New Study Confirms Regional Stereotypes of Faith
Jeff Collier
| October 11, 2010
The Christian research company Barna just released the results of their study examining faith in different cities across America.
In their survey people in various cities were asked about their belief in the bible, church attendance and identification as a Christian among other things. To no one's surprise the South came out as having the most percentage of people identifying themselves as Christians. They also participated more in church and had a stronger belief in the bible.
Birmingham, Charlotte and Nashville ranked near the top in most areas of the study including volunteering and Christian population (roughly 95% in the top cities).
The West and Northeast ended up as the least Christian. However even among the cities (San Fran, Portland, LA, Seattle, NYC) with the least amount of Christians still had 75% of the population claiming to love Jesus.
While there's only a 20% difference in the Christian population among most cities, the difference in the number of people who believe the bible is accurate in all its principles is strikingly more dramatic. Among the "heathen" cities only 28% believe the bible is accurate, verses 73% in the "saintly" cities.
The volunteering rate follows a similar pattern of 14% among low Christian cities compared to 64% in high Christian cities.
Unfortunately this study didn't really find any new or interesting information. It more or less confirmed what we already know. American culture has been shifting away from Jesus for a long time, some cities are just farther ahead than others. It's up to us as Christians to decide how to act.
In their survey people in various cities were asked about their belief in the bible, church attendance and identification as a Christian among other things. To no one's surprise the South came out as having the most percentage of people identifying themselves as Christians. They also participated more in church and had a stronger belief in the bible.
Birmingham, Charlotte and Nashville ranked near the top in most areas of the study including volunteering and Christian population (roughly 95% in the top cities).
The West and Northeast ended up as the least Christian. However even among the cities (San Fran, Portland, LA, Seattle, NYC) with the least amount of Christians still had 75% of the population claiming to love Jesus.
While there's only a 20% difference in the Christian population among most cities, the difference in the number of people who believe the bible is accurate in all its principles is strikingly more dramatic. Among the "heathen" cities only 28% believe the bible is accurate, verses 73% in the "saintly" cities.
The volunteering rate follows a similar pattern of 14% among low Christian cities compared to 64% in high Christian cities.
Unfortunately this study didn't really find any new or interesting information. It more or less confirmed what we already know. American culture has been shifting away from Jesus for a long time, some cities are just farther ahead than others. It's up to us as Christians to decide how to act.
Jeff Collier is the founder of Zetify and currently lives in Austin.