The majority of Church of England Christians don't read the Bible, the church's own polling has revealed.

60 per cent said they never read the Bible Credit: Matthew Lloyd/Getty Images

Olivia Rudgard, Religious Affairs Correspondent

14 September 2017 • 9:00pm

The majority of Church of England Christians don't read the Bible, the church's own polling has revealed.
Figures show that 60 per cent of self-declared followers of the Church admit they never read the Bible, and 36 per cent say they never attend church. One in three said they never pray.
The figures produced by ComRes, and commissioned by the Church, show that many of those who claim to be Christian don't actually take part in many of the activities which are normally associated with the faith.

Paid content


Black Friday Preview: Save 60% on Cold Weather Boots at Macy's
Macys.com


Thinking Of Buying New Glasses? Go to This Site First
GlassesUSA
Recommended by

More than half of all those who identified as Christian across all denominations admitted they never read the Bible - and one in three said they never attend church.
While 51 per cent of those who took part in the survey said they were Christian, just six per cent of those polled read the Bible, prayed and attended Church at least once a week.
Those who said they were followers of the Church of England were the least observant.
Rachel Jordan, the Church of England’s National Mission and Evangelism adviser, said the survey had been commissioned to give it "a real sense of the scale of the task ahead".
She said: “There are lots of surveys out there which measure how many people nominally identify as Christians.
"But we, as a group of leaders across denominations committed to evangelism, wanted to devise a measure which shows us who the most committed people are – those who themselves might be willing to take on the task of spreading the good news of Jesus in his country.
“So we’ve been tough in our definition, there was no point being woolly, that isn’t helpful to us for the task of evangelism."
Ms Jordan added: “We are really happy when people in this country chose to affiliate with us, identifying as both Christian and Church of England even if in practice they don’t always choose to join in our churches.
“But this does show that we need to do more to connect with those people and explore ways to draw them them into the wider church community.”
The figures followed data released earlier this month from the British Social Attitudes survey which revealed that just 15 per cent of the population were Church of England Christians.
Bishops greeted that figure with optimism, saying that it simply showed that more non-believers were willing to be honest and admit they had no faith, rather than claiming to be Church of England.
Related Topics