INDEXINDEX

PPAGEAGE

- W- WHATHAT ISIS THETHE A AMERICANMERICAN B BIBLEIBLE B BELTELT?? 22

- G- GROWINGROWING UPUP ININ THETHE B BIBLEIBLE B BELTELT 44

- I- INN THETHE N NAMEAME OFOF G GODOD 66

- G- GOINGOING TOTO THETHE POLLSPOLLS 88

- W- WHATHAT PREACHERSPREACHERS DONDON’’TT PREACHPREACH 1010

- C- CONCLUSIONONCLUSION 1111

- B- BIBLIOGRAPHYIBLIOGRAPHY 1212

-W-WEBLIOGRAPHYEBLIOGRAPHY 1212Am

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WWHATHAT ISIS THETHE A AMERICANMERICAN B BIBLEIBLE B BELTELT??

The term Bible Belt refers to an area in the southeastern

United States where Christianity is deeply embedded in

everyday life. Sometimes the term Deep South is used to

refer to the same region.

As the Industrial Revolution spread through the United

States during the 1800s, Americans began labelling the

United States in belts based on the product they were most

associated with. For example, the Corn and Wheat Belts were

found in the Midwest and the Cotton Belt was located in the

South.

The specific origin of the label dates back to the mid

1920s. A newspaper reporter for The Baltimore Sun, H.L.

Mencken, applied the term to the area while he wrote about

a newspaper in Jackson, Mississippi, that was in the “heart

of the Bible and Lynching Belt.” Originally, it was used as a

pejorative, but nowadays, the use of the term Bible Belt has

become more widespread. The connotation delivered by the

use of the term depends on the speaker.

The Bible Belt includes areas where slavery was firmly

established before the American Civil War, and it is

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commonly identified with the States of Oklahoma, Texas,

Louisiana, Arkansas, Florida, Mississippi, Alabama,

Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, North Carolina, South

Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia.

Nowadays, these areas host large groups of fundamentalist

Christians who can’t do ordinary things such as smoking,

dancing or drinking.

People in the Bible Belt believe that their actions are

controlled by the Holy Spirit, and that doing God’s will is

the most important part of their lives.

Although religion has always been an important part of

American life, if we try to find an origin for the Bible Belt,

we have to look back at the so-called “Great Awakening”.

This was a religious movement that resulted from powerful

preaching that gave listeners a sense of personal guilt and

the need of salvation by Christ.

The colonial period was a time of increased religious

activity, particularly in New England and Boston. These two

cities were the destiny for the first colonists who started

arriving in 1620 and who are known as pilgrims. They came

from England and Holland, trying to escape from their

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nations, where they were persecuted because of their

religious beliefs. This led to changes in themselves, their

understanding of God and the world around them.

At the end of the 17th Century, religious fervor took an

even greater ferocity and America experienced a first great

revival which resulted in the apparition of the

fundamentalist Bible Belt.

It is said that people in the Bible Belt go overbroad in both

their religious and political practices, and they never

apologize for what can be considered irrational behaviour.

Politically speaking, they are Conservative and most of

them support the Republicans. In many areas of the deep

Bible Belt there is discrimination against Blacks and other

non-Whites. People living in intolerant rural communities

of the Belt don’t seem to have much democratic freedom. For

example, the law allows them free speech, but, if people

decide following what the law states, they are in danger of

being attacked by violent people from the fundamentalist

community in the name of sweet Jesus.

Many different places try to say they are the "buckle of the

Bible Belt", which usually means the most fundamentalist part.

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Some people think that Kentucky, Ohio, and Georgia are the

buckle but there is no general agreement about that.

Fortunately, there is an "anti-Buckle" - an area of the

Deep South which is less fundamental than the rest.

Ironically, it is the Southernmost part of the Deep South

which makes up this anti-Buckle: Southern Texas, where many

Irish, Mexican and Hispanic Catholics live; Southern

Louisiana, where many Cajun Catholics live; and Southern

Florida, which has many Catholics, but is also simply a

liberal area.

The Anti-Buckle, together with Maryland, which used to be a

haven for persecuted English Catholics, is often known as

the "Rosary Belt".

GGROWINGROWING UPUP ININ THETHE B BIBLEIBLE B BELTELT

Traditionally, we have had the image of American teenagers

as the most modern ones, the ones that mark the trends that

the ones living in the old continent have to follow. All

these theories fall when we face to see how children in the

Bible Belt are raised up, what is their real American way of

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life, and that their life is not as perfect as we think it

is.

