though we aren’t told exactly what number overall thought it wasn’t divine but just told a story of how people “understood the ways and principles of God,” 8-14% agreed with that one—with Gen Z being the lowest and Elders (the WWII generation before Boomers) being the highest. So somewhere between 28-34% of respondents had an unfavorable view of the Bible.
Meanwhile, about 15% of 2022’s respondents had ABS’ ideal favorable belief: They thought the Bible was literally the “inspired word of God” and literally true in all ways. Only 13% of Gen Z and 12% of Millennials agreed there, with older people skewing the curve upward.
For 2025, 24% of respondents thought the Bible was “just another book of teachings.” Another 10% thought that the Bible consists of stories about “how the writers of the Bible understood the ways and principles of God.” This year, the “just another book” group includes 18% of people agreeing that “the Bible was written to control or manipulate other people.” That inclusion emphasizes the negative nature of the “just another book” opinion. (Religious reform and control might possibly account for how the Torah got written in the first place.) So 34% of respondents could be considered negative toward the Bible.
By contrast, 14% of 2025’s respondents thought the Bible was divine and literally true in every detail.
Between these two reports, I’m seeing a slow erosion of positive opinions and a slow increase of negative ones. This erosion only gets more pronounced with younger adults. That speaks to Christianity’s declining cultural relevance in American society. And that definitely tracks with what I’m seeing throughout Christianity.
A small number of Christians are doubling down, becoming more vocal and hardline, but most aren’t so invested. This polarization process may only alienate more of that second group, which would further erode Christianity’s relevance.
Fuzzy definitions and ignoring bad news won’t make Christianity relevant again
Christian leaders often spin-doctor bad news. Sometimes, they exaggerate bad news to sell products or boost customer loyalty. That’s Barna Group’s entire business strategy!
More often, though, they portray their religion as a stalwart warrior destined to win despite impossible odds. Victory might be a distant hope—but Jesus assures them of victory.
The 2025 ABS “State of the Bible” report delivers hefty doses of this copium. They point to Americans who say “they are curious about the Bible and/or Jesus”! They note that even half of Gen Z says that! So this report, to them, implies that Americans eagerly await Christian evangelism. Similarly, the conclusion insists that the “Movable Middle” is “brimming with possibility.”
With stars in their eyes, the report exhorts readers to evangelize relentlessly:
You might be afraid that people don’t want to hear the good news. You might assume that everyone in your community is part of that 18 percent who are sure that the Bible was written to control and manipulate. It’s a shame that those people think that, and maybe someday we can convince them otherwise, but three times as many people are longing to know more. How will we satisfy that desire?
I mean gosh, look at all the people tuning in to Bible-themed TV shows! That revival is right around the corner, right?
…Right?
It’d be hilarious if impressionable readers of this report rushed right out to evangelize anyone they think is Movable Middle or Bible-curious.
Alas, Gen Z’s curiosity and the “Movable Middle” Americans are unlikely to reverse Christianity’s decline—especially for the flavors of faith that ABS clearly considers valid.
NEXT UP: How Christian leaders are trying to make their religion seem relevant again. See you soon!
Please support my work!
Thanks for reading, and thanks for being part of our community! Here are some ways you can support my work:
Endnote
It doesn’t get less relevant than CONTEMPORVANT:
It used to be called “contemporary.”
Some call it “relevant.”
We’re so cool we call it…
CONTEMPORVANT
(And now it’s not relevant at all.)
1 Comment
Evangelicals beg: Please think we're relevant again - Roll to Disbelieve · 04/28/2025 at 4:55 AM
[…] Last time we met up, we talked about the “State of the Bible Report 2025” (local archive) from the American Bible Society (ABS). It described deeply troubling metrics for Christian leaders—especially Gen Z’s disengagement, with 83-85% not “Scripture Engaged” (p.30). […]