Majority of Christians confess they do not read the Bible

THE majority of Christians do not read the Bible, the Church of England’s own polling has revealed.

Figures show that 60 per cent of self- declared followers of the Church admit they never read the Bible, while 36 per cent say they never attend church. One in three said they never pray.

The figures, from Comres, which was commissioned by the Church, show that many who claim to be Christian do not actually take part in many of the activities normally associated with the faith.

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’s national mission and evangelism adviser, said the survey had given 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. 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.”