Following a tradition established by President Roosevelt in 1941, this week is National Bible Week in the United States. Oddly, as more American Christians mourn what seems to be the slow death of Christianity in the West, Bible sales in 2025 increased by 11 percent[i] compared to the year before. More than 18 million Bibles had been sold in the United States by mid-November.
It is not surprising that the Bible sells well in America. Despite cries that America has become post-Christian, it is still a decidedly Christian nation—or at least a religious one. According to Gallup, roughly 30 percent of Americans attend church regularly,[ii] which doesn’t sound like much until you compare it to the nation’s history. Prior to a peak in the mid-twentieth century, church attendance wasn’t much better than it is today. Estimates from the late eighteenth century, when the nation was born, range between 10 and 20 percent. Finke and Stark, in The Churching of America, estimate that roughly 17 percent of Americans belonged to a church in 1776.[iii] Yale scholar Jon Butler suggests that by the end of the eighteenth century, only 20 percent of Americans belonged to a church.[iv]
That’s half of what it is today. Of course, church membership and attendance almost never match up exactly, as any American Seventh-day Adventist congregation could tell you. The numbers, which don’t include casual attenders or nonmember followers, might be a bit off. Still, it seems that the decline in church attendance appears much less discouraging when looked at across the entire history of the country.
How do we explain the decline in church attendance despite rising Bible sales? It’s probably too complex to answer simply, but it seems that interest in Christianity isn’t fading, as some think. Instead, hesitance toward organized religion is preventing Bible readers from entering churches. Of course, this is just a hunch—not supported by hard data.
If the hunch is correct, however, Seventh-day Adventists could be well positioned to attract many new Bible readers by reemphasizing their identity as “the people of the Book.” While institutions are absolutely essential for a global movement to operate effectively, they are not a big draw for most people. What does attract? The Bible.
What might we offer to those holding a new Bible? Bible study. But not in institutional buildings, as much as we might like that idea (because it’s tidier than opening your home to strangers). Instead, it’s in small groups, as we’ve recently seen in the remarkable growth of the Papua New Guinea church, where hundreds of thousands of new people are attending: new Bible readers are more likely to become dedicated Adventists.
We have what people appear to be craving: a deep familiarity with Scripture and the Jesus to be found in the pages in the Bible. It would seem that God knew precisely what He was doing when He positioned us as the people of the Book—perhaps we should be busy taking advantage of it.
[i] https://religionnews.com/2025/11/17/bible-sales-keep-soaring-even-as-americans-lose-their-religion
[ii] https://news.gallup.com/poll/642548/church-attendance-declined-religious-groups.aspx
[iii] https://lawliberty.org/was-the-founding-generation-churched/
