Can You Believe Which City Is the Most 'Bible-Minded?'

8:00AM EST 2/3/2015 CHRISTINE CAPE  charisma news

Birmingham, Alabama (Jessilyn Justice)

After three years of having the most Bible-minded city in America, Tennessee has relinquished the title to Alabama. Birmingham moved up from the second spot in 2014 to the top spot in 2015 in American Bible Society's annual ranking of America's Most Bible-Minded Cities.

As in past years, the Bible Belt performed strongly in the 2015 rankings, while East Coast cities once again brought up the rear of the list. Small cities also generally performed better than did large cities. Just one of the top 10 Bible-minded cities ranks in the top 25 media markets. American Bible Society's Bible-Minded Cities survey, conducted by Barna Research, uses Nielsen media market rankings as a proxy for city size.

The 2013 list topper, Knoxville, Tennessee, dropped out of the top 10 for the first time. America's largest city, New York, entered the bottom ten in 2015 for the first time, ranking 91st on the 2015 list. One surprise this year was Dallas' dropping out of the top 25 most Bible-minded cities, coming in at number 26.

The rankings are calculated using data collected by Barna Group. Each city's Bible mindedness is determined by analyzing survey respondents' Bible reading habits and beliefs about the Bible. The most Bible-minded respondents said they had read the Bible in the past seven days and believe strongly in the accuracy of the Bible. Nationally, only 27 percent of the population was considered Bible minded.

This year's rankings from the America's Most Bible-Minded Cities study show many differences from usage statistics for American Bible Society's Bible search engine,bibles.org. Louisville, Kentucky, registered the largest number of searches onbibles.org while Syracuse, New York, registered the fewest searches of any of the top 100 markets.

"Online rankings consider only one data point—Bible search behavior—while American Bible Society's Bible-Minded Cities survey examines both behavior and attitudes about the Bible to harvest a more authentic survey of each city's population. This provides a more three dimensional view of a city's Bible mindedness," said Andrew Hood, managing director of communications at American Bible Society.

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Most Bible-Minded Cities (previous year's ranking) 1.     Birmingham, Alabama (2)  2.     Chattanooga, Tennessee (1) 3.     Tri-Cities, Tennessee (n/a) 4.     Roanoke/Lynchburg, Virginia (3) 5.     Shreveport, Louisiana (5)  6.     Springfield, Missouri (4) 7.     Jackson, Mississippi (9) 8.     Charlotte, North Carolina (6) 9.     Greenville/Spartanburg, South Carolina/ Asheville (7) 10.   Little Rock, Arkansas (8)

Least Bible-Minded Cities (previous year's ranking) 91.    New York (89) 92.    Phoenix, Arizona (93) 93.    Buffalo, New York (95) 94.    Hartford/New Haven, Connecticut (94) 95.    Las Vegas, Nevada (90) 96.    Cedar Rapids, Iowa (96) 97.    San Francisco (97) 98.    Boston, Massachusetts (98) 99.    Albany, New York (99) 100.  Providence, Rhode Island/ New Bedford, Massachusetts (100)

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"This study provides us with a great starting point to understand where people are interacting with Scripture and what their views are of the Bible," said Hood. "We want to help people continue to grow their engagement with the Bible. Ultimately, we want people to know that, whether they live in one of the most or least Bible-minded cities, the Bible can speak to their needs and challenges and help them make sense of life."   

Methodology:
The data reported is based upon telephone and online interviews with nationwide random samples of 62,896 adults conducted over a 10-year period, ending in August 2014. The top 100 cities were determined based on the 100 largest media markets in the continental United States as ranked by Nielsen. The maximum margin of sampling error associated with the aggregate sample is ±0.4 percentage points at the 95 percent confidence level. Respondents who report reading the Bible within the past seven days and who agree strongly in the accuracy of the Bible are classified as "Bible-minded." To view the full list of city rankings, follow this link.

About American Bible Society:
Founded in 1816, American Bible Society works to make the Bible available to every person in a language and format each can understand and afford, so all people may experience its life-changing message. One of the nation's oldest nonprofit organizations, today's American Bible Society provides resources across a variety of platforms enabling first-time readers and seasoned theologians alike to engage with the best-selling book of all time. For more information, visit americanbible.org.

