For as many years as the American Bible Society has been tracking this, more women than men have engaged with the Bible. In 2024, for example, 41% of women said they read the Bible regularly, compared with 34% of men.
But the men caught up this year. In 2025, roughly the same percentage of women interacted with God's Word, and usage among men surged dramatically.
"Men traditionally have lagged behind women in Bible use, but actually, they're making up the gap this year," says John Plake, the American Bible Society's director of ministry intelligence.
According to this year's State of the Bible report, Bible usage among men climbed to 41% – a statistical tie with women. Plake says it is because people turn to the Word of God in hard times and when they need guidance.
"There is this sense among some men that masculinity has been kind of under attack and not really knowing what it means to be a man in the modern world," he observes.
The younger generation is leading the way in addressing that.
"This increase largely came among millennials," the researcher notes. "What are millennial men doing? They're raising children. And as they begin to raise their children, I think they encounter challenges that they don't know how to make sense of."
Plake says a spiritual awakening is happening across America and in parts of Europe.
"We're hearing these stories out of college campuses; we're hearing them from different places around the western world," he tells AFN. "When it begins to happen from a number of different angles, it points us in a hopeful direction certainly."
Plake says he and his organization are "really interested to see what's going to come next."