Concerning to education, communities in the Bible Belt have

gained attention because of censorship within their

schools. Books that are commonly taught in other public

schools throughout the United States, such as J.D.

Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye and Mark Twain’s Adventures of

Huckleberry Finn, have been removed from the school programmes

for being ‘sinful’ and ‘sacrilegious’. Many of these

schools in the area have even banned sex education from

their teaching programmess.

Bible Belters are opposed to almost any scientific

discovery made. They deny evolution (which many of them

refer to as “evilution”), the existence of the ice ages (it

is not in the Bible, so it can’t be true), and the widely

established consensus that the universe is, in fact, over

6000 years old.

Some states have what they call “Board of Trustees”: a code

that states how people in the school communities have to

dress. There are certain prohibitions such as:

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- Boys are not allowed to wear baggy jeans and shirts

which are not tucked in. They have to wear a belt

properly and their fringe can’t be longer than the

eyebrows.

- Girls cannot wear see-through clothes, plunging

necklines, tank tops, extremely short trousers,

skirts, shirts and tight or provocative clothes (they

cannot wear tracksuits with words such as “sexy” or

“hottie”)

- Both girls and boys mustn’t dye their hair in a non-

natural colour. Piercings and tattoos are forbidden

(in case they have one, students have to cover it with

clothes or by using a sticking plaster).

- Teachers have to follow the same dressing codes than

students. They can’t wear sporty clothes (only P.E.

teachers can). Jeans are allowed only on Friday. They

cannot wear eye-catching make up or jewelry, because

it is considered something that can distract students

during the teaching process.

Religion influences every little detail of their lives, and

simple facts as playing are influenced by religion.

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There are some parents who buy Barbie dolls to their

daughters, but there are others who would prefer buying

their children toys with another kind of message. Thinking

of these, in 2007, the supermarket chain Wal-Mart started

selling what are called “Blessed Toys”. Among them, we can

find a toy of Jesus Christ who reads different Bible

paragraphs or a toy of Sanson, that comes together with an

audio-book to understand “the fascinating story of the

strongest man in the world”. Those who support the idea

claim that the world is “full of reencarnations of Satan

and evil things”. As a reaction, Mattel offered a new

version of its famous “Queen”: Reverend Barbie, a plastic

Episcopal Priest. The company has also created her

wardrobe, with impeccably tailored ecclesiastical vestments

including various colored chasubles (the sleeveless

vestments worn at Mass) for every liturgical season, black

clergy shirt with white collar, neat skirt and heels, a

laptop with prepared sermon and a miniature, genuine Bible.

Leisure time seems to be devoted to religious affairs.

Along the states of the Bible Belt there is a recent trend to

build theme parks related to the Bible. Their main

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objective is the creation of a story park that brings the

Bible to life through “well-loved, familiar stories and

ancient historical experiences”. Some examples are the

Great Passion Play, in Arkansas, or the Bible Park USA, in North

Carolina.

IINN THETHE NAMENAME OFOF G GODOD

The way in which people in the Bible Belt see culture is also

influenced by their religious beliefs. Music, television

and films have been the clear objective of a kind of

“inquisition” that states what is correct and what is not.

One of the most famous cases was the one of John Lennon in

March 1966. He made his famous claim ‘Christianity will go. We’re

more popular than Jesus now. I don’t know which will go first, rock’n’roll or

Christianity. Jesus was all right, but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It’s

them twisting it that ruins it for me’.

A few months later, an American teen magazine called

Datebook reprinted part of the quote on its front cover and

as a consequence radio stations stopped playing the Beatles

and even some concerts were cancelled. There were public

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burnings of the Beatles records and even the band members

received death threats from the Ku Klux Klan.

The Pope finally forgave John Lennon for what he said,

although it happened 42 years later (November 2008).

Not only famous people have suffered the effects of the

Bible Belt. Common people have related in different occasions

their personal experiences about it. An article published

by the Evening News, UK relates the experiences of a woman

raised up in the Belt and she explains how ‘television was

banned until I was 13 and rock, pop and any other non-Christian music was

also prohibited. The family went to the cinema occasionally to watch ‘safe’

Disney films’.

Films always have the ability to anger us, divide us, shock

us, disgust us, and more. Usually, films that inspire

controversy have graphic sex, violence, homosexuality,

religious, political or race-related themes and content.

They are considered taboo, "immoral" or "obscene" due to

language, drug use, violence and sensuality or other

elements. Bible Belters have their own policy about which

films must be released and which mustn’t.

