{"id":1125,"date":"2009-01-30T05:28:00","date_gmt":"2009-01-30T05:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2009\/01\/states-of-faith.html"},"modified":"2009-01-30T05:28:00","modified_gmt":"2009-01-30T05:28:00","slug":"states-of-faith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/01\/states-of-faith.html","title":{"rendered":"States of faith"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Is religion an important part of your daily life?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The good people at Gallup asked that question and came up with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/news\/religion\/2009-01-29-faith-state-survey_N.htm\">an interesting snapshot<\/a> of which parts of America are most devout: <\/p>\n<blockquote><p> <a href=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/_0DySLTT4PWo\/SYLXVYa23JI\/AAAAAAAAFBU\/m6qeNgPWOAQ\/s1600-h\/churchx-large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt;float: left;cursor: pointer;width: 320px;height: 210px\" src=\"https:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/_0DySLTT4PWo\/SYLXVYa23JI\/AAAAAAAAFBU\/m6qeNgPWOAQ\/s320\/churchx-large.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a>Want to be almost certain you&#8217;ll have religious neighbors? Move to Mississippi. Prefer to be in the least religious state? Venture to Vermont.<\/p>\n<p>A new Gallup Poll, based on more than 350,000 interviews, finds that the Magnolia State is the one where the most people \u2014 85% \u2014 say yes when asked &#8220;Is religion an important part of your daily life?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Less than half of Vermonters, meanwhile \u2014 42% \u2014 answered that same question in the affirmative.<\/p>\n<p>Joining Mississippi in the top &#8220;most religious&#8221; states are other notches in the Bible Belt: Alabama (82%), South Carolina (80%), Tennessee (79%), Louisiana (78%), and Arkansas (78%).<\/p>\n<p>New England predominates in the top &#8220;least religious&#8221; states: Following Vermont are New Hampshire (46%), Maine (48%), Massachusetts (48%), Alaska (51%) and Washington (52%).<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Clearly, states in the South in particular, but also some states in the Southwest and Rocky Mountains &#8230; have very religious residents and New England states in particular, coupled with states like Alaska and others, are irreligious,&#8221; said Frank Newport, editor-in-chief of The Gallup Poll.<\/p>\n<p>The reasons why, however, are far less clear, observers said.<\/p>\n<p>For example, some might attribute the religiosity of Mississippi to the high percentage of African-Americans \u2014 long known for being comparatively highly religious \u2014 who live there.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Mississippi is still No. 1, even if we look only at whites,&#8221; said Newport. &#8220;Whites in Mississippi are also very religious.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Overall, Gallup researchers found that 65% of all Americans said religion was important in their daily lives. The total sample of 355,334 U.S. adults, including respondents with land-line telephones and cellular phones, had a margin of error of plus or minus 1 percentage point. Some states had margins of error as high as plus or minus 4 percentage points.<\/p>\n<p>Newport was surprised that one state \u2014 Utah \u2014 did not make the &#8220;most religious&#8221; list, given the state&#8217;s large Mormon population.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;They apparently have two kinds of people in the state,&#8221; he said. &#8220;They have the very religious and devout Mormon population but it also looks like they have a lot of nonreligious people.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p> Check out <a href=\"http:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/news\/religion\/2009-01-29-faith-state-survey_N.htm\">the USA TODAY link<\/a> for the complete stats.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:78%\"><i>Photo: by Rogelio V. Solis, AP<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Is religion an important part of your daily life?&#8221; The good people at Gallup asked that question and came up with an interesting snapshot of which parts of America are most devout: Want to be almost certain you&#8217;ll have religious neighbors? Move to Mississippi. Prefer to be in the least religious state? Venture to Vermont.&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":365,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,12,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-links-r-us","category-ripped-from-the-headlines","category-the-people-in-the-pews"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>States of faith - The Deacon&#039;s Bench<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/01\/states-of-faith.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"States of faith - The Deacon&#039;s Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"&#8220;Is religion an important part of your daily life?&#8221; The good people at Gallup asked that question and came up with an interesting snapshot of which parts of America are most devout: Want to be almost certain you&#8217;ll have religious neighbors? 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