{"id":253,"date":"2024-12-03T04:20:00","date_gmt":"2024-12-03T04:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/?p=253"},"modified":"2025-09-27T23:46:02","modified_gmt":"2025-09-27T23:46:02","slug":"bad-news-for-progressives-sale-of-bibles-are-booming-fueled-by-first-time-buyers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/?p=253","title":{"rendered":"Bad news for “progressives”: “Sale of Bibles are Booming Fueled by 1st-time Buyers”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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At the bottom of the front page of the Wall Street Journal. Of course if you are a progressive the answer is simple – people are terrified of “Trumpworld.” Excerpts below the link.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hallelujah! Bibles are a bright spot in books this year. Worries about the economy, conflicts abroad and uncertainty over the election pushed readers toward the publication in droves. Bible sales are up 22% in the U.S. through the end of October, compared with the same period last year, according to book tracker Circana BookScan. By contrast, total U.S. print book sales were up less than 1% in that period. <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cely Vazquez, a 28-year-old artist and influencer who has appeared on the reality TV show \u201cLove Island USA,\u201d recently bought her first Bible<\/a>\u2014one from the \u201cShe Reads Truth\u201d line\u2014at Barnes & Noble. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had Bibles that my mom gave me, but I felt I needed my own to start my own journey, that it symbolized I was starting a walk with God,\u201d she said. \u201cI felt something was missing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In March, President-elect Donald Trump<\/a> endorsed the \u201cGod Bless the USA Bible,\u201d which sells online for $59.99 and isn\u2019t included in Circana BookScan figures. Oklahoma\u2019s education department recently purchased more than 500 of those Bibles for local schools, the Tulsa World reported<\/a>, referencing copies of purchase orders. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The demand for Bibles is rising despite evidence that the country is growing increasingly secularized. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Pew Research Center found that about 28% of adults in the U.S. now consider themselves religiously unaffiliated<\/a>. Yet Bible sales rose to 14.2 million in 2023 from 9.7 million in 2019, and hit 13.7 million in the first 10 months of this year. Readers are also stocking up on related titles that provide guidance, insights and context\u2014even sets of stickers to flag particularly meaningful passages. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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HarperCollins Publishers, which like The Wall Street Journal is owned by News Corp<\/a><\/span>, cited Bibles among a handful of particularly strong sellers in its latest earnings report. Also on the list was the memoir of Vice President-elect JD Vance<\/a>, \u201cHillbilly Elegy<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Amber Cimiotti, a 38-year-old mother of two in Henderson, Nev., attributes the increase in Bible sales in part to podcasters and Tiktokers like herself sharing easily digestible stories about Christianity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She started to read the Bible this year after feeling unfulfilled by years of advice on self-care, staying healthy and pursuing a career. She said she also sought stability as \u201cthings just went off the rails a little too quickly\u201d throughout society. \u201cWe\u2019re kind of holding on to the edge of the ship, like, we\u2019re not sure what\u2019s happening here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rev. Blaine Crawford, pastor of the Irvington Presbyterian Church in suburban Westchester, N.Y., said he is seeing renewed interest in study groups. The Bible is a \u201cgrand epic story of the great questions of life. What do we do with grief or anger, what are we here for, where is the world going? The Bible provides a counterpart in a conversation about what we\u2019re doing at this time.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the bottom of the front page of the Wall Street Journal. Of course if you are a progressive the answer is simple – people are terrified of “Trumpworld.” Excerpts below the link. Hallelujah! Bibles are a bright spot in books this year. Worries about the economy, conflicts abroad and uncertainty over the election pushed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=253"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11100,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253\/revisions\/11100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}