The role of the Bible during social disruption and uncertainty

From The State of the Bible 2021 from the American Bible Society.  You always have to be careful using research from advocates but this seems reasonably useful.  Where a Gallup or a newspaper might use a sample size of 1,200 for measuring responses representative of the nation, this uses 3,354.  Far more appropriate a sample size though I would still argue for more like 5-10,000.  But hardly anybody uses sample sizes that large.

In media reporting, there is a general sense of the nation becoming less Christian and less religious.  I have long argued that there is clear evidence of a disaffection from the old mainline protestant churches (Lutherans, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Methodists, etc.) as those institutions and their clergy have become more left leaning in their politics. 

Certainly in my church, the Episcopal Church, I see evidence of this decline.  In the mid-1980s there were some 3-3.5 million Episcopalians and that has fallen to some 1.5 million today.  For all that, though, the decline is heterogeneous.  Larger conservative churches prosper and grow while the larger churches which have become more post-modernist in their views are the ones who are declining.

My perception, breaking free from the trends among mainline churches, is that there is a general slide away from traditional church attendance but with a strong reservoir of religious searching.  Americans are becoming less churched but are still as religious.

I think this issue of religiousness and Christianity in general is important owing to an unacknowledged importance of Christian values underlying the Constitution.  The Founding Fathers were reasonably explicit that though they thought it imperative for there to be separation between Church and State, they also thought that the effective functioning of the Constitution depended to some degree on free citizens having some foundation in religious belief.  Often unstated, Christian belief.

It is not clear to me that this is entirely true but I do believe that there are some strong cultural beliefs that are either generated through Protestant Christian religious traditions, or are sustained by them which are in turn conducive to the good functioning of our Age of Enlightenment constitution.  

In particular, the belief in the Communion of Saints and the belief that we are all God's children and also all born in sin is a powerful bulwark to division and othering - powerful historical forces.  Hatred of others for their differences is not condoned (in theory, not always in practice.)

If true, then the health of the Christian tradition in the US is of more than academic interest and The State of the Bible 2021 gives us some sense of trends.  In terms of importance to their lives, 50% of Americans read the Bible daily up to 3-4 times a year.  A further 8% read the Bible once or twice a year.  29% never read the Bible in a year.

Frequency of reading the Bible is not necessarily a great proxy for importance of belief or orientation of belief systems, but it is somewhat useful.  The 50% reading the Bible from daily to 3-4 times a year has remained pretty steady over the past decade.  

Click to enlarge.

No decline there, mere annual fluctuations.  They record a rebound in Bible reading during the Covid-19 Pandemic.  Not too surprising since religion in general and for Protestants in particular, the Bible is a source of solace in a challenging and uncertain world.  

The whole report is interesting fodder for reflection.