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There is an endless list of what they considered

“controversial films”, and were never released in their

cinemas.

The Last Temptation of Christ, by Martin Scorsese (1988) was

“attacked” by religious fundamentalists who picketed and

threatened with boycotts weeks before its release. One

group even offered to buy the $6.5 million film from

Universal to destroy it.

Brokeback Mountain, by Ann Leg (2005) is another clear and

more recent example. In that case, some conservative

Catholic organizations described the film as "morally

offensive" for its open portrayal of a homosexual

relationship, and others criticized the film as sexually

propagandistic. Conservative Christian fundamentalist

groups heavily cited the film as glorifying homosexuality.

Even Disney films have suffered from this banning: Mary

Poppins and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, by Robert Stevenson (1964) was

prohibited because of its “magical content”.

Some directors have dared to talk about the Belt directly,

but always from an objective point of view (if they didn’t

want their films to be censored). That’s the case of

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Footloose, by Herbert Ross (1984) which tells the story of a

rocker and dancer from Chicago who lands in a Bible Belt

community where rock music and dancing are banned. For

those who may think that this is exaggerated, we just have

to have a look at the Iowa statutes, available at the state

of Iowa website, and which declare that it is illegal to

dance between 1 a.m. and 8 a.m.

Other films have had the support of the church, as it was

the case of The Passion of Christ, by Mel Gibson, which was

displayed even in some parishes. Some referred to it as a

“gift from God”.

The fact is that nowadays, film producers are tailoring

their products to Christian audiences, in their latest

attempt to recruit cinema-goers from the Bible Belt. They are

turning to what they call “faith-based audiences”, more

specifically America´s vast church-going community. One of

these films is Secretariat, by Randall Wallace (2010), the

true life story of an American thoroughbred race horse that

won the Triple Crown in 1973. The film opens and closes

with a quote from the Book of Job, and at the key moment

the gospel hymn “Oh Happy Day” serenades the audience.

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Appart from that, the use of new technologies in our daily

lives has played a role in this. There are websites for

pastors to download trailers and films clips to be used in

sermons, along with suggested Biblical quotations to link

them to.

Last year, clips of the film The Blind Side, by John Lee

Hancock (2009) were provided to 22,000 mega-churches across

the US before it was released, along with suggested Bible

passages for pastors to discuss in their sermons.

GGOINGOING TOTO THETHE POLLSPOLLS

They are politically Conservative, most support the

Republicans and in fact, in presidential elections, the

Bible Belt states of Alabama, Mississippi, Kansas, Oklahoma,

South Carolina, and Texas have voted for the Republican

candidate in all elections since 1980. Virginia and North

Carolina did not vote Democratic until they went for Barack

Obama in the 2008 election. Prior to the 1960s the majority

of these states generally voted for the Democratic

candidate after the formation of the modern Democratic

party.

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They think it’s good to give a little bit of money in

charity to help poor people in some way, therefore they

think it’s wrong to vote for political parties that will

give a large amount of tax money to help poor people a

great deal.

This fact is a bit paradoxical, because although they are

statistically underpaid, unhealthy and undereducated, they

tend to vote as if they were rich, strong and well-

prepared for any professions they might care to pursue. So,

what they do is to vote to keep things just the way they

are.

It is as if candidates continually convince the people of

the Southern states to vote against their own best

interests and keep conservative candidates in power. The

reason seems to be that Southerners vote emotionally, and

because of that, candidates make use of what has been

called “Weapons of Mass Distraction”: gun control,

abortion, flag-burning and same-sex marriage. With that,

people end up voting more tax cuts for the rich, less help

for schools, economics and health care. The result is that

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education levels and public health statistics in Southern

states remain the worst in the nation.

In the Bible Belt Atheists, Agnostics, non-Crazy Christians

(especially Quakers, Catholics and Deists), and people who

follow any non-Christian religion suffer a great deal of

prejudice. Black people and other non- Whites suffer

discrimination, despite the fact that Jesus was of Semitic

descent and Jews in the Middle East were darker skinned

than European Jews, most likely as dark as modern Arabs.

People living in intolerant rural communities of the Bible

Belt don't seem to have much democratic freedom. The law

allows them many rights that their churches dislike, and if

they use these freedoms nobody will speak to them anymore.

WWHATHAT PREACHERSPREACHERS DONDON’’TT PREACHPREACH

It is frequent that Bible Belters boast about their values,

probably because they are unconscious of the drawbacks that

come together their God-fearing behaviour.

