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| Unsplash/Priscilla Du Preez |
By Michael Gryboski,
Christian Post Reporter
Tyndale
House Publishers, a Christian publisher based in Carol Stream,
Illinois, saw a considerable increase in their Bible sales last month compared
to March 2019.
This includes their
Life Application Study Bible sales going up 44 per cent and sales of the
Immerse Bible going up 60 per cent, according to Jim Jewell, an executive at
Tyndale.
In an interview with The
Christian Post on Tuesday, Jewell said he believes concerns over the
pandemic “has upended almost everyone’s lives in some way.”
“It's not surprising
that people turn to the comfort and clarity of the Bible in times of trouble
and uncertainty,” he said, adding that social media engagement for Tyndale was
also growing.
“On [our Facebook page
for the] New Living Translation, where we post Bible verse memes, engagement
was triple what it was last March and up 72 per cent from just last month.”
Jewell told CP that
this was not the first time a national crisis has led to higher Bible sales. He
said in the month after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, “Tyndale Bible sales were
57 per cent higher than October of 2000.”
Alabaster Co. of California,
which was founded in 2017 and sells books of the Bible individually that have
visually artistic features, reported a 143 per cent boost in sales compared to
last year.
Brian Chung,
co-founder of Alabaster, told Fox News that
he believed the sales jump occurred because “people are looking for hope and
restoration.”
“Even amidst suffering and financial hardship we've continued to
see people engage with Alabaster by utilizing our free resources and purchasing
Bibles as encouraging gifts for loved ones,” Chung said.
“We believe people are
buying Bibles because there’s a longing to connect with God, find meaning, and
experience peace.”
The increases in Bible
sales reported by multiple publishing companies is not the only evidence
indicating growing efforts among the population to find spiritual answers amid
the pandemic.
According to Jeanet
Sinding Bentzen, associate professor at the University of Copenhagen, internet
searches for the word “prayer” have dramatically increased since last month.
In a preliminary draft
of a paper titled “In Crisis, We Pray: Religiosity and
the COVID-19 Pandemic,” Bentzen found that “search intensity for
prayer doubles for every 80,000 new registered cases of COVID-19.”
“In times of crisis,
humans have a tendency to turn to religion for stress relief and explanation.
The 2020 COVID-19 pandemic is no exception,” wrote Bentzen.
“I document that
Google searches on prayer has skyrocketed during the month of March 2020 when
the COVID-19 went global.”
Bentzen added that the
searches “surged to the highest level during the past five years for which
comparative Google search data is available, surpassing all other major events
that otherwise instigate intensified demand for prayer, such as Christmas,
Easter, and Ramadan.”
“Even Denmark, one of
the least religious countries in the world, sees systematic increases in
internet searches on prayer,” she noted.
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