The Bible is America’s best-selling book, annually outpacing the top 20 best sellers combined. Yet a single Chinese company has a near monopoly on Bible printing, meaning that any rupture in the supply chain—say, from U.S. or Chinese government poli-cies—would lead to a Bible shortage in America. This poses a serious threat both to American Christians’ fundamental religious liberty rights and to national security.
More than 20 million Protestant and Catholic Bibles are printed annually by America’s largest Bible publishing compa-nies. But few are aware that most of these Bibles are printed in China, by Amity Printing Company. (Bible publishers that don’t print in China include InterVarsity Press [IVP], St Ignatius Press, St Benedict Press, Cambridge University Press, R.L. Allan & Son, and Schuyler Bibles). Thanks to American publishing decisions, American Christians rely on a state that represses Christianity for their Bibles. While China intensifies religious persecution at home and is considered by U.S. Intelligence to be “the greatest threat to America today,” this Bible supply chain is increasingly precarious. Yet the Bible publishers have no plans to use alternative printing presses.
The supply chain was tested in 2019, when the Trump administration proposed broad trade tariffs to better balance U.S.-China trade relations. As the plan included tariffs against Bibles, America’s Bible publishers found themselves alongside Beijing vociferously lobbying Washington against the measure. Harper Collins Christian Publishing (HCCP), now the world’s largest Bible publisher (having acquired Zondervan and Thomas Nelson), uses Amity to print most of its Bibles, as does Tyndale House, America’s largest privately-owned Christian publisher. HCCP CEO Mark Schoen-wald denounced the proposed tariff before the U.S. Trade Commission last year. He called it a “Bible tax,” and argued that it would force his company to reduce sales and discontinue some Bible editions. The Trump administration quickly exempted Bibles from the China tariffs.
Christian ministry publishers lobbied as well, arguing that the tariffs would curb First Amendment rights. Stan Jantz, president of the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association, declared that the tariffs would do “significant damage to Bible accessibility.” He stated before the Trade Commission that “some believe such a tariff would place a practical limitation on religious freedom.”