The Bible Among Key Demographics

As we’ve seen, older adults are more likely than Gen-Xers and Millennials to engage with the Scriptures, but differences in Bible beliefs and practices crop up between other population segments, too. When researchers group people together according to faith practice or Christian tradition, or by ethnic identification, variations emerge.

Part III parses the Barna-American Bible Society data along key demographic lines. A few things to notice:

• Practicing Christians maintain strong beliefs and robust reading habits when it comes to the Bible.
• Catholics and Hispanic Americans read the Bible less frequently than other groups, but engage with the Scriptures in other ways.
• African Americans tend to be highly engaged with the Bible, maintaining “high” views of the Scriptures and reading them more often than white and Hispanic adults.

Practicing Christians

A majority of Americans chooses “Christian” when asked to identify their religion. Most of these self-identified Christians, however, do not consider their faith a high priority or regularly attend church. Only about one-third of the total U.S. population is a “practicing Christian,” who say their faith is very important and attended at least one worship service within the past month.

When it comes to beliefs about the Bible, practicing Christians are quite different from adults who do not practice Christianity (including those who identify as Christian). They are twice as likely as other adults to choose one of the top two “high” views of the Bible (81% vs. 41%), and nine out of 10 say it is either the actual or the inspired word of God (91%).

Practicing Christians are also more likely than other Americans to say the Bible contains everything one needs to know in order to live a meaningful life (90% vs. 57% among adults who do not practice Christianity).

As one might expect, those who practice their Christian faith read the Bible more than other adults—much more, in fact. Seven in 10 report reading the Scriptures at least once a week—more than three times the percentage of other Americans (22%)— and three in 10 say they read every day. There are some ethnic, generational and denominational differences among practicing Christians, however, which are examined in later section.

Combining Bible belief and reading habits, we find that practicing Christians are much more likely than those who do not practice the faith to be Bible engaged (37% vs. 9%) or Bible friendly (47% vs. 33%).

Within the practicing Christian community there are some differences between the generations, but overall this group stands in stark contrast to their age cohorts in the general population. In Part IV we take a closer look at generational differences among all U.S. teens and adults and among practicing Christians.

Hispanic Americans*

Fifteen percent of Hispanic Americans qualify as Bible engaged, which is slightly below the national average of 18 percent. They are more likely than the U.S. norm, however, to be Bible friendly (46% vs. 38%). They are less engaged than average not because of belief—in fact, they are more likely to hold a “high” view of the Scriptures, as seen below—but because fewer Hispanics report reading the Bible every day (12% vs. 14% among all U.S. adults) or multiple times per week (4% vs. 5%).

In general, Hispanic Americans have a high opinion of the Bible: Seven in 10 (72%) say that it is the actual or inspired word of God, and more than half (59%) believe it is true in all it teaches. In fact, on both counts Hispanics actually have a “higher” view of the Scriptures than is true of non-Hispanic Americans. And the non-Christian Hispanic population maintains more respect toward the origins and authority of the Bible than is true among other non-Christians in the U.S.

* Hispanic America: Faith, Values and Priorities (Barna, 2012) is a collaboration of Barna Group, American Bible Society, The National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference and OneHope.

Are Hispanic Americans really less Bible engaged than the overall U.S. population? In fact, by controlling for denominational differences, Hispanic Protestants (31%) are statistically on par with non-Hispanic Protestants (29%) when it comes to being Bible engaged. Among Catholics, whether they are Hispanic (8% engaged) or non-Hispanic (7%), Bible engagement tends to be lower. So the real differences lie not in ethnicity per se, but in religious affiliation. Hispanics (68%) are more likely than the general population (19%) to be Catholic, and Catholics overall are less likely to be Bible engaged.

When it comes to the intersection of the Bible with culture, Hispanics in America are a bit more skeptical than the general population about the role of the Bible in U.S. society. They are less likely to say it has too little influence on culture (42% vs. 51% among all U.S. adults) and more than one-third say its level of influence is just right (35% vs. 28%).

However, when it comes to believing the sufficiency of the Bible’s contents as a guide for meaningful life, Hispanic Americans have a higher opinion than the general population. Seven in 10 agree the Bible contains everything a person needs to know to live a meaningful life (71%), compared to about twothirds of all Americans (68%).

Most Hispanics don’t see the Bible merely as a book of valuable teachings (a view that is becoming more common among the general population); they see it as the very word of God. If anything, Hispanics’ high regard for the Scriptures suggests that they could be “tipped” toward Bible engagement more readily than non-Hispanics. The foundation of belief is there. What’s missing is a clear understanding of how and why the Bible can generate personal and community transformation.

African Americans

African Americans read the Bible more frequently and hold “higher” views of the Scriptures than whites or Hispanics.

Eight out of 10 black adults (82%) hold an orthodox view of the Bible (that it is the actual or inspired word of God), compared to seven in 10 Hispanics (72%) and two-thirds of whites (67%). Half of black practicing Christians (49%) believe the Bible is the actual word of God, compared to 38 percent of all practicing Christians and just one-quarter of all U.S. adults (24%).

In a similar vein, African Americans report reading the Bible more frequently than Hispanics or whites. More than half of all black adults (55%) say they read the Bible at least once a week, compared to one-third of Hispanics (35%) and whites (34%). Eight out of 10 black practicing Christians (79%) read the Bible once a week or more often, outstripping the larger practicing Christian segment (70%).

Since black adults read the Bible more often and hold “higher” than average beliefs about the Scriptures, it stands to reason that they tend to be more Bible engaged—and that is indeed the case. They are nearly twice as likely to be Bible engaged (29%) as Hispanics (15%) and whites (17%).

Yet, as Bishop Claude Alexander reveals in an interview with Barna on the following pages, some leaders within the historically Black Church have witnessed a diminishment of the Bible’s authority in recent years. The data does not yet reflect this phenomenon; for now, the Bible remains a powerful spiritual icon in the African American community.