Results of the 2013 State of the Bible survey have been released, revealing what Americans believe about the role and use of the Bible today.

While the survey indicates the Bible is still thought to hold a vital place in daily life, it also indicates that practices in reading the Bible are decreasing. Over 80 percent of Americans identified the Bible as sacred, and there is an average of 4.4 Bibles per household.

77 percent of people surveyed indicated they believe ‘the values and morals of America are declining’, and almost one in three of the respondents believed this to be a result of a ‘lack of Bible reading’.

For those who owned Bibles, engagement with the Bible was higher than previous years. More than 50 percent of Bible owners sat down to read their Bible for more than fifteen minutes. And of those who read the Bible, almost two-thirds gave thought to how the Bible would apply to their life, up from previous years: 61 percent in 2011, and 59 percent in 2012. But there was a noticeable decrease in engagement with the Bible in small groups, down three percent to 44 percent of Bible readers being in a small group Bible study.

As might be expected, there was a noticeable shift towards reading the Bible on digital formats: 29 percent of the number who had read or searched the Bible on their phone, up from 18 percent in 2011 and 23 percent in 2012. However, print Bible are still far in the majority with nine out of ten Bible readers reading from a print version.

The King James Version was still by far the most popular version, at 38 percent, followed by its revised translation, the New King James Version, at 14 percent.

The 18 to 28 year old age group was the age group least likely to read the Bible, but they were also the age group most interested in receiving the Bible’s wisdom on topics such as dating, relationships, and sex.

Doug Birdsall, President of the American Bible Society, was quoted as saying, “If we had a cure for cancer, wouldn’t everyone with cancer take it? Americans are telling us that the cure for declining morality is sitting on our bookshelves. But more than half of Americans are simply letting the cure gather dust.”

The full results of the survey and infographics available at http://www.thestateofthebible.com

Infographics courtesy of American Bible Society.