Religion Loses Ground in “the Bible Belt”
FOR over two centuries the southern part of the United States has been a bastion of conservative Protestant religious thinking. Baptists, Methodists and other “fundamentalist” religious groups have so dominated the area that it has come to be referred to as “the Bible Belt.”
But now the former solid front presented by the Southland’s churches is splintering. In 1971 only the Baptist Church, of these major religious bodies in the South, realized any membership gains. This was a nominal 1.2-percent increase, only one tenth of one percent over population growth. The 1972 increase was somewhat more impressive.
However, more than problems with membership rolls afflict southern churches. A former president of the Southern Baptist Convention told an evangelism conference that “a floodtide of paganism, hedonism and atheism threatens . . . the church.” The Austin (Texas) Statesman quotes him as saying: “At a time when the church faces its greatest challenge the church is its most anemic and sickliest. . . . We’re living to see the [Baptist] Church die before our very eyes.”
Observers of other denominations make similar expressions. Some feel that reviving the ‘dying’ church may be impossible. Preachers find themselves frustrated over religion’s dwindling influence in the South. Ken Forshee, pastor of the Highland Hills Christian Church in Oklahoma City, concluded, after interviewing ministers from twenty-five churches in that area:
“For every man I can point to receiving gratification from the ministry, three would leave the ministry if they had any idea of what they could do. This is one of the most critical issues of the church today.”
An associate of Forshee, Rex Vaughan, refers to “a great deal of desperation by clergy as well as laymen—a lack of concrete vision and tools.”
But why this “lack of concrete vision,” loss of “gratification” and feeling of “desperation” in what has come to be considered the very heartland of U.S. fundamentalist religion? Because critical issues peculiar to southern U.S. churches face “the Bible Belt.” For example, there are the changes associated with racial integration. To understand its effect, one must briefly peer back into the history of the U.S. South.