Regular churchgoers are not losing confidence in their ability to read and understand the Bible — but a growing number of them are drawing a line between understanding a passage and believing it still applies today. That is the finding from new research published September 22, 2026 by Lifeway Research, the Nashville-based research arm tied to the Southern Baptist Convention’s publishing house.
What the study found
Lifeway Research’s survey of churchgoers found that while confidence in personal Bible comprehension has held steady, a rising share of respondents say some of what the Bible teaches has lost relevance to modern life. In other words, the gap is not about whether people can read and follow the text — it is about whether they believe every part of it still governs how they should live now.
That distinction is worth sitting with: a churchgoer in this study is not saying they cannot understand a passage about, say, hospitality or honesty. They are saying they understand it clearly and still consider whether it fits a life that looks very different from the one it was written into.
Why researchers see this as significant
Lifeway’s research team has tracked American church life for years, and this finding fits a broader pattern the organization has documented: churchgoers increasingly separate personal faith practice from full doctrinal agreement, picking and choosing which teachings feel binding. That is a different phenomenon than declining church attendance or declining belief in God altogether — it is a shift happening among people who are still in the pews.
That last point is what makes the finding notable to researchers rather than a restatement of familiar secularization trends. Plenty of research over the years has tracked people leaving church altogether; this study is measuring something happening inside congregations, among people who kept showing up.
What it could mean for congregations
For pastors and ministry leaders, the finding suggests that simply teaching biblical literacy may not be enough to keep a congregation aligned on how Scripture should shape daily decisions. Lifeway’s research has previously pointed to generational and cultural shifts as part of the story, and this latest data adds a concrete number to a trend many church leaders have been describing anecdotally for years.
A pastor who has felt, without hard data, that congregants nod along during a sermon but quietly set aside the parts that feel out of step with modern life now has research confirming that instinct was not off base. That gap between comprehension and application is exactly the challenge preaching and discipleship have to address head-on rather than assume away.
How this shows up in everyday church life
The kind of selective application this study describes rarely announces itself directly — it is more likely to show up as a quiet skip than an open disagreement. A congregant might affirm a teaching in a Bible study discussion and still not treat it as something binding on a specific decision in their own life, without ever framing it to themselves as rejecting Scripture.
That quiet quality is part of why this kind of shift is hard for church leaders to see without research like Lifeway’s — it does not typically show up as public debate or departure, but as a gradual, largely private recalibration of which parts of the Bible feel like they still apply.
What is driving the shift
Lifeway’s broader body of research has pointed to generational change and shifting cultural norms as contributing factors, rather than a single identifiable cause. Younger churchgoers in particular have shown up in prior Lifeway research as more likely to hold looser views on which specific biblical teachings should shape modern behavior, even while remaining active in church life.
That generational pattern does not mean the trend is limited to younger believers — the study describes a rising share across churchgoers broadly, which suggests the shift is not confined to a single age group even if it may be more pronounced in some than others.
What this is not saying
It is worth being precise about what this research does not claim. It is not a finding about declining belief in God, declining church attendance, or declining trust in the Bible as a text. Confidence in personal comprehension held steady — the shift Lifeway documented is specifically about applicability, not about whether people still consider the Bible authoritative or trustworthy in a general sense.
That distinction matters for anyone reading headlines about the study, since it is a narrower and in some ways more specific finding than a broad statement about eroding faith would suggest.
What comes next
Lifeway Research regularly publishes follow-up studies tracking how findings like this one develop over time, and this particular data point is likely to be referenced in future research the organization conducts on generational and cultural shifts within American church life. For now, the finding stands as a specific, measured signal rather than a one-time snapshot disconnected from Lifeway’s longer research history on the topic.
For congregations and ministry leaders, the practical takeaway is less about alarm and more about attention: a gap between understanding Scripture and applying it consistently is, according to this research, wider than many church leaders may have assumed — and it is happening among people who have not gone anywhere.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Womens Overview editors prior to publication.