Bible, Bible, Bible

America, possibly the greatest and grandest country in the world. Between the McDonalds' fries, superbowl and visit California adverts, ever wondered how many American households have a Bible? Well the answer is about 92%, and that's of the entire country, atheists as well as practicing Christians. The number of Bibles per household is 3 on average, however even with 3 Bibles per house the usage, reading of Bibles is a far lower percentage.

Many of us our given a Bible at our christening, baptism or thanksgiving service when we are little. You see 'baby's first Bibles' on bookshelves of shops and this soon progresses through from the 'token gifts' to picture book Bibles, adding more content and less image until we soon arrive at the book containing the text, word by word.

Evidentially there is a huge difference between the amount of Bibles and the number of people picking one up and reading it, learning from it, teaching with it. I saw an article in the Christian Church magazine Inspire (follow them on twitter here) about a man who was close to ending his own life, a life which was fueled with drugs but as he reached to get the pistol from the back of his truck, the object he was going to use to end his life, he instead grabbed a Bible, the very object that would save his life. He is a talented artist and since giving his life to Christ has turned his skill into creating a graphic novel version of the Bible. You can read his story here and take a look at the graphic novel he has created here.

Funnily enough this is how I started getting closer to the word of God. After giving my life to him I discovered that my love of comic books, graphic novels and manga had already spread into telling the good news. The idea that the Bible does not have to be just words, and for those of us who see things in visual image, the Manga Bible that I found was perfect for bringing the words to life in a cutting edge way. Definitely aimed at young people (and those of us who love illustration) this is a brilliant way of grabbing the attention of those who view reading the Bible as boring or dull. We'll be bringing other types of Bibles to you over the coming weeks, and as we've mentioned McDonalds already in this post, let's take and alter one of their taglines so it works for us: there's a Bible for every one!