ArticleI’m risking becoming a “lamb to the slaughter” and might only get away with it “by the skin of my teeth”. Some will consider me “a wolf in sheep’s clothing” by claiming a “sign of the times”, that is a “fly in the ointment” of accepted wisdom. But this is my “cross to bear”. It’s “crystal clear”, the “writing is on the wall”, the Bible—the source of every idiom in this paragraph— is making a comeback.
In fact, it never truly went away. The most published book of all time not only shapes so much of the English language, but it also perennially outstrips any competition (there was one year that Harry Potter beat it). According to the United Bible Societies, the annual print run of Bibles is 80 million while 2024 saw a 22% rise in Bible sales.
There are various theories as to why that is. Global uncertainty and possibly a post-secular malaise where people are searching for meaning and spiritual nourishment they are not getting elsewhere. That’s possible.
It is still the case that Western countries like Australia are highly secular, and while the Bible might be easily accessible in these places, the levels of knowledge or interest in it is very low. If it’s even on the shelf of your average home, it’s likely to be gathering dust.
Might that be about to change?
YouVersion, the most popular Bible App in the world will this month celebrate their billionth install onto a device.
For sure some of these installs are repeat customers, and others, people scrambling to find the text of 1 Corinthians 13 to read at their sister’s wedding, but there is no denying the astonishing take up of this app that was one of the first in the app store in 2008.
Global app installs of YouVersion are up more than 12% year-over-year and daily usage is growing even faster, with an 18% increase compared to last year. YouVersion has 3600 Bible translations in 2,300 languages. Used in every country around the world, the YouVersion family of apps sees one billion app opens every 39 days.
This activity takes place not only in countries where Christianity is booming – sub-Saharan Africa, China and other parts of Asia, and South America—but in places where death notices for the church were issued some time ago.
In Australia YouVersion’s apps have been downloaded more than 7.4 million times, with over half a million installs so far this year.
In determinedly godless France the Catholic Church is scrambling to make sense of, and to accommodate, the spike in people wanting to be Baptised. That number—more than 10,000—is a 45% increase on the year before and accompanies a 20% increase in Bible sales in the country since 2024. The most in-depth investigation of this phenomenon has found that Bible reading is playing a more foundational role in conversions than social media or the internet. Astonishingly, the 18 – 25 age bracket represents the largest block of the baptisms at 42% of the total.
In England demographers and statisticians are scratching their heads at the recent findings of “The Quiet Revival” report that discovered that the long, steady decline of the church in England and Wales, that was predicted to be terminal, has stopped and now it is growing, again, largely because Gen Z is leading the turnaround.
In these two countries in 2018 just 4% of 18 – 24 year olds attended church at least monthly. That number has rocketed to 16% today, with young men representing the largest area of growth. In Australia, for the first time ever, young men are more likely than their female peers to attend church.
These shifts run alongside a plethora of high profile and influential conversions to faith in recent years. People like New York Times columnist David Brooks, Historian Tom Holland, English writer and environmentalist Paul Kingsnorth, and high-profile couple, historian Niall Ferguson and his wife, the writer Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Even our own Nick Cave, haunted as he has been by the Bible, has arrived at a place of belief via terrible tragedy.
There is a cultural layer to all this. It has long been acknowledged, even by the harshest critics of Christianity and the church, that the Bible has been the formative and shaping force of Western civilization—its literature, its art, its music and its highest ideals. Even the atheist Richard Dawkins once conceded as much, writing that, “You can’t appreciate English literature unless you are steeped to some extent in the King James Bible… not to know (it) is to be, in some small way, barbarian.”
The famous biologist is unlikely to be cheering the recent growth in Bible sales and downloads. But my sense is these figures will continue to grow because they represent a profound response to questions human beings always end up asking: What am I here for? Does my life have meaning? Where do I find hope?
Of course I would say that. I’m from the Centre for Public Christianity. You might protest with the biblical aphorism, “pride comes before a fall”, and tell me, again reaching for biblical language, that my arguments are “upside down” and “as old as the hills.” To which I would respond, go ahead and “cast the first stone.” Don’t know what I’m referring to? It’s a good story. You should look it up!
Simon Smart is the Executive Director of the Centre for Public Christianity.This article was first published in The Australian Financial Review.