It's official: This ain't no Bible Belt town! (Phoenix, Mesa: home, public schools)

[pbenjamin]

Originally Posted by azriverfan.

1. The majority of residents in the Phoenix metropolitan area are Roman Catholic not Protestant which makes up the majority of Evangelicals.

Catholics may be the largest single group but there is no way that they are the majority. This study shows nearly 4 times as many "unclaimed" as Roman Catholic.

http://www.thearda.com/mapsReports/r.../6200_2000.asp

[Howard Roark]

Sorry, I attended three different elementary schools in the 1960s in California and Oregon. The first mostly white and some American Indian. The second all white, the third mostly white and some hispanic, even had one black student. In none of these three schools did the Bible ever get mentioned. Never. I liked it that way. I decided at age 7 I did not want to believe in God. Of course, you were in the South. You had your own perspective.

Originally Posted by caryberry

Sorry if I implied that education/knowledge made one a bible reader or not.

When I was in elementary school - you learned the major stories of the bible and didn't pass the 3rd grade until you could recite Psalm 23 from memory...but that was the 1960's in the segregated, cross-burning South.

[pbenjamin]

Originally Posted by Howard Roark

Sorry, I attended three different elementary schools in the 1960s in California and Oregon. The first mostly white and some American Indian. The second all white, the third mostly white and some hispanic, even had one black student. In none of these three schools did the Bible ever get mentioned. Never. I liked it that way. I decided at age 7 I did not want to believe in God. Of course, you were in the South. You had your own perspective.

That was more or less my experience in public schools in the Detroit suburbs in the late 50's. No prayer, no religious discussions.

[azriverfan.]

Originally Posted by pbenjamin

Catholics may be the largest single group but there is no way that they are the majority. This study shows nearly 4 times as many "unclaimed" as Roman Catholic.

The Association of Religion Data Archives | Maps & Reports

You can make that argument for every city in the country because your database shows every city in the country including the ones in the Bible Belt as showing "unclaimed" as the majority. However, among the Christian groups, it varied. The Bible Belt cities showed Evangelical Christians as their largest single group .The majority of Christians in the Phoenix metropolitan area are Roman Catholic. That is a fact. In fact, they had almost twice the number of Catholics as Evangelical Protestants in the Valley.

Atlanta, Dallas, Memphis, Nashville, Jackson, Lexington, Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Charlotte, Charleston, Birmingham, Little Rock and Houston all had more Evangelical Protestants than Catholics with the majority being "unclaimed'

The Association of Religion Data Archives | Maps & Reports

[ILikeEveryone]

I think this was a great post and informative. I was one of the posters a couple of years ago who asked something along this line about the "churchiness" in the PHX metro area.

[AllenSJC]

I don't get the posters who are insisting on minimizing the Evangelical Protestant influence in the Phoenix area. This site's own stats say that over 300,000 residents of Maricopa County belong to Evangelical Protestant denominations-which is about the same number that you get when you add Maricopa's Mainline Protestants and Mormons together.

No, it's not the "Bible Belt", but part of the thing about places like Maricopa County is that there are so many people (nearly 4 million total), that the raw numbers for just about anything would be large. And even though Evangelicals in Maricopa County are clearly a minority, about 1 in 12 residents do in fact belong to such denominations (or non-denominational churches, which are included with the "Evangelical Protestant" stat usually). And I doubt that the Evangelical population is evenly distributed throughout Maricopa County, anyway.

So just because the "Bible Belt" influence doesn't dominate or is a minority, doesn't mean it isn't there. I suspect with Phoenix, just like many places in parts of California, Colorado, and other parts of the West, there are, again, so many people (many of them transplants from all over the country) that the influence of any one religious or cultural group is diluted and "mixed in" to the general population, so to speak.

[pbenjamin]

Originally Posted by azriverfan.

You can make that argument for every city in the country because your database shows every city in the country including the ones in the Bible Belt as showing "unclaimed" as the majority. However, among the Christian groups, it varied. The Bible Belt cities showed Evangelical Christians as their largest single group .The majority of Christians in the Phoenix metropolitan area are Roman Catholic. That is a fact. In fact, they had almost twice the number of Catholics as Evangelical Protestants in the Valley.

