The Bible Belt was an area in which socially conservative Christian evangelical Protestantism is a dominant or pervasive part of the culture. The term “Bible Belt” was coined by the American journalist and social commentator, H.L. Mencken, in the early 1920s.
Aside from the quickie-divorce mecca of Nevada, no region of the United States has a higher divorce rate than the Bible Belt. Nearly half of all marriages break up, but the divorce rates in these southern states are roughly 50 percent above the national average. Also in the year 2000, South Carolina had 5.8 murders per 100,000 people, ranking the state as having the 18th highest rate for murder. Gambling, homosexual rights and alcohol sales have dominated the recent headlines, while Bible illiteracy, baptism rates and slumping Protestant church attendance figures are ignored or shrugged upon.
It is easy to see why the total number of unbelievers continues to rise in South Carolina. Glenmary Research Center collects statistics from many national denominations and churches to determine the levels of penetration that the Christian church has achieved. In 1990, they estimated that 38 percent of the population of South Carolina had no religious adherents. The North American Mission Board estimates that 70 percent of the people in the United States are not Christ followers. The percent of unbelievers has increased with each new generation.
Thom Rainer, in his book, “The Bridger Generation,” has tracked the unbelievers by generation and found that 35 percent of those born before 1946 – the “Builder” generation – are lost. The next generation – “Boomers” – have about 65 percent of their population who are lost. The children of the “Boomers” – the “Busters,” born between 1965 and 1984 – have 85 percent who are unbelievers. The “Bridger” generation, who are in their teens and 20s, are estimated to have 96 percent lostness. It remains to be seen how faith will appear amongst our next generation, the “Millennials.”
In 2005, George Barna engaged his research group in a large study of American culture. He found that 21 percent of those interviewed were atheists, agnostics or affiliated with non-Christian religious groups. Seventy-nine percent of the population consider themselves to be Christians. Of that 79 percent, about half would be defined as “notional Christians” and rarely attend a church service.
The other half have confessed their sinfulness to God, trust him as their Savior, and believe they are going to heaven – defined as “born again.” Of the 40 percent identified as born again, only 1 in 5 are evangelical – meaning that they believe in sharing their faith, salvation by grace alone, Jesus is sinless, Satan is real, the Bible is accurate, and God is creator and ruler. This final group represents only 7 percent of the total population of those interviewed.
In South Carolina in 2004, the crude death rate was 8.86/1,000; that means on average 102 people die each day somewhere in the state. What a tragedy to know that, by optimistic estimates, possibly only 41 of those we bury on an average day can claim to be born again.
There are more than 4.3 million people living in South Carolina today. Based upon that percentage, there are more than 1.6 million unbelievers living in our communities. Only 860,000 people attend church on Sunday, and of those almost 325,000 are South Carolina Baptists.
“Therefore said he unto them, ‘The harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few: pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth laborers into his harvest'” (Luke 10:2 KJV).
Editor’s note: Prepared by Bryan Nowak and Tom Crites, research services of the Georgia Baptist Convention, and Phil Charpie, research office of the South Carolina Baptist Convention.