The Canadian Bible Engagement Study is a ground-breaking study of 4,474 Canadians conducted by Vision Critical on their Angus Reid Forum. The study data was gathered in late 2013 and released to the public May 1, 2014.
The study was sponsored by The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada and the Canadian Bible Forum with funding participation from Stronger Together Grants.
This major Canadian research project released two main reports.
Some of these are also available at
BibleLeague.ca/BibleEngagementStudy.
Food for thought from the initial report
- Just 14% of Canadians read the Bible at least once a month in 2013 (down from 28% in 1996).
- 64% of Canadians think the scriptures of all major world religions teach essentially the same things.
- 69% of Canadians think the Bible has irreconcilable contradictions
- Only 18% of Canadians strongly agree that the Bible is the Word of God
However, the study also found that
- Canadians who strongly agree the Bible is the Word of God are six times more likely to attend religious services weekly than those who only moderately agree.
- Canadians who talk with others about the meaning of the Bible at least once a week are:
- four times as likely to attend religious services weekly,
- six times more likely to read the Bible at least a few times a week, and
- six times more likely to reflect on the meaning of the Bible – compared to those who have conversations just a few times a month.
- Those who don't think the Bible has irreconcilable contradictions are three times more likely to attend religious services weekly than those who do.
The lead investigator in the CBES project was Rick Hiemstra, the EFC’s director of research. He worked with a team including Bruno Désorcy of Christian Direction, Andrew Grenville of Vision Critical and the members of the Canadian Bible Forum. Hiemstra welcomes questions on the literature review, the English qualitative interviews, the survey development and the data analysis.