Studies have shown that it is the area with the highest

divorce, murder, STD/HIV/AIDS, teen pregnancy, single

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parents homes, infant mortality and obesity rates in the

nation.

It has the poorest health care systems and the lowest rates

of high school graduation.

The figures are so striking that journalists and detractors

denominate the region as “The divorce Belt”, “The Teen Pregnancy

Belt” or “The HIV Belt”.

Hate and intolerance are well represented here, and those

who can’t take the Christian values, secretly subscribe to

porn.

They have tried to ban pornography on many occasions over

the years, but the Internet has made this extremely

difficult, since it means that people can get porn without

anyone knowing. The church actually has its own spy

network, which spies on citizens (usually on church

members) suspected of being involved with liquor, porn, or

other

legal-but-church-prohibited activities. The CIA regularly

recruits people who served in this network, too. The

legislature also tried to make it a serious crime (with

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high fines and prison time) to let underage kids into R-

rated movies.

Bible Belt states, which claim to have old-fashioned values

about family and marriage, purchase substantially adult-

content subscriptions on the net.

According to a study conducted by Benjamin Edleman at

Harvard Business School, Oklahoma ranks fifth in the nation

for online pornography subscriptions.

The Canadian photographer Naomi Harris published in

September 2010 a book entitled American Swingers, where she

retells about the secret sexual life in the Bible Belt through

250 photos. During four years, Harris attended to more than

38 parties at camps, private houses or clubs to see how are

the sexual habits of these people from the “deep America”

who work hard during the week but meet to practice group

sex, nudism or vouyerism. Of course, the book has

infuriated more than one who claim that this is not the

reality within the Bible Belt.

CCONCLUSIONONCLUSION

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If we tried to make a list with the moral standards by

which these people base their lives, this would include the

following commandments:

God never intended Blacks to be the equals of Whites;

God never intended women to be the equals of men;

God never intended children to be the equals of

adults;

God never intended gays to be the equals of straights;

God's cause was defeated when the North prevailed in

the Civil War;

The U.S.A. was founded by Christians for Christians,

only;

God never intended science to go beyond the bible's

view of the world;

God never intended to replace "the divine right of

kings" with "democracy";

God never intended government to help the needy;

it is therefore against God's plan and "unChristian"

to support such things.

For us, it is difficult to understand how they can be proud

of all the activities of the many "Christian Knights of the Ku Klux

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Klan" or the thousands of white Christian lynchers being

celebrated as heroes by their white Christian communities,

instead of being convicted of murder in the first degree

From a logical standpoint, the Bible Belt's strict Christian

morals (often forced) are causing controversy amongst the

local population. This evidence is quite useful in a debate

against a Christian when the overused "Christianity makes

people moral" point is brought up.

Intolerance may have peaked, and gays say they begin to

sense inexorable shift toward acceptance. The

fundamentalists can slow progress, but it would need god-

power to keep tolerance out forever.

BIBLIOGRAPHYBIBLIOGRAPHY

- BOLES, John B. The Great Revival: Beginnings of the Bible Belt.

Kentucky. The University Press of Kentucky. 1996.

-LEIGH HEYRMAN, Christine. Southern Cross: The Beginnins of the Bible

Belt. North Carolina. The University of North Carolina.1997.

WEBLIOGRAPHYWEBLIOGRAPHY

- http://www.liberalslikechrist.org

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- http://liberapedia.wikia.com

- http://www.titudorancea.com

-http://www.stopthereligionright.org

-http://beatlesnumber9.com

-http://anajnu.cl/locosincendiarios.htm

-http://blessedtoys.com

-http://www.facebook.com/groups/ Friends of Episcopal

Priest Barbie

-http://www.filmsite.org/controversialfilms1.html

-http://www.iowa.org

- http://www.elpais.com/ Art: CELIS, Barbara ‘Jesucristo

contra Barbie’. El País. Mar.24, 2007.

- http://abcnews.go.com/ Art: CALLAWAY, Ewen ‘Pornography

in the USA: Conservatives are biggest consumers’. abcNEWS. Feb.28,

2009

- http://noticias.terra.es/ Art: EFE. ‘El sexo salvaje de los

‘swingers’ de la América Profunda’. Terra Noticias. Sep. 2, 2010.

- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/ Art: ‘Hollywood works its miracle

on the Bible Belt’. The Telepgraph. Oct.9, 2010

- http://www.eveningnews24.co.uk/ Art: VALLELY, Joanna.

‘Bible Belt just meant pain for me’. Evening News, UK. Sep.13, 2007

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