Bible Sales Soar as Anxieties Spike

A series of anxiety-inducing events is prompting Americans to buy Bibles in droves.

• The wars in Ukraine and Israel, the United States-Mexico border crisis, the political division surrounding the 2024 U.S. presidential election and many other calamities have people worried. While the book industry is stagnating, Bible sales are red hot.

According to Circana BookScan, Bible sales in America are up 22 percent this year through the end of October. This means Americans will likely purchase more than 16 million Bibles in 2024, compared to 14.2 million in 2023. One Bible publisher told the Wall Street Journal that a surge of interest from Generation Z is driving sales.

America’s foundation: For the past half century, Americans have been losing interest in the Bible. Yet the nation was founded on biblical principles.

The founders understood that since conversion is a personal covenant made with God (Acts 2:38), the government had no right to force people to make that covenant or to attend a particular church against their will. They enshrined freedom of conscience as one of America’s founding principles.

The founders also understood, however, that self-government is only sustainable when the people are virtuous enough to restrain their carnal desires. They bet America’s future on Americans’ ability to subjugate themselves to a higher law.

False teachers: Today many churches teach that the law has been nailed to the cross.

“Christian leaders today teach that the law has been done away,” wrote Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry in his 2011 article “The Bible and the Constitution.” “That is almost the extreme opposite of what our forefathers believed! Our spiritual leaders, both from the right and the left, have led us into lawlessness and grave danger. Even the politicians who established our republic were more spiritual than most of our religious leaders today!”

Instruction needed: Americans are developing a renewed interest in the Bible, but they desperately need instruction about what the Bible says on governing a nation.

To learn about how America has strayed from the sincere religion that is the true secret to national success, request a free copy of Mr. Flurry’s booklet Character in Crisis.