The Bible Belt Starts In Effingham Il (Chicago: college, campus)

[zpfled]

Originally Posted by Drover

At least our schools actually get funded here.

Not anymore, they don't

BTW, I'm not trying to knock Illinois public schools or make a political statement. Just lamenting the fact that our state is bankrupt, and I wasn't rehired at my school.

[zpfled]

Originally Posted by homeiswhereIlaymyhead

You have got to be kidding me!~

Go south to where the population is over 75% Southern Baptist!

In Illinois we are still YANKEES!

No thanks! Sounds hot, humid, and judgmental!

Southern Illinois is more southern in culture than Yankee. Pre-Civil War, even though Illinois wasn't a slave state, people in southern Illinois skirted the law by "owning" black indentured servants that were contracted for 99 years. They "contracted" the servants in slave states, like Missouri.

[urza216]

Originally Posted by zpfled

Pre-Civil War, even though Illinois wasn't a slave state, people in southern Illinois skirted the law by "owning" black indentured servants that were contracted for 99 years. They "contracted" the servants in slave states, like Missouri.

That's quite a shocking historical fact about The Land of Lincoln!

[zpfled]

No kidding

[sheena12]

Small towns are nice. iIgrew up in Oyster Bay NY, summer home of President Teddy Roosevelt.A nice small town.
Small minds are not so nice. A town is not a church.
Many people have good values but are not fundamentalist Christians. Or for that matter Christians at all! Good values are not the sole province of Christians of any stripe.
And yes, I am a Protestant Christian who is active in my church.
Wasn't the Bible Belt the very same place that brought us all those wholesome all American events and groups such as slavery, The Klan, lynchings, segregated lunch counters and the Cherokee Trail of Tears?
Of Westboro Baptist "Church" those kind hearted folks who ruin the funerals of fallen soldiers. now thats a sweet group- they should lose their tax exempt status. They are a hate group not a Christian Church.
The Bible belt? Well thanks for pointing out it's northern most boundaries. Home of some great institutions of higher learning such as Bob Jones, Liberty and Oral Roberts Universities
I am too wholesome and smart for that. I think I will pass on "the Bible belt"!.

[linicx]

I lived in a town that ws in the middle of the Bible Belt. What I learned was shocking. The churches run the town politics. Oktoberfest was a joke. It was about money and vendors. There was no German beer, no German food and no German music - because the church said it wasn't Christian. It was the one and only attempt at holdiing a October Fest in a town of 200.000. This didn't come down to the last minute when the liquor license was suspended. It lost a lot of potential visitors, the vendors who stayed were angry and the organizers lost a lot of money.

You are an outcast if you don't go to an approved church at least twice every week. The unapprived list is secret and it is contains mainstream churches found in most cities. Why is it secret? Because it is embarrassing. It implied a member of an unapproved church did not share the same Chirsitan valies as the ruling body. The tentacles of the church reached as far as the statehouse and it was oppressive, suspicious and not open to new ideas, new business or outsiders. Unfortunately it was not found in only one city in one state. It was rampant and spread like an ugly disease.

I moved within a year to a town that had city fathers smart enough to keep church and state sepearate. This little town grew, prospered and is a nice place to retire or raise a family. .

[jackhitts]

Originally Posted by homeiswhereIlaymyhead

You have got to be kidding me!~

Go south to where the population is over 75% Southern Baptist!

In Illinois we are still YANKEES!

Let's also note that, giant cross nonwithstanding, Effingham County and surrounding areas (probabaly from at least Vandalia to the West, Mattoon to the North and Flora to the South) there's a heavy (and I do mean HEAVY) German influence, from people who settled in the area in the 1850s or so. The population, in Effingham County at least, of people of German descent, is something like 60 percent. There are a LOT of German Catholics and Lutherans here (65 percent or higher of the two) which influence the culture more than non-denominational protestants do.

If you want the Bible Belt, I think you'd have to go a little further south (maybe Mt. Vernon?).

[linicx]

You are right. Most Germans are Catholic or Lutheran. MY 99-year old MIL, used to say if you cam't go to a Lutheran Church it was we should go to the Methodist Church. There are a lot of small southern and small rural towns that do not have a Lutheran Church within 25 miles.

[cubssoxfan]

Originally Posted by homeiswhereIlaymyhead

You have got to be kidding me!~

Go south to where the population is over 75% Southern Baptist!

In Illinois we are still YANKEES!

Really?! Talk with someone in Harrisburg, Murphysboro or Carmi and ask them if they consider themselves "southern" or a Yankee? I don't know if they would say southern, but I would bet they would not answer "yankee"!

[jackhitts]

Originally Posted by cubssoxfan

Really?! Talk with someone in Harrisburg, Murphysboro or Carmi and ask them if they consider themselves "southern" or a Yankee? I don't know if they would say southern, but I would bet they would not answer "yankee"!

I don't even know many people from Chicago that would call themselves "Yankees".... I always thought to most Midwesterners, "Yankee" referred to someone from the Northeast.