It seems like just about every other place you can name has been called the “buckle of the Bible Belt” by somebody or other. So which of these claims has a basis in fac… rea… … logic?
First of all, what defines a “buckle” in terms of a geographic “belt”? That isn’t clear. If Italy is a boot, one can make a reasonable estimation that Naples is about the 10th grommet up. But the shape of the Bible Belt does not much resemble a belt, except for maybe a wrestling championship belt that covers the entire height of the abdomen.
Looking at the Bible Belt’s geographical extent on a map, the shape is near rectangular enough that the geographical center of the area is easy to roughly figure out. So why not nominate the geographical center for the buckle? By my estimation, that would be right about in Corinth, Mississippi. Interesting fact about Corinth, though—the most famous native of it is “Thomas Hal Phillips, America’s first gay author and a well-known Hollywood screenwriter. Phillips is best known for The Bitterweed Path, a novel depicting the relationship of two young men in the Southern United States at the turn of the century.” Sweet.
So what are your nominees for the buckle, and how come?
For years, I’ve referred to south-central Texas along with the “Hill Country” as the “tab end” of the Bible Belt. Don’t know if anyone else calls it that, though.
AS far as I understand, the term means the location with the largest number of (Protestant) churches per capita. Unfortunately, I have no idea where that is.
EDIT: Well, not entirely per capita. A small town can’t win. It must be per some number of people.)
We’ve got the Southern Baptist Seminary here in Fort Worth, and you just don’t get more fundamentally Biblical than Southern Baptists. We’ve got other religious schools as well, but the seminary is what I consider a bible college, that is, good for religious training and not much else. ALL of the degree programs require religious classes.
Want some science education? This is what they offer:
This doesn’t really qualify as science, IMO, but it’s what they offer as such.
And where a buckle is depends on whether the belt is being worn or not.
When I said that, I meant that we have a LOT of fundamentalist Christians in this area.
FWIW, Mr. Vernon Wormer, the hyper-hawk civics teacher in the National Lampoon high school yearbook parody (and who inspired the character of Dean Vernon Wormer in “Animal House”) graduated from “Texas Baptist Tech”.
Having lived out West and down South, I’ll have to disagree with Lynn on that one. Out in the desert you’ll find scattered Christian sects of a few dozen devotees who see no difference between the Baptists of Tulsa and the Episcopalians of Manhatten. Southern Baptists don’t hold with infant damnation, for example. But you’d have no trouble between Landcaster California and Colorado Springs finding someone who’ll insist that aborted fetuses suffer everything Hell can inflict for all eternity, due to their not accepting Jesus as their personal savings. Jesus said “you must be born again,” and not being born in the first place is no excuse.
Springfield, MO, has a mess of religious colleges, and it’s somewhat in the center of the Bible Belt, where the buckle ought to be. Texas? Carolina? You guys are on the edges, which is an automatic disqualification.
I think looking for it based on geographic centrality is taking the metaphor the wrong way. It’s more about “buckle” as the working end, the linchpin. (If Mencken had called it the “Bible Chain,” we’d be talking about the “anchor,” which of course is not in the middle.) In terms of Bibliosity, this is often understood to mean prominent evangelists, seminaries, Christian colleges. Claimants on this basis include Lynchburg, Charlotte, Nashville, Tulsa, and Dallas-Fort Worth.
Here in Texas, we are having some people who are deadly serious about including Intelligent Design in our science textbooks. I think that one qualification to being the buckle should include people who want ID in our science classes.
What you’re seeing, when you look at the Bible Belt map, IS the buckle. It’s a huge Pro Wrestling-style buckle with its top & bottom peaks running from Missouri to Louisiana. It conceals the actual belt.
