Bible Belt

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A Bible Belt is an area in which socially conservative Christian Evangelical Protestantism is a pervasive or dominant part of the culture. The term "Bible Belt" was coined by the American journalist and social commentator, H.L. Mencken, in the early 1920s.

In particular, in the United States, it is the region where the Southern Baptist Convention denomination is strongest, which includes the entire South and nearby areas. However, many other church denominations are represented, such as Church of Christ and Assemblies of God.

Bible belts can also be found in other countries, including Canada and some parts of Europe and Oceania (particularly the Pacific Islands).

The name is derived from a heavy emphasis on literal interpretations of the Bible in the local denominations.

The American region is usually contrasted with mainstream Protestants and Catholics of the northeast, the religiously diverse Midwest, the Mormon Corridor in Utah and southern Idaho, and the relatively secular western United States, where the percentage of non-religious people is the highest in the nation, reaching its maximum in the northwestern state of Washington at 27%, compared to the Bible belt state of Alabama, at only 7% {citation needed}.

1 Geography
2 Buckle of the belt
3 Outside the U.S.
4 Geographical extent
5 Political and cultural context
6 References
7 See also
8 Arts

[edit] Geography

Although exact boundaries do not exist, it is generally considered to cover much of the area stretching from Texas in the southwest, northwest to Kansas, northeast to part of Virginia, and southeast to northern Florida.

[edit] Buckle of the belt

Several locations are occasionally referred to as the "Buckle of the Bible Belt" :

Nashville, Tennessee, home to the headquarters of many denominations, including the Southern Baptist Convention and the United Methodist Church's Publishing House, is most frequently termed the "Buckle of the Bible Belt" (in addition, it is referred to as the "Protestant Vatican").
Greenville, South Carolina, home of Bob Jones University
Tulsa, Oklahoma, home of Oral Roberts University and the ministries of Kenneth Hagin and the late Billy James Hargis
Dayton, Tennessee, site of the Scopes Monkey Trial and home of Bryan College
Abilene, Texas, home of Abilene Christian University
Dallas, Texas, home of the conservative Dallas Theological Seminary
Fort Worth, Texas, home of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and the ministry of Kenneth Copeland
Cleveland, Tennessee, home of Lee University and the Church of God International Offices
Springfield, Missouri, home of the Assemblies of God
Lynchburg, Virginia, home of Jerry Falwell's ministry and Liberty University
Virginia Beach, Virginia, home of Regent University and the 700 Club with Pat Robertson
Charlotte, North Carolina, home of Billy Graham and his Center
Houston, Texas, home of Lakewood Church

There are also several locations outside the Bible Belt that are centers of evangelical Christian activity. They include Colorado Springs, Colorado; Grand Rapids, Michigan; Wheaton, Illinois; Lancaster, Pennsylvania; and parts of Southern California particularly Orange County.

[edit] Outside the U.S.

In Australia, the term usually refers to tracts within individual cities, for example the north-western suburbs of Sydney focusing on Baulkham Hills and the north-eastern suburbs of Adelaide focusing on Paradise, Modbury and Golden Grove.

In Canada, the term is also sometimes used to describe several disparate regions which have a higher than average level of church attendance. These include the majority of rural southern Alberta and Saskatchewan, parts of southern Manitoba, the Fraser Valley of British Columbia, the Annapolis Valley of Nova Scotia and the Saint John River Valley of New Brunswick.

In China, Nanjing City is regarded as the area with the country's highest number of Christians since before 1949. Amity Publishing House, a Christian publisher is based in this city.

In Denmark, the area of northwestern Jutland is often mentioned as a Bible Belt. The region has a large number of members of the Lutheran movement called "Indre Mission".

In Finland, the rural areas of Ostrobothnia are sometimes considered a Bible Belt.

In Germany, the southern areas of Bavaria, and especially Swabia, is often considered a Bible Belt.

The Netherlands has a Bible Belt (Bijbelgordel) as well, stretching from Zeeland to Overijssel.

In New Zealand, Mount Roskill, Auckland, contains the highest number of churches per capita in the country, and is the home of several Christian political candidates.

In Northern Ireland, the region of North Antrim is often referred to as Northern Ireland's Bible Belt. This is because the area is rural, conservative, mainly born-again Christian and predominantly Protestant. The MP for this constituency is Ian Paisley, a Presbyterian Reverend well known for his radicalism. The town of Ballymena, the seat of the Paisley family, is often referred to as the 'buckle' of the Bible Belt.

