Have you heard the good news? There appears to be a Bible boom in book sales this year.
American Bible sales were up 22% through the end of October, compared with the same period in 2023, according to book tracker Circana BookScan.
This figure stands out because it was not reflected in total book sales, which remained roughly stagnant during the same period.
“People are experiencing anxiety themselves, or they’re worried for their children and grandchildren,” Jeff Crosby, president of the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association, told The Wall Street Journal. “It’s related to artificial intelligence, election cycles … and all of that feeds a desire for assurance that we’re going to be OK.”
These figures come after a number of high-profile figures have converted to Christianity.
Actor Russell Brand converted to Christianity in the spring of 2024. He has been documenting his experiences finding Christ and living as a newly founded Christian on the social media platform TikTok.
“I’ve been a Christian a month now, and it’s been a big change,” Brand said in a May TikTok video. “Not that I’ve entirely changed as a person. Of course, I haven’t, but I’ve taken on a lot of new concepts, and it changes you to accept that it’s not like you’re in a game show, and by doing really, really good things, you can get redeemed.”
The Gospel has spread to other circles as well.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali came to prominence in the early 2000s because of her descriptions of her suffering under Islam in Somalia, which included female genital mutilation. At the time she denounced Islam and religion altogether, becoming one part of the class of intellectuals known as the “New Atheists” that were en vogue in the West at that time.
However, she converted to Christianity in November 2023. In a column titled, “Why I am now a Christian[:] Atheism can’t equip us for civilisational war,” she explained her new faith.
She opened by enumerating her fears that the West was in danger from Global Islamism, the rise of China, and Western woke ideology. She then explained that her decades-long dalliance with atheism was unable to undergird the greatness of the West or satisfy her spiritually.
“Yet I would not be truthful if I attributed my embrace of Christianity solely to the realisation that atheism is too weak and divisive a doctrine to fortify us against our menacing foes. I have also turned to Christianity because I ultimately found life without any spiritual solace unendurable — indeed very nearly self-destructive,” she said before adding, “Atheism failed to answer a simple question: what is the meaning and purpose of life?”
“Of course, I still have a great deal to learn about Christianity. I discover a little more at church each Sunday. But I have recognised, in my own long journey through a wilderness of fear and self-doubt, that there is a better way to manage the challenges of existence than either Islam or unbelief had to offer,” she concluded.
Famed Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson’s wife Tammy converted to Catholicism after a battle with cancer. Although Peterson has not publicly announced his own conversion, he recently released a popular book, We Who Wrestle With God.