Is your city “Bible-minded”? That’s a question the Barna Group can answer. Or at least shed some light on. The church analyst group surveyed 96 U.S. cities and ranked them according their Bible mindedness. According to Barna…
“The report ranks the most and least “Bible-minded” cities by looking at how people in those cities view the Bible. The study is based on 42,855 interviews conducted nationwide and the analysis of Bible trends was commissioned by American Bible Society. Individuals who report reading the Bible in a typical week and who strongly assert the Bible is accurate in the principles it teaches are considered to be Bible-minded. This definition captures action and attitude—those who both engage and esteem the Christian scriptures. The rankings thus reflect an overall openness or resistance to the Bible in the country’s largest markets.”
Not surprising, the Bible Belt is still the Bible Belt.
“Regionally, the South still qualifies as the most Bible-minded. The top ranking cities, where at least half of the population qualifies as Bible-minded, are all Southern cities. This includes the media markets for Knoxville, TN (52% of the population are Bible-minded), Shreveport, LA (52%), Chattanooga, TN (52%), Birmingham, AL (50%), and Jackson, MS (50%). Other markets in the top 10 include Springfield, MO (49%), Charlotte, NC (48%), Lynchburg, VA (48%), Huntsville-Decatur, AL (48%), and Charleston, WV (47%).”
And New England is still, well, New England. According to the study, Providence, RI is the least Bible-minded city (only 9%) in the country, followed closely by Albany, NY (10%).
“The New England area is home to most of the markets in the bottom 10 Bible-minded cities, including Burlington, VT (16%), Portland, ME (16%), Hartford, CT (16%), Boston, MA (16%), Buffalo, NY (18%) and New York, NY (18%).”
My city, Nashville, came in at number 14. You can read more/buy the full report here.
I hope the American Bible Society didn’t pay too much money to have this study performed. Did we need a study to tell us this information? I know people like lists and rankings and things, but seriously, it’s a well-known fact that Bible-lovers live in the South and people who hate the Bible live in the Northeast and then retire in Phoenix, right? I kid. But seriously, we knew this already, right?
Does anything here surprise you?
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As a New Englander, nothing about these results surprises me. However, as someone who has also lived in the South, the Midwest, and the MidAtlantic, I can also say with a great degree of certainty that being "Bible-minded" has little to nothing to do with "behaving in a Christian manner."
I’m okay with our abysmal ranking on the "Bible-minded scale."
I was shocked to see where Des Moines/Ames ranked. I didn’t expect us to be all that low, but I didn’t expect #42. Makes me a little sad because it reinforces the stereotype that we’re a bunch of conservative bible beaters. Iowa is actually more liberal than the stereotype would suggest, and we’re very religiously diverse. And even within Christian circles, we have political diversity.
The wording of the question is troubling. Why would you ask if the bible is ‘accurate’ instead of the many other ways to describe scripture. It is reasonable to not ask about inerrency, which is too much of a theological word. But there are so many others ways to describe our understanding of scripture than ‘accurate’.
Considering how many preachers I’ve heard preach against San Francisco, I presumed it would be rock-bottom.
A city named "Providence" being the least Bible-minded is incredibly ironic. :-/