Does anybody in Canada still read their Bible? Thankfully the answer is “yes” though the percentage may surprise you and their reasons for doing so might encourage you.
A month ago, a couple of dozen Christian leaders from our city were invited to an interdenominational meeting to hear a report from Cardus titled “The Bible and Us: Canadians and Their Relationship with Scripture”. This was a freshly released research study funded by the Canadian Bible Society and authored by Rev. Dr. Anthony Bennett. Click on this link to read this report for yourself.
The report primarily looked at how Christians interacted with the Bible, but it did so against the backdrop of how all Canadians engaged with all sacred texts, including the Qu’ran, Hindu texts and the Torah. When asked “How often, if at all, do you read the Bible, Qu’ran or other sacred text?” 56% said never, 21% said rarely, 7% said a few times a year, 10% said at least monthly, but less than daily, and 6% affirmed that they read a sacred text on a daily basis. These figures came from a survey conducted in the summer of 2022.
The more in-depth survey of Christians and their engagement with the Bible was conducted in November 2022 and sampled just over 4000 people across the nation who identified as Christians. Evangelicals can take some comfort from the fact that there was far greater Bible interaction among this group. The number of Evangelicals who read or engaged the Bible in the last year was over 80%, double the average of “total Christians” who responded. That doesn’t provide much comfort to pastors who regularly challenge their people to read their Bible daily. The question of daily reading was asked. Here, the numbers are not as encouraging. Among Evangelicals only 22% read their Bibles daily, with 20% reading it several times per week and 10% once a week. Sadly 32% of Evangelicals replied that they never or hardly ever read a Bible. While we might look across the denominations and take some comfort that we are doing better than the Catholics, who say that 76% never or rarely read the Scriptures, or Mainline Protestants at 70%, it is overall discouraging that so many so-called Christians are not interested in their sacred text.
Dr. Bennett took time in this report to give some highlights and ask some further key question based on each aspect of this survey. You will find it intriguing to see what he discovered about why Canadian Christians read the Bible, what they think about the Bible and lastly, do they actually know their Bibles. For example, of the 4000 or so Christians surveyed, only 37% correctly answered that “Matthew” was the name of the first book in the New Testament. Only 33% correctly knew what Pentecost celebrated on the Christian calendar. We have some work ahead of us!
Personally, as a born and raised Evangelical leader, though saddened by the declining engagement by the whole Christian community with the Scriptures, I took some encouragement from the answers to the “how” and “why” sections of this study. There is still great room for improvement in the way we need to disciple our people about not just reading, but obeying the teachings in their Bible. Leaders from all Christian traditions in the room commiserated, consoled and challenged each other on this great task ahead of us.
Click below to read the 32 page report on the Cardus website along with many other great resources. https://www.cardus.ca/research/faith-communities/reports/the-bible-and-us/
