The American Bible Society has its second annual ranking of Bible-mindedness out.
To be Bible-minded you have to have read the Bible within the last seven days, and believing strongly in its accuracy.
Apparently the Carolinas are teetering on the edge of the abyss. Only a handful of cities made the rankings: Charlotte at 6; Greenville/Spartanburg/Anderson/Asheville, 7; Greensboro/High Point/Winston-Salem, 20; Columbia, 24; Greenville, New Bern, Washington NC, 33; and Charleston, 38. Knoxville TN blackslid from the top spot last year to #10.
Not surprisingly, many cities in the East Coast continued to rank as the least Bible-minded in 2013. Among them: Providence, R.I.; Albany and Buffalo, N.Y.; Boston; and Portland, Maine.
Along with ranking the most and least Bible-minded cities, the study also found that an inverse relationship exists between population size and Bible friendliness. Of the top 25 Bible-minded markets, only three have a population of greater than 1 million households: Charlotte, N.C.; Nashville, Tenn.; and Dallas.
"An analysis of interaction with and views of the Bible continues to help us evaluate the Bible landscape in America,” says Geoffrey Morin, Chief Communication Officer of American Bible Society. "To help people engage with the [Bible], we need to understand where people are starting from."
"We want people to know that whether you live in the least or most Bible-minded cities, the Bible can speak to your needs, challenges and concerns and help you make sense of your life."This being a Biblical issue, of course, there is more than one way to interpret the data. Bible Gateway considered the numbers and some other data (they aren't so strict about inerrancy), and got a different set of results here.
Ah, it's not enough to have read the Bible in the past seven days; one has to "believe strongly in its accuracy." And I guess that unless one was a strict literalist, one wouldn't make the cut.
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