Why Bible Reading Is Surging Among Gen Z and Millennials — and the Apps Fueling the Comeback

The Bible Reading Comeback: A Data-Driven Overview

For anyone tracking the health of Bible engagement in the U.S., the past few years have been a disorienting ride. In 2024, weekly Bible reading among American adults hit a 25-year low of 30%. That number looked like a floor — a signal of accelerating disengagement that many church leaders feared would only deepen.

Then came 2025. According to the Barna Group, which conducted 12,116 online interviews between January and October 2025 as part of a broader 25-year tracking sample of 138,556 adults, weekly Bible reading rebounded to 42% — a 12-point jump in a single year and the highest level recorded since 2012.

David Kinnaman, Barna's CEO, has described this moment not as a revival but as a reset. That distinction matters. A revival suggests a broad-based spiritual awakening across all age groups and regions. What the data actually shows is something more specific — and in some ways more surprising: a generational flip that has reshaped who is reading Scripture and why.