Southern states dominate annual list of Bible-minded cities.
The Bible Belt lived up to its name as Southern locales topped the American Bible Society (ABS) and Barna Group's annual list of Bible-minded cities, with Birmingham, Alabama, earning the No. 1 spot.
The rankings, based on a city's Bible reading habits and beliefs, come from a decade of interviews with more than 63,000 adults in the country's 100 largest metropolitan areas. While the study crowned a new winner (Chattanooga ranked first last year), manydemographic trends stayed the same, notes ABS:
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.