In Norway, the Bible Belt covers the coast on the southwestern parts of the country, where there is a high concentration of Pentecostals, Free Churches and conservative members of the Church of Norway.

In Sweden, there is a Bible Belt covering the area around the city of Jönköping, with a particular high concentration of non-conformists (Protestant congregations not affiliated with the Church of Sweden), especially Pentecostals and Congregationalists - and strong support for the Christian Democrats.

[edit] Geographical extent

Tweedie (1978) defines the Bible belt in terms of the audience for religious television. He finds two belts, one more eastern that stretches from northern Florida through Alabama, Tennessee, North and South Carolina, and into Virginia, and another that is more western, moving from central Texas to the Dakotas, but concentrated in Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Missouri, and Mississippi. Notably absent from this belt, however, is the Gulf Coast area near New Orleans, Louisiana, where Catholicism is the predominant religion.<ref>Archdiocese of New Orleans Demographics. www.archdiocese-no.org. Retrieved on 2006-07-27.</ref>

In terms of demographics, the belt may in fact be most accurately described as extending westward to include most of West Texas and Eastern New Mexico, and perhaps even farther into areas of southern New Mexico settled by Texans.

The accuracy of this expanded schema, however, rests on the question of whether demographic proportion of evangelical Christians (or "fundamentalist Christians") is sufficient to include an area as being part of the Belt, or whether other cultural characteristics are necessary.

Even with the presently accepted boundaries (as indicated on the map in this article), it is possible to theorize that the Bible Belt could be divided into two or more sub-regions, at least one of which could include the westernmost section -- including Texas -- as being distinctive from the Deep South and most of the Southeastern United States.

It is possible that the extent of the Bible Belt has grown in recent decades, expanding northward and westward; indeed, Southern-style evangelical Christianity has grown significantly outside the South, especially the Southern Baptist Convention.

[edit] Political and cultural context

The term Bible Belt is used either informally by journalists, or by its detractors, who suggest the region allows religion to spill over into politics, science and education.

The term was coined by H.L. Mencken. Reporting on the Scopes Trial in Dayton, Tennessee to the Baltimore Evening Sun on July 15, 1925, Mencken wrote of the region as "this bright, shining, buckle of the Bible belt".

In 1950, President Harry Truman told Catholic leaders he wanted to send an ambassador to the Vatican. Truman said the leading Democrats in Congress approved, but they warned him, "it would defeat Democratic Senators and Congressmen in the Bible Belt." [quoted in Amanda Smith, Hostage of Fortune (2001) p 604].

In Presidential Elections, the Bible Belt of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi have always voted for the (conservative) Republican candidate since 1980; with the exception of Georgia dissenting in 1980 and 1992 <ref>http://www.arikah.com/encyclopedia/United_States_presidential_election,_1980</ref>.

[edit] References

Randall Balmer; Encyclopedia of Evangelicalism Baylor University Press, 2004
Denman, Stan. "Political Playing for the Soul of the American South: Theater and the Maintenance of Cultural Hegemony in the American Bible Belt" Southern Quarterly (2004) v. 42, Spring, 64-72.
Heatwole, C.A. "The Bible Belt; a problem of regional definition" Journal of Geography (1978) 77; 50-5
Christine Leigh Heyrman, Southern Cross: The Beginnings of the Bible Belt (Knopf, 1997)
Samuel S. Hill, Charles H. Lippy, and Charles Reagan Wilson, eds. Encyclopedia Of Religion In The South (2005)
Charles H. Lippy, ed. "Religion in South Carolina" (1993)
George M. Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture: The Shaping of Twentieth-Century Evangelicalism, 1870-1925 (1980).
Jeffrey P. Moran; "The Scopes Trial and Southern Fundamentalism in Black and White: Race, Region, and Religion" Journal of Southern History. Volume: 70. Issue: 1. 2004. pp 95+.
Chris C. Park; Sacred Worlds: An Introduction to Geography and Religion Routledge, 1994
Randy J. Sparks. Religion in Mississippi University Press of Mississippi for the Mississippi Historical Society, . 2001. ISBN 1-57806-361-2.
William A. Stacey and Anson Shupe; "Religious Values and Religiosity in the Textbook Adoption Controversy in Texas, 1981" Review of Religious Research, Vol. 25, 1984
Tweedie, S.W. (1978) Viewing the Bible Belt. Journal of Popular Culture 11; 865-76