Bible Belt

The name "Bible Belt" has been applied historically to the South and parts of the Midwest, but is more commonly identified with the South. In a 1961 study, Wilbur Zelinsky delineated the region as the area in which Protestant denominations, especially Southern Baptist, Methodist, and evangelical, are the predominant religious affiliations. The region thus defined included most of the Southern United States, including most of Texas and Oklahoma, and in the states south of the Ohio River, and extending east to include central West Virginia and Virginia, from the Shenandoah Valley southward into Southside Virginia and North Carolina. In addition, the Bible Belt covers most of Missouri and Kentucky and southern parts of Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. On the other hand, areas in the South which are not considered part of the Bible Belt include heavily Catholic Southern Louisiana, central and southern Florida, which have been settled mainly by immigrants and Americans from elsewhere in the country, and overwhelmingly Hispanic South Texas. A 1978 study by Charles Heatwole identified the Bible Belt as the region dominated by 24 fundamentalist Protestant denominations, corresponding to essentially the same area mapped by Zelinsky.[5]

According to Stephen W. Tweedie, an Associate Professor Emeritus in the Department of Geography at Oklahoma State University, the Bible Belt is now viewed in terms of numerical concentration of the audience for religious television.[6] He finds two belts: one more eastern that stretches from Florida, (excluding Miami, Tampa and South Florida), through Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, the Carolinas, and into Southside Virginia; and another concentrated in Texas (excluding El Paso, and South Texas), Arkansas, Louisiana, (excluding New Orleans and Acadiana), Oklahoma, Missouri (excluding St. Louis), Kansas, and Mississippi.[7] "[H]is research also broke the Bible Belt into two core regions, a western region and an eastern region. Tweedie's western Bible Belt was focused on a core that extended from Little Rock, Arkansas to Tulsa, Oklahoma. His eastern Bible Belt was focused on a core that included the major population centers of Virginia and North Carolina.[8]

Bible-minded cities map

A study was commissioned by the American Bible Society to survey the importance of the Bible in the metropolitan areas of the United States. The report was based on 42,855 interviews conducted between 2005 and 2012. It determined the 10 most "Bible-minded" cities were Knoxville, Tennessee; Shreveport, Louisiana; Chattanooga, Tennessee; Birmingham, Alabama; Jackson, Mississippi; Springfield, Missouri; Charlotte, North Carolina; Lynchburg, Virginia; Huntsville-Decatur, Alabama; and Charleston, West Virginia.[9]

By state

Percentage of respondents in the USA stating that religion is "very important" or "somewhat important" to their lives, 2014[10]

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Proportion of Evangelical Protestants per state in the American South[11]

State	Baptist	Pentecostal	Restorationist	Presbyterian	Other	Total		Share indicating that religion is "important"[10]
Alabama	31%	5%	3%	2%	8%	49%		90%
Arkansas	25%	5%	5%	2%	9%	46%		86%
Delaware	7%	1%	3%	1%	3%	15%		77%
Washington, D.C.	2%	1%	1%	1%	3%	8%		71%
Florida	8%	4%	2%	1%	9%	24%		78%
Georgia	21%	4%	2%	1%	10%	38%		84%
Kentucky	29%	7%	3%	1%	9%	49%		86%
Louisiana	16%	3%	1%	<1%	7%	27%		90%
Maryland	5%	3%	1%	<1%	9%	18%		75%
Mississippi	26%	4%	2%	1%	8%	41%		89%
Missouri	15%	6%	3%	1%	11%	36%		82%
North Carolina	20%	4%	1%	1%	9%	35%		84%
Oklahoma	23%	6%	4%	<1%	14%	47%		87%
South Carolina	22%	4%	1%	1%	7%	35%		85%
Tennessee	33%	4%	6%	2%	7%	52%		89%
Texas	14%	4%	2%	<1%	11%	31%		86%
Virginia	15%	5%	<1%	1%	9%	30%		81%
West Virginia	19%	7%	2%	<1%	11%	39%		86%

During the colonial period (1607–1776), the South was a stronghold of the Anglican church. Its transition to a stronghold of non-Anglican Protestantism occurred gradually over the next century as a series of religious revival movements, many associated with the Baptist denomination, gained great popularity in the region.[16]

The northern colonial Bible Belt (especially New England with its Puritan heritage) frequently performed missionary work in the South. "The centre of Particular Baptist activity in early America was in the Middle Colonies. In 1707 five churches in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware were united to form the Philadelphia Baptist Association, and through the association they embarked upon vigorous missionary activity. By 1760 the Philadelphia association included churches located in the present states of Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia, and West Virginia; and by 1767 further multiplication of churches had necessitated the formation of two subsidiary associations, the Warren in New England and the Ketochton in Virginia. The Philadelphia association also provided leadership in organizing the Charleston Association in the Carolinas in 1751."[17]

