Every year, Gallup releases a study on the religiosity of America broken down by states (you can see my thoughts on last year’s report here). In recent decades a trend has emerged in the location of the most religious and least religious states. As one might expect, the most religious states are in the South (plus Utah) and the least religious are in the northern corners.

 
A few weeks ago, I spoke to the judicatory (district) leaders of evangelical denominations in New England. In addition, I’ve had the privilege of teaching at Gordon Conwell and speaking at their Ockenga Institute (near Boston) and found their passion for New England to be contagious. So, over the last few years, I have a growing appreciation for the region and those serving there.

I’m not a New Englander. (New York is in the Northeast, but not in New England.) To understand a region you need to study, know, and love it. Actually, I’d say you cannot love a context if you don’t know a context, so I did some research to serve the leaders up there.

In addition, every year, Gallup releases a study on the religiosity of America broken down by states (you can see my thoughts on last year’s report here). In recent decades a trend has emerged in the location of the most religious and least religious states. As one might expect, the most religious states are in the South (plus Utah) and the least religious are in the northern corners.

There has been little regional change in religiosity throughout the past few decades. In our lifetime, the South has always been seen as the Bible Belt. New England and the Northwest have been less religious regions.

The Gallup survey concludes that the differences are more likely reflective of regional cultural traditions, but we at LifeWay Research wanted to drill down some more– especially in New England. So we took survey results from the General Social Survey (GSS), the LifeWay Research (NAMB-sponsored) National Evangelism Survey (NES), and our Transformational Discipleship Study (TD) and broke them down by region. You can download the actual report I presented to those New England denominational leaders here. (Feel free to use the presentation in your church or ministry.)

Below are slides from the three data sources we used.

From the GSS: New England Church Attendance is Lower, and Shifted Dramatically a Decade Ago

New England is consistently lower (when you create a trend line it is more clear) than the rest of the country, but something happened in the middle of the last decade. Take a look at the charts.

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