Surge in Bible sales could be a sign of Christian revival in UK

(LifeSiteNews) — From a Christian perspective, 2010 to 2020 was a grim decade. As Pew’s 2025 report noted, Europe’s Christian population share dropped from 75% to 67%, and most of those who self-identify as Christian do so as a nod to cultural heritage but never darken the door of a church. In the same decade, the United Kingdom lost its Christian majority. The Church of England has become an ecclesiastical lapdog for progressive causes; in October, it announced that the new Archbishop of Canterbury is a woman.

But a recent report indicates some surprising news. Bible sales, according to the Guardian, “reached a record high in the UK in 2025, increasing by 124% since 2019 — the highest since records began — according to industry research. Last year, total sales of Bibles in the UK reached £6.3m, £3.61m up on 2019 sales.” The Church of England’s collapse is occurring concurrently with a “meaning crisis” that is provoking more questions among young people; as the Catholic Herald recently observed, many are fleeing to the Catholic Church, to Pentecostalism, or to more traditional denominations.

“The sudden uptick of interest has caused booksellers and scholars to ask some profound questions of their own, such as where these newly curious readers are coming from and whether faith, or another more modern phenomenon – namely social media influencers – have called them to the word of God,” the Guardian reported.

“We’ve seen an increase in people coming to the Bible from scratch,” retail sales director at Church House bookshop Aude Pasquier said. “They have no Christian background whatsoever. They have no grounding from their parents or from their school. Whereas most people in prior generations would have. It’s definitely younger people who are seeking some sort of spirituality – they want to understand the world and themselves better.”

Steve Barnet of St. Andrews bookshop in Buckinghamshire concurs. He believes that Jordan Peterson’s commentary on the Bible is perhaps one of the triggers. “(Peterson) is not a Christian, but through him, a lot of people are going on a spiritual journey,” he said. “Some are ending up in church; some are ending up elsewhere. Some are ending up in a good place. I would think ending up as a Christian in church is a good place …

“Almost out of the blue, something’s changed where people are turning to faith.”

It isn’t just Bible sales, either:

The research was conducted by Christian publisher SPCK Group. It analysed data from the Nielsen BookScan, a service that compiles the sales data of books across the globe. The upward surge in Bible sales in the UK correlates with growth in church attendance in England and Wales in previous years. According to a report published in April 2025 by the Bible Society, the number of people attending church in England and Wales rose by 50% since 2018. Leading the charge is young people. Only 4% of 18- to 24-year-olds said they attended church monthly in 2018, but in 2024 that number rose to 16% – the largest increase of any age demographic.

Sam Richardson, the CEO of SPCK Group, stated that part of this is the attraction to Christianity as a countercultural force. Atheists like Richard Dawkins are now firmly establishment, and the establishment has obviously failed. Thus, young people — especially young men — are more interested in Christianity.

Tommy Robinson, one of the most controversial figures in the UK, recently announced that he’d converted to Christianity while in prison. In a lengthy interview for The European Conservative recently, he told me that young men are searching. “We were the lost sheep, as a movement,” he said. “We were working class men. We’ve got no faith. We’ve got no church. We’ve lost our belief. And when we’d go into a city, the church leaders would line up with the Muslim leaders to actively condemn us.”

“As we face worldwide political and social change, including the aftereffects of the Covid-19 pandemic, global wars, the rise of AI, and a growing mental health crisis, individuals are re-engaging with questions of meaning and spirituality,” Sam Richardson told the Guardian. He also dismissed accusations that figures like Robinson are spurring interest in faith merely for political reasons. “It has probably been overplayed as a factor,” he said.

“There’s definitely something going on, but it seems very recent that Christian nationalism has really started to get attention, whereas this increase in Bible sales has been sustained for six or seven years since 2019.”