MARKING the quincentenary of the Reformation in 2017, St Paul’s Cathedral put on display one of three known surviving copies of William Tyndale’s English New Testament, billed as “the most dangerous book in Tudor England”. Invited to reflect on Tyndale, the Bible, and the 21st century, Dr Jane Williams observed that the Bible placed into every person’s hand was “a glorious gift”, but “dangerous”, too. “It enables each person to interact and to begin to form their own faith.” Tyndale, she argued, had placed “an enormous amount of attention on the congregation”, trusting in its authority. He and other early translators could not have imagined the way in which scripture would be used today, “when we sit on our own reading the bits that we like best and deciding for ourselves what it all means”.
Recent reports suggest that this dangerous gift is in the hands of a growing number of people. SPCK reported this month that total sales of Bibles in the UK had reached £6.3 million in 2025, up by £3.61 million in 2019. Amid talk of a “quiet revival”, the clergy report people — young men in particular — arriving at church as if from nowhere, having read the Bible for themselves. One man quoted in the Evangelical Alliance’s report Finding Jesus, about adult converts, recalled reading the entire Bible, starting with Genesis: “By the time I was at Exodus, I’m a full believer, and by the time I got to the New Testament, it just broke my heart.”
The Bible Society’s Quiet Revival report offers further encouragement: more than one fifth of the surveyed non-churchgoers aged 18 to 34 said they would read the Bible if recommended by a family member or friend whom they trusted. But it also offers both perspective (79 per cent of adults hardly ever, or never, read the Bible) and evidence of a lack of confidence among the minority — largely churchgoers — who sit outside this trend. Almost one third of the adult churchgoers were not confident that they could answer questions about the Bible from someone who wasn’t a Christian. More than one third of the 18- to 34-year-old churchgoers agreed that their faith was “undermined when they think/read about some parts of the Bible”.
For those who come to scripture without a prior connection to the Church, the task may be even harder. Finding Jesus reported that “a significant number” of converts were “making some kind of commitment with only a very limited understanding of the gospel”. While it is tempting to focus on those who find hope, joy, and faith through scripture, the new Youthscape study offers an important insight into the more challenging reactions that it may elicit. Non-Christian teenagers who took part in reading groups exploring passages deemed by youth workers to offer good news reported finding Jesus condescending, or worse. For some, Jesus was “not the liberator from judgement, he’s the subject of it”.
An earlier aspect of the study — a survey of 1000 12- to 17-year-olds in 2022 — observed of the gospel: “The more specific the story gets, the more divisive, confusing, and interesting it gets. Many young people are OK with the idea of a loving God who created us and doesn’t give up on us when we make mistakes. But, for most, it doesn’t follow that we need saving, that God would become human, or that death and resurrection are necessary for this. And the idea of God wanting a relationship with us, to transform us or be close to us, is off-putting for some young people.”
Findings such as these should not dampen excitement about signs of interest in scripture. But they are a reminder that the Word of God is described in Hebrews as sharper than a “double-edged sword” and that scripture has a history and a context in a community, the Body of Christ, which always has to wrestle with its meaning. The “ploughboy on his own out in the field”, in Dr Williams’s reading, could receive the gift as part of a congregation of the faithful.
