A Bible Belt is an area in which Evangelical Protestant Christianity is a pervasive or dominant part of the culture. The best-known Bible Belt covers a number of Midwestern and Southern states in the United States; Bible belts can also be found in other countries, including Canada, Australia and some parts of Europe. The name derives from the (perceived) overriding importance of the Christian Bible among Evangelical Christian thought and practice.

In the U.S., the stronghold of the Bible Belt is typically seen as the South, due to the colonial foundations of Protestantism in the culture of the region. The major forms were of Tidewater Anglicanism after the Church of England and Appalachia Presbyterianism after the Church of Scotland.

Geography

Although exact boundaries do not exist, it is generally considered to cover much of the area stretching from Texas in the west, north to Kansas, east to part of Virginia, and south to northern Florida.

Several locations are (sometimes humorously) occasionally referred to as the "Buckle of the Bible Belt." Nashville, Tennessee, in addition to its association with country music, is probably the place more frequently termed the "Buckle of the Bible Belt." Many other locations have been so termed, including Greenville, South Carolina (home of Bob Jones University); Tulsa, Oklahoma (home of Oral Roberts University); Dayton, Tennessee (site of the Scopes Monkey Trial); 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); Cleveland, Tennessee (home of Lee University and the Church of God International Offices); Springfield, Missouri (home of the Assemblies of God); Lynchburg,

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 as well, stretching from Zeeland to Overijssel.

Geographical extent

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. These cultural characteristics might exclude the more westerly regions from the Bible Belt, due to their substantially different history from the Southeast. 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, 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

The Bible Belt area in United States comprises most of the area of the states that seceded from the Union in the mid-19th century and formed the Confederate States of America in 1861, leading to the American Civil War that ended in 1865.

Political, Cultural Context

The term Bible Belt is used mainly, but not uniquely, by detractors of or negative anti-Protestant commentators about a people or region that is said to be very religious, perhaps too religious. The term was coined in a January 1926 edition of American Mercury by H.L. Mencken. He described Jackson, Mississippi as "in the heart of the Bible and Lynching Belt." The term is not strictly regional—like flyover country or the more positive heartland—but is often used to describe the middle of the country in a way that diminishes that region. Politically, the term is often a shorthand to describe cultural conservatives whose beliefs in part stem from the Christian Bible, or those associated (by fact or perception) with the political Religious Right.

Some facts contradict, color or challenge the current use of the term:

1. The South is currently majority Protestant, with a significant proportion of African-American adherents.
2. The coastal southeast of Florida has a low religious attendance among Protestant adherents, like the industrial Midwest. Protestant attendance is highest in a "Bible Strip" in states from Texas through the Plains to the Dakotas.
3. Religious attendance is highest among Catholics, who often attend Mass daily, and geographically, Christian attendance is highest on the Coasts, which are majority Catholic, and along the Sun Belt, as well as in cities having large Catholic populations like Boston, Los Angeles, Miami, New Orleans and New York.
4. The biggest change in 50 years in religious attendance is the significant drop in Protestant attendance in the industrial Midwest and the Northeast. Because the Midwest is majority Protestant, there is still a significant number of active Protestant adherents attending church in the region. Because the Northeast (or West Coast) is majority Catholic, the diminished number of Protestants attending church has left the bicoastal regions without the large Protestant churches. This reduction in Protestant churches, relative to the rest of the country especially the South, has created an anomalous situation whereby the center of gravity of American Protestantism has moved to the middle and south, politically and culturally cleaving these regions.
5. Finally, because Protestants generally place a greater emphasis on personal Bible study than Catholics do, it might be said that Protestantism is more associated with the terms Bible Belt or the derogatory "Bible-Thumpers" than is Catholicism. If attendance were the key context for this term, then in truth, the "Church Buckles" of Boston, Los Angeles, Miami, and New York would be America's centers of religious adherents and attendance. But since the term is used to describe a religious people with a strong association with Bible literalism, with a deep connection to the South and Midwest, and with social and political beliefs that leftists negatively compare to provincialism and anti-intellectualism, its use is widespread. Moreover, this term is used to describe a large region where these beliefs are a dominant part of the culture. For their own part, some citizens of the Bible Belt have negative stereotypes of the coasts and their large urban areas, which they describe as atheistic, decadent, and centers of criminality. In truth, the two coasts are just as religious because of their majority Catholic population.

See also

• WASP
• Born Again Christian

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