Bibles have been flying off the shelves this year!
The Wall Street Journal recently reported that publishers have seen a 22% increase in Bible sales in the first 10 months of 2024 compared to the same period the year prior. For context, they report that total U.S. print book sales saw a meager 1% rise in the same timeframe.
“There is so much chaos in our culture today. People are trying to find purpose in life, meaning to what they’re doing and fulfillment in relationships,” said Daniel Campbell, director of the St. John Vianney Theological Seminary Lay Division, which is comprised of the Denver Catholic Biblical and Catechetical Schools. “Whether they consciously realize it or not, what they’re looking for is God. And if you’re looking for God, you’ll find him in his word.”
This marked increase is especially fascinating given the rise of the “nones,” or the religiously unaffiliated, in the United States in recent years.
While the Pew Research Center reports that 28% of U.S. adults self-identify as “nones,” 14.2 million Bibles were sold in 2023.
WSJ reports that publishers attribute the increase to new versions of the Bible on the market, new and focused marketing efforts, and — most meaningfully — to the search for stability, hope and meaning in an ever-changing world.
“In a world with frequently changing values, narratives, causes, etc., it’s incredibly hard for people to find something to form a solid base for their worldview (what they see as good, how to act, instructions for navigating relationships, etc.),” said Andrew McGown, executive director of evangelization and family life ministries for the Archdiocese of Denver. “I think people are drawn towards the Bible because it hasn’t changed in millennia and is not influenced by changes in trends. It has stood the test of time and continues to provide meaning and direction, so they intuit there must be something worth investigating here.”
As people — including and especially the “nones” among us — encounter their own need or poverty in the sufferings, challenges and anxieties of life, McGown and Campbell said, they come to realize that something bigger is at play. Confronted with the world’s brokenness in its many evident forms, one might be left asking, “Is this all there is?”
“The biggest thing leading people to God is twofold: restlessness and difficulty in relationships,” Campbell added. “Only the infinite and perfect good of God can satisfy us. So long as we place our happiness in earthly goods, however good they may be, they will always fall short. People are left with a general restlessness — that promotion was supposed to change things, but it didn’t. That house was supposed to change things, but it didn’t. On top of that, when we experience difficulty in relationships — whether marriage, children, boss, or whatever — that difficulty can often lead people to try and find solace in God.”
It is at those moments that God proposes his answer in the person of Jesus. As Archbishop Samuel J. Aquila wrote in a recent column, “God the Father has only one answer to the fall of Adam and Eve: Jesus Christ. In our broken and divided world, only one answer to our pain remains: Jesus Christ.”
“Many times, [these sufferings are] the necessary atmosphere within which we finally awaken to the reality of our need for God,” he explained.
When those moments of awakening happen, prompted as they are by the Holy Spirit, those who already follow Jesus must be ready to walk with spiritual seekers, especially the young, without fear and with an overabundant joy.
“We cannot conjure up or control when another person will experience the ‘wake up’ from God and begin a spiritual journey as a result of a crisis. But we can be prepared to walk with them when these moments happen. Building bridges of trust, becoming comfortable initiating open-ended conversations about the big questions in life, learning how to partner with the Holy Spirit in a tangible way to both pray for and speak with the lost: all of these actions position us to make use of the many ‘divine moments’ God provides to the lost as doorways to invite them to start the spiritual journey of seeking him,” McGown continued.
For this reason, McGown’s team in the Office of Evangelization and Family Life Ministries (EFLM) has been hard at work equipping everyday Catholics to “live their relationships with evangelical intentionality.” For Campbell and his team at the Biblical School, a redoubled effort to introduce people to God through his word continues in earnest.
Whether a Catholic Christian attends an EFLM or Biblical School workshop, training, class, lecture, or day of prayer and reflection, each is called to build bridges of trust and live a life of Christian joy, McGown emphasized.
“What we have is ‘good news’ in Jesus. Our lives have to reflect this. If a young person knows we are committed Catholics, but nothing about our lives looks much different from our secular counterparts, and we aren’t any more joyful than them, a young person will never believe that we have a ‘better way.’ Build trust and radiate the joy of knowing Jesus. These are the two most important starting points for reaching the lost,” McGown concluded.
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