Bible Belt
With Bible Belt ( English for Bible Belt ) a region in is USA called, in the evangelical Protestantism an integral part of the culture. Most of this area extends across the southern states .
Geographical classification
Exact boundaries do not exist, usually an area that extends from Texas in the southwest and Kansas in the northwest to Virginia in the northeast and Florida in the southeast.
Historical background
Before the Civil War , the southern states were less religious than the Midwest or New England . It was not until the experience of the lost war, the ensuing occupation by northern troops and the associated radical economic and social upheavals that a strong turn to religion was brought about in this area.
Political classification
Politically, the states of the Bible Belt or the majority of their populations are predominantly part of the conservative electorate. Until around 1960, the area was firmly in the hands of the Democrats , as the Republicans were still perceived as the party of the former war opponent (see Solid South ). This changed with the turn of the Democrats to the civil rights movement and subsequently a Republican campaign strategy that paid special attention to the voters of these states. Today the states of the Bible Belt - with the exception of Florida and Virginia - are considered to be the strongholds of the Republican Party , at least in US presidential elections . The last Democratic presidential candidate to achieve significant political success in the Bible Belt was Jimmy Carter , who served as a deacon in a Baptist church for many years. Later Democratic presidential candidates - even those who come from the south or have been politically active there for many years - such as Bill Clinton (governor of Arkansas) or Al Gore (senator and MP for Tennessee) were hardly successful in the south. Gore was even defeated in Tennessee by George W. Bush , which cost him a majority of the electoral vote in an extremely narrow election .
Strongholds
For different cities within the Bible Belt, the term is sometimes The Buckle of the Bible Belt (The belt buckle of the Bible belt) needed. It is characterized by important ecclesiastical institutions, companies with a corresponding background, a generally high density of places of worship or a strictly religious majority. For example, the name is used for Nashville ( Tennessee ), which is also called Music City, USA . Here is a play on words that is based on the fact that country musicians wear oversized (colloquially: dinner plate-sized) belt buckles and are also home to various evangelical churches, including the largest, the Southern Baptist Convention . Other cities include Tulsa in Oklahoma , Lubbock in Texas , Jacksonville in North Carolina and the like. a.
Belt Terminology in the United States
The belt terminology is often used to describe in an east-west direction expanding regions of the United States, which have a common characteristic. In addition to the Bible belt, there is, for example, the rust belt , which extends over the industrial areas in the northeast and the north-central west, and the sun belt , a name for the states with comparatively hot weather between the coasts. Other belts are the Snow Belt ( Snow Belt ), the corn-belt ( Grain Belt ), the Corn Belt ( Corn Belt ), the black belt ( Black Belt ) and the Cotton Belt ( Cotton Belt ). Many of these belts overlap, the Bible Belt and Cotton Belt being largely geographically the same area, mainly those states that made up the Confederate States from 1861 to 1865 .
Other states
With Bible Belt and lands of other states are indicated by a relatively high (conservative) Christian population from a US perspective, these areas neither elongated need to be more coherent.
Australia
The term Bible Belt is also used in Australia. Mostly it refers to areas around individual cities such as the northwest suburbs of Baulkham Hills , Sydney , the northeast suburbs of Adelaide such as Paradise , Modbury and Golden Grove .
Germany
" Sächsischer Biblebelt" is a term suggested by the journalist Jennifer Stange from the Heinrich Böll Foundation for an area in the Ore Mountains that, in her opinion, is strongly evangelical and fundamentalist. The congregations of the “Saxon Biblebelt” have all signed the “Markersbacher Declaration” from 2012 (in the original “Declaration of 144 Saxon parishes on family coexistence in the rectory”), which speaks out against homosexual pastors living together in the parsonage of the respective congregation. They organized themselves in the Saxon Confession Initiative . Nevertheless, the Evangelical Lutheran Regional Church of Saxony agreed to the coexistence of homosexual pastors in the rectory and in October 2016 the Regional Church of Saxony made it possible for same-sex couples to be blessed .
Canada
Occasionally, the term is also used to denote the conservative region in the Canadian province of Alberta .
Netherlands
In the Netherlands there is a Bible belt that stretches from Zeeland in the west to Overijssel in the northeast. Its area of extension is the political stronghold of the Reformed Political Party .
Norway
Western Norway and Southern Norway are counted as part of the Norwegian Bible Belt .
Sweden
The Swedish Bible Belt is located in northern Småland and focuses on the city of Jönköping and its surroundings. The Christian Democrats have their most important electoral base there.
Other meanings
Bible Belt is also used as a humorous synonym for the chastity belt . This is probably due to the chastity campaigns of the churches based in the Bible Belt or their activists and functionaries.
See also
literature
- Joseph L. Locke: Making the Bible Belt: Texas Prohibitionists and the Politicization of Southern Religion. Oxford University Press, New York 2019, ISBN 978-0-19-753291-1 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Bible Belt wants to tighten a grip on power . In: The Age , September 15, 2004.
- ↑ http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/09/14/1094927585127.html
- ^ Declaration of 144 Saxon parishes on family coexistence in the rectory
- ^ Evangelicals in Saxony - A report. The Saxon Biblebelt. In: Website of Further Thinking - Heinrich Böll Foundation Saxony
- ↑ Jennifer Stange: Evangelicals in Saxony, Dresden 2014
- ↑ Evlks.de : " Blessing of couples in registered civil partnership" possible in Saxony - resolution of the church leadership of October 27, 2016 ( Memento of October 19, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Evangelisch.de: Saxon Church enables homosexual couples to be blessed in church services