An influential figure was Shubal Stearns: "Shubael Stearns, a New England Separate Baptist, migrated to Sandy Creek, North Carolina, in 1755 and initiated a revival that quickly penetrated the entire Piedmont region. The churches he organized were brought together in 1758 to form the Sandy Creek Association".[17] Stearns was brother-in-law of Daniel Marshall, who was born in Windsor, Connecticut and "is generally considered the first great Baptist leader in Georgia. He founded Kiokee Baptist Church, the oldest continuing Baptist congregation in the state".[18] Also, Wait Palmer, of Toland, Connecticut,[19]^{:84 - 85} may have influenced African American Christianity in the South: "The Silver Bluff, South Carolina, revival was a seminal development, whose role among blacks rivalled that played by the Sandy Creek revival of the Separate Baptists, to which it was indirectly related. It was probably the same Wait Palmer who had baptized Shubal Stearns in 1751 who came to Silver Bluff in 1775, baptizing and constituting a church. Abraham Marshall, who encouraged the later offshoots, was a Separate Baptist of the Sandy Creek school. The revival at the Silver Bluff plantation of George Galphin (some twelve miles from Augusta, Georgia) had brought David George to the Afro-Baptist faith and had provided a ministry for George Liele".[19]^:188

According to Thomas S. Kidd, "As early as 1758, Sandy Creek missionaries helped organize a slave congregation, the Bluestone Church, on the plantation of William Byrd III, which may have been the first independently functioning African American church in North America. The church did not last long, but it reflected the Baptists' commitment to evangelizing African Americans".[20]^:249 According to Gayraud S. Wilmore, "The preaching of New England Congregationalists such as Jonathan Edwards about the coming millennium, and his conviction that Christians were called to prepare for it, reached the slaves through the far-ranging missionary work of white evangelists such as Shubal Stearns, Wait Palmer, and Matthew Moore - all of whom left Congregationalism and became Separatist Baptist preachers in the plantation country of Virginia, North and South Carolina, and Georgia".[21]^:168

A billboard near the center of Alabama

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

• Abilene, Texas a city of 117,000, is home to three Protestant universities: the Baptist affiliated Hardin-Simmons University, the Church of Christ's Abilene Christian University, and Methodist founded McMurry University.[22]
• Nashville, Tennessee, sometimes referred to as "the Protestant Vatican",[23] has over 700 churches,[24] several seminaries, and a number of Christian schools, colleges and universities, including Belmont University, Trevecca Nazarene University, Lipscomb University, Free Will Baptist Bible College and American Baptist College. Nashville is the seat of the National Baptist Convention, USA, the headquarters of the Southern Baptist Convention, the National Association of Free Will Baptists, the Gideons International, the Gospel Music Association, and Thomas Nelson, the world's largest producer of Bibles.[25]
• Tulsa, Oklahoma is a city where Protestant and, in particular, Southern Baptist and other evangelical Christian traditions are very prominent. Tulsa is home to Oral Roberts University, and RHEMA Bible Training College (in Broken Arrow). A number of prominent Protestant Christians have lived or studied in Tulsa, including Joel Osteen, Kenneth E. Hagin, Carlton Pearson, Kenneth Copeland, Billy Joe Daugherty, Smokie Norful and Billy James Hargis. Tulsa is also home to a number of vibrant Mainline Protestant congregations. Some of these congregations were founded during the oil boom of the early twentieth century and their facilities are noted for striking architecture, such as the art deco Boston Avenue Methodist Church and First Presbyterian Church of Tulsa.
• Greenville, South Carolina is a city where many Baptist churches, particularly Independent Baptist, are located. There are well over one hundred Baptist churches[26] in the Greenville area, as well as Bob Jones University. It also is the home of WTBI radio station which plays old-fashioned Christian music and preaching 24 hours a day.

There has been research that links evangelical Protestantism with social conservatism.[27] In 1950, President Harry S. 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."[28]

In presidential elections, the Bible Belt states of Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas have voted for the Republican candidate in all elections since 1980; Oklahoma has supported the Republican presidential candidate in every election since 1968. Other Bible Belt states have voted for the Republican presidential candidate in the majority of elections since 1980, but have gone to the Democratic candidate either once or twice since then. However, with the exception of Mississippi, historical geographer Barry Vann shows that counties in the upland areas of the Appalachians and the Ozarks have a more conservative voting pattern than the counties located in the coastal plains.[29]