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Welcome to the Bible Belt
Where are You Going to Spend Eternity? Dear Soul, if you were to die right now, do you know whether you would go to heaven or to hell for all eternity? The Bible, the Word of God, says that you can know.
âFellowship Tract League
There Will Be No FIRE ESCAPE in HELL ⊠but you can escape hell by believing in the Lord Jesus Christ and accepting Him as your sin bearer.
âOld Paths Tract Society
These tracts each separately appeared on a green mat that Anna and I have outside the front door of our house in the small town of Thomasville, Kentucky, welcoming guests to our âHome Sweet Home.â These are not the only Christian texts to appear uninvited at our home. We regularly receive flyers and pamphlets urging us to join one or another of the 52 churches in our town of 16,500. Moreover, in addition to the usual rounds of Jehovahâs Witnesses and Mormons knocking on our door, individuals from local Christian churches have personally approached our home to invite us to visit Damascus Baptist Church or the Blueberry Hill Church of God.1 We do not need to even walk out the front door to experience reminders that we are in the Bible Belt. In this chapter, I explore manifestations of Christianity in the social landscape of the regionâstarting in Thomasvilleâand demonstrate how Christian signs, symbols, and social interactions affect residents. I liken this effect to living in a panoptic prison.
The panoptic-prison design features a centrally located guard station so that one guard can survey many cells at one time and was first introduced in the late eighteenth century. The philosopher Michel Foucault argued that âthe major effect of the Panopticon [is] to induce in the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assure the automatic functioning of power ⊠the surveillance is permanent in its effects, even if it is discontinuous in its action.â2 In other words, under a panoptic gaze people feel that they are always being watched, even when they are not, so that they regulate their own behavior according to an imagined, external authority. In the twenty-first century, ubiquitous video cameras documenting our every move in prison as well as at the ATM machine, the convenience store, and the gas station serve this function. Americans from every region of the United States have grown accustomed to local, state, and federal surveillance of our whereabouts and behavior via our vehicle registrations, phone records, credit card purchases, and computer usage. We have some vague sense that we are always being watched, or might be being watched, by federal antiterrorist organizations. This panoptic effect is not regionally specific.
The âBible Belt panopticonâ adds another, more personal layer of potential surveillance for residents of the region.3 Rather than functioning through anonymous and invisible state authorities, the Bible Belt panopticon, an important element of Bible Belt Christianity, manifests through tight social networks of family, neighbors, church, and community members, and a plethora of Christian signs and symbols sprinkled throughout the region. As Foucault theorized, the panopticon âautomatizes and disindividualizes power.â4 To briefly illustrate, Tara, quoted in the introduction, who is 48, white, and from Oklahoma, explained that she no longer had to hear homophobic statements âto evaluate my appearance as too dykey or change my pronouns. All it takes now is to see a hand with a cross ring on it, or a fish key chain.â Simply seeing a Christian symbol on another prompts her to be careful about how she does or does not reveal that she is a lesbian. Tara, like most of the Bible Belt gays I interviewed, learned to discipline her self-expression in the presence of Christian symbols. And this is not because she is ignorant about, or particularly fearful of, Christianity and Christians. Although Tara was raised agnostic, when I interviewed her, she worked as a religion professor at a Christian seminary.
Daily Living in the Bible Belt
In the Bible Belt, cross rings, fish key chains, Christian T-shirts, bumpers stickers, tote bags, and verbal references to oneâs Christian identity are readily observable in everyday life. For example, approximately 20 miles from Lexington, Kentucky, Thomasville has one bookstore in town: a Christian bookstore. In addition to Christian books, this bookstore also sells Christian themed plaques, T-shirts, bumper stickers, jewelry, music, knickknacks, and home schooling materials for kindergarten through middle school. Christian books are also available at the Thomasville Public Library. Designated âinspirational,â the books are organized together and comparable in number to those in the mystery and science fiction/fantasy sections. The library also has a long table and bulletin board for the community on which members can advertise and share information. Christian tracts like those quoted in the opening of this chapter, and one I picked up on a recent visit to the library with a photo of a big white man dressed in camouflage holding a rifle next to a dead deer titled âMe Now! God Later?â and invitations and information about local churches are liberally displayed.
