“Have we overestimated the hostility towards faith in our nation and underestimated the Bible as a tool for mission? Find out what people in England and Wales really think about faith and the Bible.”

Lumino, an initiative of the Bible Society, is based on an online survey of 19,101 adults in England and Wales in October and November 2018.

From the research, the Bible Society mapped the spiritual ground in England and Wales based on eight distinct spiritual types or personas. They badged them on the basis of their attitude to the Bible, ranging from ‘Bible Loving’ at one end to ‘Bible Dismissive’ at the other – with a complex range of attitudes in between.

The Lumino website contains insights from the research, such as:

• Asked, ‘To what extent would you be interested or not in discovering more about the Bible?’ a total of 23 per cent of adults in England and Wales selected ‘fairly interested’ or ‘very interested’.
• Participants were asked to choose five words that described their response to the Bible from a list containing positive and negative expressions. The two highest scores were for ‘outdated’ and ‘contradictory’. Respondents also chose words like ‘guidance’, ‘comforting’, ‘hope’, ‘inspiring’ and ‘wisdom’.

You can register to find out more about the values, beliefs and churchgoing patterns of the people in your community.