Atlanta, Dallas, Memphis, Nashville, Jackson, Lexington, Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Charlotte, Charleston, Birmingham, Little Rock and Houston all had more Evangelical Protestants than Catholics with the majority being "unclaimed'

The Association of Religion Data Archives | Maps & Reports

The numbers work (54%) if you assume that Mormons aren't Christians (something that they would dispute). With them included you get 47%, which isn't a majority. Your original post, though, said the majority of residents, not the majority of Christians, which is different kettle of fish.

[k1221n]

I agree that church is a good thing, but wanting that sense of community also makes them easily manipulated, dont stray from the flock.

[azriverfan.]

Originally Posted by pbenjamin

The numbers work (54%) if you assume that Mormons aren't Christians (something that they would dispute). With them included you get 47%, which isn't a majority. Your original post, though, said the majority of residents, not the majority of Christians, which is different kettle of fish.

To contradict me, you claimed the majority of residents were unclaimed. You didn't research your own source well enough and recognize that every city according to your source had a majority "unclaimed" including well recognized cities in the Bible Belt. Now you are trying to back track by including Mormons in your analysis. But even when accounting for Mormons, Catholics are still the majority in the Phoenix metro according to your site. According to your site, there are 160,023 LDS members. There are 562, 213 Catholics. If you add the number of Evangelical Christians to LDS members, that equals 482,413 evangelicals so Catholics still outnumber Evangelicals in the Valley. And I was just humoring you because it's a huge leap on your part to equate Mormons with Evangelicals. Mormons may consider themselves to be Christians but that's not the same as claiming to be Evangelical. For one thing, Evangelicals reject Mormons as being Christian as there has been a long standing feud between Mormons and Evangelical Christians. Mormons in the South have been persecuted by Evangelicals and have been labeled a cult among other things. So to imply they are the same is a bit ridiculous.

Furthermore, according to this source, the majority of residents of Maricopa County who claim to belong to a religion, the majority of them are Catholic (43%). LDS accounts for 12%, Southern Baptist accounts for 6% and the remainder which includes non Christians and non-Evangelical Christians accounts for the remaining 38%. So the majority is still Catholic.

https://www.city-data.com/county/reli...County-AZ.html

[azriverfan.]

Originally Posted by AllenSJC

I don't get the posters who are insisting on minimizing the Evangelical Protestant influence in the Phoenix area. This site's own stats say that over 300,000 residents of Maricopa County belong to Evangelical Protestant denominations-which is about the same number that you get when you add Maricopa's Mainline Protestants and Mormons together.

It's not about minimizing, it's about being accurate. There have been false claims that Phoenix is a Bible Belt city and now we can clearly see that isn't the case. When you compare the religious demographics of Phoenix to other Bible Belt cities, the distinction is statistically clear. Those cities have a majority of Evangelical Protestants among religious groups.

No, it's not the "Bible Belt", but part of the thing about places like Maricopa County is that there are so many people (nearly 4 million total), that the raw numbers for just about anything would be large. And even though Evangelicals in Maricopa County are clearly a minority, about 1 in 12 residents do in fact belong to such denominations (or non-denominational churches, which are included with the "Evangelical Protestant" stat usually). And I doubt that the Evangelical population is evenly distributed throughout Maricopa County, anyway.

There are also a large number of illegals which are not accounted for and the overwhelming majority of them are Catholic so you can argue the number of Catholics are not well accounted for and it's probably a lot higher that listed.

So just because the "Bible Belt" influence doesn't dominate or is a minority, doesn't mean it isn't there. I suspect with Phoenix, just like many places in parts of California, Colorado, and other parts of the West, there are, again, so many people (many of them transplants from all over the country) that the influence of any one religious or cultural group is diluted and "mixed in" to the general population, so to speak.

There is an Evangelical presence in every city in the United States including liberal cities like San Francisco and Portland. You agree that Phoenix is not a part of the Bible Belt and that's all we've been trying to say because there are ignorant people who make that claim.