Bible Belt

Bible Belt
Bible Belt
Cultural region of the United States
	Approximate boundaries of the Bible Belt
Country	United States
States	Alabama; Arkansas; Georgia; Kentucky; Louisiana; Mississippi; Missouri; North Carolina; Oklahoma; South Carolina; Tennessee; West Virginia; and parts of: Florida; Illinois; Indiana; Kansas; New Mexico; Ohio; Texas; Virginia;

The Bible Belt is a region of the Southern United States and one Midwestern state, the state of Missouri, in all of which socially conservative Protestant Baptist Christianity plays a strong role in society. Church attendance across the denominations is generally higher than the nation's average. The region contrasts with the religiously diverse Midwest and Great Lakes and the Mormon corridor in Utah, southern Idaho, and northern Arizona.

Whereas the states with the highest percentage of residents identifying as non-religious are in the West and New England regions of the United States (with Vermont at 37%, ranking the highest), in the Bible Belt state of Alabama it is just 12%,^[1] and Tennessee has the highest proportion of evangelical Protestants, at 52%.^[2] The evangelical influence is strongest in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee, western North Carolina, the Upstate region of South Carolina, Oklahoma, northern and eastern Texas, southern and western Virginia, and West Virginia.

The earliest known usage of the term "Bible Belt" was by American journalist and social commentator H. L. Mencken, who in 1924 wrote in the Chicago Daily Tribune: "The old game, I suspect, is beginning to play out in the Bible Belt."^[3] In 1927, Mencken claimed the term as his invention.^[4]^[5] The term is now also used in other countries for regions with higher religious doctrine adoption.

^ "The Unaffiliated". Pew Research Center's Religion & Public Life Project. May 11, 2015.
^ "Adults in Tennessee". Pew Research Center's Religion & Public Life Project. May 11, 2015.
^ Fred R. Shapiro (ed.). Yale Book of Quotations. Yale University Press (2006). ISBN 978-0-300-10798-2.
^ "H. L. Mencken letter to Charles Green Shaw, 1927 Dec. 2". Charles Green Shaw papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. Archived from the original on July 8, 2015.
^ H. L. Mencken (June 3, 2011). "The human race is incurably idiotic". Archived from the original on December 23, 2019 – via lettersofnote.com.

[1] "The Unaffiliated". Pew Research Center's Religion & Public Life Project. May 11, 2015.

[2] "Adults in Tennessee". Pew Research Center's Religion & Public Life Project. May 11, 2015.

[3] Fred R. Shapiro (ed.). Yale Book of Quotations. Yale University Press (2006). ISBN 978-0-300-10798-2.

[4] "H. L. Mencken letter to Charles Green Shaw, 1927 Dec. 2". Charles Green Shaw papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. Archived from the original on July 8, 2015.

[5] H. L. Mencken (June 3, 2011). "The human race is incurably idiotic". Archived from the original on December 23, 2019 – via lettersofnote.com.

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