He is a past board member of the American Humanist Association, founder of the Secular Coalition for America and the Secular Humanists of the Lowcountry in Charleston, South Carolina, a professor emeritus of mathematics, and the author of a previous book, Candidate Without a Prayer; An Autobiography of a Jewish Atheist in
the Bible Belt.
My home state of Tennessee is, after all, in the heart of
the Bible Belt, and almost every adult bookstore has an impressive cross in front of it, erected by some local congregation who would prefer such business was done elsewhere, if at all.
Though the ethos of Peoples Temple mirrored in many ways the fundamentalist Protestant "holy rollers" common throughout
the Bible Belt in the last century--even sharing some of the same hymns and traditions such as the laying on of hands that more sophisticated white groups had long since done away with--the newly unearthed videotapes used in the film provide a vibrant documentation of how the spirit moves when a congregation uses its hands rather than sits on them.
Growing up in the rural South in the heart of redneck territory and
the Bible Belt, Billy Joe had earlier had a single same-sex sexual encounter by which he was so traumatized, his self-worth so shattered, that he concluded he couldn't face another day.
Dennett joins other pundits in wryly reporting that
the Bible Belt leads the nation in divorce and abortion.
Once in the South, even though she was a cloistered nun, Angelica began using the media to evangelize
the Bible Belt, first with speeches and mini-books, later with vinyl records and cassettes.
A melting pot for both northerners and southerners, it represents the population in the study, is part of
the Bible belt, and has a strong Baptist heritage.
But fans of the trilogy have condemned the planned removal of anti-religious sentiment as a "blatant cop-out to
the Bible Belt of America".
I think it surprises many people in the pew and in
the Bible Belt that one can be "Christian" and still vote something other than Republican.
The truth is that the fervent Protestantism and the penchant for violence of
the Bible Belt South are not responses to the American frontier environment.
Seeing
the Bible Belt as the most religious would seem to be accurate, but for the test of the information, I sincerely have my doubts as to its accuracy.
But last September, as soon as the news came out that John Green's play The Liquid Moon at the Barter Theatre involved a five-minute, full-frontal nude scene in which a married man bares himself in front of a younger single woman,
the Bible Belt community went into an uproar.
I have been incarcerated in
the Bible Belt of North Carolina for almost 11 years and have seen many prison ministries come and go.
of Boston, the book is described on the company's Web site as an erotically guided adventure through venerable Dixie, where sweaty fingers unbuckle
the Bible belt.
If a film is well-done and marketed right, then it is not going to affect the conservative moviegoers in Middle America,
the Bible belt where people aren't going to go for R-rated movies.
