Friday, August 26, 2005

Spiritual Geographical Stereotypes

From FOF's The Pastor's Weekly Briefing
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New Research from The Barna Group explores faith in America's largest markets and has produced surprises about geographical stereotypes such as Godless Hollywood, Lost Angeles, Bible Belt, or Texas: God's Country. The report examines 28 faith factors among people in the 86 largest metropolitan areas and 27 most populous states.

Although the research shows that seven percent of the adult population of the U.S. are evangelical (15 million adults), the market with the highest percentage of evangelicals is Little Rock, Arkansas (one out of every five adults or 22%). Of the 86 largest metropolitan areas in the nation, those with the lowest proportion of evangelicals were Salt Lake City, Utah; Hartford, Connecticut; and Providence, Rhode Island. Los Angeles, Calif., had the greatest number of evangelical adults — nearly one million such Christians. In fact, there are more evangelical adults in the L.A. market than there are in the New York, Chicago and Boston metropolitan areas combined!

The state with the highest percentage of adults who are evangelical is Alabama (at 13%, nearly double the national average), and the state with the lowest is Connecticut. With regard to each state's aggregate adult population, the area with the greatest number of evangelicals is California (nearly two million). Again, Connecticut has the fewest adults who are evangelical (26,000).

The Faith By Market report explores 40 different factors among the adults located in each of the markets and states studied. Those factors include a dozen religious beliefs, ten religious practices, various religious commitments and affiliations, and a dozen demographic attributes.

For the complete report, visit www.Barna.org.

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