The Democrats are in power in Washington. Their pro-abortion, pro-LGBT, anti-parent, anti-Christian rights agenda is surging. Church attendance is down.
And the number of Americans who use the Bible has dropped off a cliff.
That’s the conclusion of the State of the Bible USA 2022 by the American Bible Society.
“In every study since 2018, Bible Users have accounted for between 47 and 49 percent of American adults,” the survey found. “However, the 2022 data showed a 10-percent decrease from same time in 2021.
“That means nearly 26 million Americans reduced or stopped their interaction with Scripture in the past year,” it reported.
The author reported, “I’d like to take a few pages to explain why 2022 is not a normal year for State of the Bible. Despite our hopes for the new year, 2022 continues to be headlined by disruptions that are impacting America’s relationship with the Bible in profound ways…”
The report showed Bible Users at 49% in 2019, 48% in 2020, 50% in 2021, and only 39% in 2022.
It also revealed a problematic number for those “engaged” in Scripture.
“One in five Americans left the Scripture Engaged category in the past year (-21% or 14.7 million adults), and two in five left the Movable Middle (-44% or 28.7 million adults). Only the Bible Disengaged category grew, and at an alarming rate, up by 38%, (45.2 million adults) in a single year.”
It continued with its findings:
“In fact, the change in feelings and behaviors was over six times larger than the change in connection to God. These three items were driving most of the change in Scripture Engagement among Bible Users. Why is that?
“I’d like to suggest two reasons that have one underlying cause. 1. Time-sensitive measurement. The first reason for the variance we’re seeing in these questions is that they are designed to be sensitive to time. The preamble to the questions asks respondents to AMERICAN BIBLE SOCIETY ‘Think about your Bible experience in the past month …’ before responding to these questions. This design helps researchers understand how the Bible has been influencing people’s spiritual lives recently. This time sensitivity provides a fidelity to the Scripture Engagement Scale that isn’t always present in other measures. It is an important feature of the Scripture Engagement Scale because it focuses on the Bible’s impact today, rather than asking respondents to recall an ideal time when the Bible was especially impactful. Because these questions are particularly sensitive to time, they are also affected by changes and events that impact the nation in a particular time frame. No matter how sincerely we wish they would go away, the COVID-19 pandemic, political polarization, and other disruptions are still affecting the nation. Furthermore, the omicron variant surge was hitting the Southern and Midwestern United States just as we were collecting data in mid-to-late January.9 These regions of the United States tend to be more Scripture engaged, as a population, than the rest of the nation. 2. Behavioral impact of the Bible. Second, these three questions ask respondents to consider how the Bible is influencing them to engage in their faith, show love to others, and live generously. There can be little doubt that the COVID-19 pandemic has seriously disrupted Americans’ behaviors, including their relationships with church communities, which are the epicenter of these behaviors for most American Christians.”
The polling also found those who think the nation would be better off without the Bible remained the same as a year ago, at 14%, but the number who think it would be about the same rose from 33% to 41%. Whose who think it would be worse off dropped from 54% to 45%.
“Six out of seven people (86%) agreed that the moral values of American are declining,” including 64% among those who are “elders” and 57% of those who are “boomers.”
The reasons cited by respondents included lack of positive parental involvement, negative influence of the media, social media, low level of respect for the Bible and negative influence of government leaders.
And while 10% of respondents use the Bible daily, a stunning 60% “never” use it or at a maximum once or twice a year.
“In a word, the current State of the Bible is ‘under-engaged,'” the report said. “Perhaps the Bible has been neglected or simply taken for granted as people dealt with the challenges of reassembling their lives after a disruptive pandemic. A significant number of people say they ‘never seem to have enough time’ to read the bible. But we also find that attitudes are changing. This year, more people say that America would stay ‘about the same’ if no one read the Bible.”
Decision Magazine reported, on the issue: “In light of growing Bible illiteracy, Ed Stetzer, executive director of the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College, wrote in February at ChurchLeaders.com: ‘The Bible is ultimately a book of reality: it reveals God’s character and purposes in the world to us. It tells us who we are and our greatest need. Good preaching helps people yearn to understand the Bible this way. … While we can’t assume people love and know the Word, we can be clear in communicating its message and confident in its power to change lives.'”
In fact, in the last year there’s been an unprecedented surge in actions by the Joe Biden administration to force Christians, against their faith, to participate in abortion. Christian foster agencies have been under attack. Biden is proposing virtually no abortion restrictions as well as taxpayer funding for killing the unborn. His government just announced a whole of government strategy to promote, protect and pay for transgenderism for children.
And even now, some Christian congregations still are fighting to recover from the attacks of mostly Democrat orders to shut down their services because of COVID.
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