Who Reads Sacred Texts? It Depends on Where You Live

When researchers talk about religion, they usually focus on going to services or praying. But what about reading or listening to sacred texts — the Bible, the Quran, the Torah, the Vedas, and others? This study looked at that question across 22 countries and over 200,000 people.

The results were eye-opening. The percentage of people who read or listen to sacred texts every day ranged from a tiny 4% in Japan to a remarkable 70% in Tanzania. Countries in Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia tended to have much higher rates than countries in Europe or East Asia. In fact, people in less wealthy, less industrialized nations were generally more likely to engage with sacred texts daily.

The study also found that people who attend religious services frequently are far more likely to read sacred texts — 71% of people who attend services more than once a week also read or listen to sacred texts daily, compared to just 8% of people who never attend. When it came to other factors like gender, age, education, and marital status, the patterns were much less clear-cut. Women read slightly more than men on average, older people tended to read a bit more than younger people, and people with less formal education read slightly more than those with more. But these differences were small and varied a lot from country to country. In some places, younger people read more; in others, it was the opposite.

The big takeaway? How often people engage with sacred texts has less to do with who they are as individuals and much more to do with the cultural and religious environment they live in.