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The ''Bible Belt'' is an informal term for a region in the south-eastern and south-central United States in which socially conservative evangelical Protestantism plays a strong role in society and politics, and Christian church attendance across the denominations is generally higher than the nation's average. The Bible belt consists of much of the Southern United States. 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. The region is usually contrasted with the mainline Protestantism and Catholicism of the Northeastern United States, the religiously diverse Midwest and Great Lakes, the Mormon Corridor in Utah and southern Idaho, and the relatively secular Western United States. Whereas the state with the highest percentage of residents identifying as non-religious is the New England state of Vermont at 34%, in the Bible Belt state of Alabama it is just 3%.〔(【引用サイトリンク】work = www.gc.cuny.edu )〕 Mississippi has the highest proportion of Baptists, at 75%.〔 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."〔Fred R. Shapiro (ed.). ''Yale Book of Quotations''. Yale University Press (2006). ISBN 978-0-300-10798-2.〕 Mencken claimed the term as his invention in 1927.〔(H. L. Mencken letter to Charles Green Shaw, 1927 Dec. 2 . ) Charles Green Shaw papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. See also, http://www.lettersofnote.com/2011/06/human-race-is-incurably-idiotic.html〕 ==Geography== 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 affiliation. The region thus defined included most of the Southern United States, including most of Texas and Oklahoma in the southwest, and in the states south of the Ohio River, and extending east to include central West Virginia and Virginia south of Northern Virginia. 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 Zielinski.〔Barry Vann (2008), ''(In search of Ulster-Scots land: the birth and geotheological imagings of a transatlantic people, 1603-1703 )'', Univ of South Carolina Press, ISBN 1-57003-708-6, ISBN 978-1-57003-708-5. Pages 138-140.〕 According to Stephen W. Tweedie, the Associate Professor Emeritus at the Department of Geography in the Oklahoma State University, the Bible belt is now viewed in terms of numerical concentration of the audience for religious television. He finds two belts: one more eastern that stretches from Florida, (excluding Miami, Tampa and South Florida), through Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, North and South Carolina, and into Virginia (excluding Northern Virginia) ; and another that concentrated in Texas (excluding El Paso, and South Texas), Arkansas, Louisiana, (excluding New Orleans and Acadiana), Oklahoma, Missouri, Kansas, and Mississippi.〔Tweedie, S.W. (1978) Viewing the Bible belt. Journal of Popular Culture 11; 865-76〕 "()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. 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, TN; Shreveport, LA; Chattanooga, TN; Birmingham, AL; Jackson, MS; Springfield, MO; Charlotte, NC;, Lynchburg, VA; Huntsville-Decatur, AL; and Charleston, WV.〔() America's Most and Least Bible-Minded Cities〕 In addition to the South, there is a smaller Bible belt in West Michigan, centered around the heavily Dutch-influenced Holland and Grand Rapids. Christian colleges in that region include Calvin College, Hope College, Cornerstone University, Grace Bible College, and Kuyper College. West Michigan is generally fiscally and socially conservative. Similarly conservative is the suburban Chicago area; Christian colleges in that region include Wheaton College, Judson University, North Central College, Elmhurst College, Trinity Christian College, and Trinity International University. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Bible Belt」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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