Information AboutBible Belt |
|
A Bible Belt is an area which Christian Evangelical Protestantism is a pervasive or dominant part of the culture. In particular, in the United States , it is the region where the Southern Baptist Convention denomination is strongest. It inlcudes the southern states of the Midwest and the entirety of the South . Bible belts can also be found in other countries, including Canada and some parts of Europe . The name is derived 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 southwest, northwest to Kansas , northeast to part of Virginia , and southeast to Northern Florida . Several locations are (sometimes humorously) occasionally referred to as the "). 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 Congregationalist s. GEOGRAPHICAL EXTENT , 1861-1865]] 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. 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 Christian s (or " Fundamentalist Christian s") 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, 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. POLITICAL, CULTURAL CONTEXT 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 writes of the region as "this bright, shining, buckle of the Bible 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. 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 warned him, "it would defeat Democratic Senators and Congressmen in the Bible Belt." {quoted in Amanda Smith, ''Hostage of Fortune'' (2001) p 604]. After 1980 the term was 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 . REFERENCE
SEE ALSO EXTERNAL LINKS ARTS |
|
|