The Great Deception in the American Church - BERT M. FARIAS- CHARISMA MAGAZINE

    What's at the root of the deception in the American church?

The Great Deception in the American Church

 5/19/2014 BERT M. FARIAS  CHARISMA MAGAZINE

Consider these statistics of Christianity in America: Eighty-four percent of the inhabitants of this nation say they believe in the deity of Jesus Christ, according to Barna Group, and 45 percent claim to be born-again Christians. Other studies show it is closer to 33 percent.

Either way, these numbers are high. Seventy-seven percent believe their chances of going to heaven are excellent. Thirty-three percent believe one day everyone will go to heaven. Yet America has the highest percentage of single-parent families in the industrialized world, the highest abortion rate, the highest rate of sexually transmitted diseases, the highest rate of teenage birth by far, the highest rate of teenage drug use and the largest prison population per capita than any country in the world.

Consider also the great moral decline of the last generation (50 to 60 years) and these telling statistics in America. The divorce rate has doubled, teen suicide has tripled, reported violent crime has quadrupled, the prison population has quintupled, the percentage of babies born out of wedlock has risen sixfold, couples living together out of wedlock have increased sevenfold, and gay marriage is now a legalized reality in a number of states, with many believing the end is not in sight.

In this past generation, we have experienced an overwhelming increase in lawlessness, permissiveness and selfishness, even among Christians. Moral actions that were unthinkable a few decades ago are now commonplace—Christian leaders indulging in sexual sin and grossly immoral scandals, addicted to pornography and accompanied by an exploding divorce rate have greatly factored in the rapid decrease of morals in the American church. And as the church goes, so goes the world. In fact, the results of a survey among young American adults showed that the percentage who follow biblically based values for living has now dropped from 65 percent to a mere 4 percent since World War II.

There has never been a society in the history of mankind whose moral values have deteriorated so dramatically, in such a short period of time, as those of Americans in the last 50 years. And so far it shows no sign of stopping. These statistics are eye-opening, and they serve to warn us that something is terribly wrong with our brand of Christianity. They reveal how poorly the church has communicated the true gospel to mainstream America, and thus the reason for so much deception in our culture.

When the rich man died and went to Hades (Luke 16:19-31), he was surprised to find himself there. In the Jewish culture, they equated wealth with godliness, so this man thought God favored him. The common thought, especially among the Jews, was if you were blessed financially, then you were a good person and therefore favored by God and on your way to heaven. This also explains the disciples' astonishment when Jesus told them how hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of heaven (Matt. 19:23-25).

Similarly, there was a church in Laodicea (Rev 3:14-22) who, due to their wealth, thought they too had attained God's favor. Jesus expressed great disapproval over their spiritual condition as well, which they were totally unaware of. They were deceived.

Are you in touch with your true spiritual condition? Or are you allowing the pop culture around you to dictate your standards? Are you conforming to the world's standards or to the Bible? Are you deceived? How can a nation of people among whom a large percentage claims to be born-again Christians experience the kind of degradation the above statistics reveal? Such deception is the state of America today, and the above statistics reveal the fruit of it.

The problem has been that the real gospel has not been preached nor lived. Both the profession and the practice of many so-called Christians in this nation have not matched up. Our substandard message has produced substandard believers. Our departure from the preaching of the cross, repentance, holiness, and the real empowering grace of God has increased the level of deception in the church. How else can we explain the disparity of the above statistics in the church and the nation?

But what is really at the root of this deception? This is what we need to carefully discern. In one word, it is humanism—the glorification of self. Humanism has crept into much of the modern-day church and is diluting the power of the real gospel. 

Bert M. Farias, founder of Holy Fire Ministries, is the author of The Real Gospel and co-host of the New England Holy Ghost Forum. He is a missionary evangelist carrying a spirit of revival to the church and the nations. Follow him at Bert Farias on Facebook or @Bertfarias1 on Twitter.