Bible Belt
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The approximate extent of the Bible Belt, indicated in red |
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. It includes the entire
South and nearby areas. Bible belts can also be found in other countries, including
Canada and some parts of
Europe. The name is derived from the heavy emphasis on literal intepretations of the
Bible in Evangelical denominations.
The American region is usually contrasted with the pervasive socially liberal Christian denominations of the
northeast and the relatively
agnostic western United States, where the percentage of non-religious people are 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%.
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
Ohio, and southeast to
northern Florida.
Several locations (sometimes humorously) 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
CenterThere are also several locations outside the Bible Belt which are centers of evangelical Christian activity. They include
Colorado Springs, Colorado;
Grand Rapids, Michigan;
Wheaton, Illinois;
Lancaster, Pennsylvania; and parts of
Southern California.
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
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.
The
Netherlands has a Bible Belt (
Bijbelgordel) as well, stretching from
Zeeland to
Overijssel.
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.
In
Norway, the Bible Belt covers the coast on the southern parts of the country, where there is a high concentration of
Pentecostals,
Free Churches and conservative members of the
Church of Norway.
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 notoriously extreme conservative Protestant. The town of
Ballymena, the seat of the Paisley family, is often referred to as the 'buckle' of the Bible Belt.
In
England, two Bible Belts have been suggested.
The first is to the south-west of
London, particularly in the county of
Surrey, where there are numerous large evangelical churches of both traditional (especially
Anglican and
Baptist) and "new church" denominations. This is the wealthiest region of the country and commentators have noted with a degree of irony that it is also the area in which Christianity has been most successful. A second English Bible Belt, larger but less dense, has also been observed along the south coast between
Eastbourne and
Southampton. Here, the new churches are prevalent.
It is questionable as to whether these areas fit the stated definition of Bible Belt as, even within them, church attendance is limited to a small proportion of the population, and conservative evangelical protestant Christianity is not a significant cultural influence. However, both of them have been described as such in the Christian press, indicating their recognition within the Christian
subculture as the most
christianised parts of the country.
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
New Orleans, Louisiana, in which
Catholicism is the predominant religion.
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 New Mexico.
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 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,
evangelical Christianity has grown significantly in the United States in recent years.
It is also possible, however, that populations in these areas more recently recognized as heavily evangelical have not substantially changed but were not previously acknowledged as forming part of the Belt.
The term Bible Belt is used mainly, but not uniquely, by detractors of or negative
anti-Protestant commentators about region that is very religious, and allows religion to spill over into what the commentators believe are inappropriate areas, such as 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].
* 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
*
Belt regions of the United States*
Born Again Christian*
Southern Arts Federation
