The State of the Bible survey lead by the Barna Group reported an alarming trend in the U.S. More people are showing more apathy towards the Bible, a 10 percent increase from 2011, according the report. American\u2019s hold the Bible in high regard, but an equal amount of people are indifferent towards Scripture at 19 percent.<\/p>\n
One of the reasons for the shift is that Millennials (18-29) have never read a Bible (39 percent) and believed that \u201cno literature is sacred.\u201d About 35 percent among the surveyed believed that the Bible had everything needed for a productive life, compared to older adults at 50 percent.<\/p>\n
President and CEO of the American Bible Society Roy Peterson said he\u2019s deeply concerned as 79 percent of Americans believed the Bible is sacred, compared to 86 percent in 2011.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith four years of data from American Bible Society\u2019s \u2018State of the Bible\u2019 research, we are now able to see trends in attitudes about and behaviors around the Bible,\u201d he said according to a press release.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe increasing polarization in attitudes about the Bible has implications for us as a nation and for our churches and families.\u201d<\/p>\n
More than 28 percent of people read the Bible daily with an average reading time of 35 minutes. There is hope that older Americans, who believe the lack of reverence for the Word of God has caused the moral decline, can sway Millennials.<\/p>\n
Generation Xers ages from 30 to 48 believed that the Bible had too little influence over society at 52 percent compared to 15 percent who believed the influence was too great over the country. Boomers cited that the lack of Biblical study caused a moral decline while Millennials cited corruption and greed.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn our experience, they may not necessarily be coming back like previous generations,\u201d said Peterson.<\/p>\n
\u201cYoung people might have said, \u2018God\u2019s word is written by God, and it\u2019s an important book.\u2019 Today the skeptics are saying, \u2018It\u2019s just like any other piece of literature, and it\u2019s no different from that.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
________<\/p>\n
Read more at < http:\/\/www.americanbible.org\/features\/state-of-the-bible-research-2014 ><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The State of the Bible survey lead by the Barna Group reported an alarming trend in the U.S. More people are showing more apathy towards the Bible, a 10 percent increase from 2011, according the report. American\u2019s hold the Bible in high regard, but an equal amount of people are indifferent towards Scripture at 19 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[887,2559,1132,4150,3048,675,1654,1390],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4712"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4712\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}