Thomasville has three small ballet schools for children and adolescents, one of which is named âThomasville Ballet School, Praise His Name in Dance.â This particular school is very close to my home, and I took one class there in the fall of 2010 and another in the summer of 2011. The other students in the class were all Christian home-schooled adolescent girls. Two girls were graduating high school. One planned to attend a Christian college, the other to do a nine-week Bible course in the fall and go on a mission. The male teacher led us in a prayer before class, we danced to Christian music during the class, and, I later learned, the instructor, most recently from New York City, is in Central Kentucky to attend a local, conservative seminary. In the waiting room of my physical therapistâs office, a copy of the Bible and a few ancient magazines, including a National Geographic from 1983, are my reading options. At the checkout counter at a local grocery store, I notice a bedraggled cup asking for charitable offerings for the Christian ministry Operation Baby Blessings. In Goodyâs clothing store I spot a table displaying Christian T-shirts for juniors. These are all in gender-appropriate pastels and have sayings on them, such as âGot Jesus?â and âSaving Myself for Jesus.â In the summertime, I hear the ice-cream truck luring young people for sweets with the Christian hymn, âI Know My Redeemer Liveth.â A nearby strip club advertises drink specials under the heading âSin Sunday.â
Over the past year, the local adult alternative radio station I listen to while cooking and cleaning began airing advertisements for a Bible study series titled âTruth Unchainedâ held at a church in Lexington. I overhear one of these âTruth Unchainedâ teasers at least twice a month. They feature an announcer referencing a commonly held Christian belief in the form of a provocative question such as, âDoes your church teach that Jesus is the son of God?â A preacher (always the same preacher) then corrects this misperception by, in my opinion, deliberately playing on a listenerâs fear of a wrathful God with something like the following, âIf so, you have been learning blasphemy, my child, and such blasphemy will keep you out of heaven. Jesus was born of a human woman, a human child and did not become God until. âŠâ This particular announcement played during the Christmas season in 2010, and I heard it at least eight times. These âTruth Unchainedâ advertisements last at least 30 seconds and conclude with the announcer saying, âDonât you want to worship where the truth is told?â I have repeatedly paused, hands in rubber gloves holding a soapy dish to closely listen to each, waiting to hear a theological argument, but at its conclusion, feel baffled. In the case of the previous example, I pondered, âAm I going to hell if I believe Jesus is the son of God, or only if I believe He was born the son of God?â The âTruth Unchainedâ series air on what is otherwise a secular radio station with local DJs, one of whom even brings in a psychic to do phone readings with listeners from time to time.
Where Anna and I get our vehicles serviced, the local auto repair shop bill includes âWe thank you for your business. Jesus is Lord. May God Bless Youâ at the bottom of the invoice. On a fishing trip to a federally funded campground, Anna received a flyer inviting her to a âcasual service to worship the Lord, Jesus Christâ with the campground regulations and map. Several times throughout the semester, I walk over a sidewalk chalk message advertising a âCampus Crusade for Christâ going into the university office building. Also, at least once a semester, and sometimes more often, people affiliated with a conservative Christian church stand in the university free-speech area, hold provocative signs with messages such as, âFornicators, sodomites, partiers, dancers, porn freaks, HELL IS REAL!â and preach about God, sin, and hell. They almost always denounce homosexuality. Men also show up twice a year at my university to distribute miniature Bibles to passers-by, usually students. On a 125-mile stretch of Kentucky country road linking a major city with small towns, there are at least 12 identical signs spaced 5â20 miles apart, 3 x 5 feet each, with blue backgrounds and red borders reading, âWarning: Jesus is Coming!â
Peopleâs vehicles sport a variety of Christian messages, including some that I have personally seen and jotted down such as, âChoice is Before the Baby is Made,â âHappiness is Knowing Christ,â âOur God is an AWESOME God,â âIf Satan rocks your boat, Jesus is your anchor,â âNo Jesus, know pain,â âJesus â08,â âVictory is Imminent,â âAs for me and my house, we will serve the Lord,â âDonât Follow Me, Follow Jesus,â âIf you died tonight, would you be in ⊠HEAVEN or HELL?â âJesus Saves, Are you saved?â and âWhen America Remembers GOD, GOD will Remember America,â as well as fish ornaments, family values license-plate holders, church affiliations, and, perhaps the most striking of all, back windshield appliquĂ©s of Jesus wearing a crown of thorns, his face twisted in agony. Some Bible Belt gays also grew up with a plethora of Christian-themed collectibles in their homes, as well as Christian books, movies, and radio programming. Misty, who is white, 24, and from Eastern Kentucky, attended a small, rural fundamentalist church 2â3 times a week throughout her childhood and adolescence, and described the Christian items in her childhood home:
What I mainly remember is endless bizarre house decorations, crazy end of days books and prophecy pamphlets from grocery stores. The pamphlets were always damning and condemning and warning of end of days, and there were DVDs of screaming preachers rehashing previous tragedies like the flood. Specifically, my mother has a fiber optic Jesus decoration. It plugs into the wall and glows like the toys kids get at the circus. She bought a ceramic Jesus with very dark skin tone once and painted it really light. At one time she had over one hundred ceramic angels in our living room besides the rest in the house. Ceramic manger scenes, large plastic outdoor manger scene, the Lordâs Prayer on a big spoon hanging on the wall, things that to some people would just seem almost sacrilegious. To me, it just seems very commercial and irrational. Like making chocolate crosses to eat.
And the church options are prolific. Within a three-block radius of our house, there is a church next to a liquor store, a church on top of a grocery store, and a church next to a dollar store. Some churches also sport messages, lettered on church billboard signs. A few examples include âThe strongest position is on your knees,â âBig Bang Theory? I donât think soâGod,â âA lot of kneeling will keep you in good standing,â âTalk to God in prayer or you are in trouble,â âWe really begin to live only when we are born twice,â âStop in the name of love and meet the Supreme!â âIf you walk with the Lord you will never be out of step,â âThe Churchâland of the free home of the brave,â and âAlmost saved is totally lost.â Misty emailed me about a church billboard she came across near her home in Eastern Kentucky that read, âGet Right or Get Leftâ and offered the following analysis:
Get right means to be saved and get left means to be left behind at the resurrection, but this also conveys a dual message of the churchâs political affiliation as well. Itâs very polarizing, and when I read it, it sounds like a threat. This is an example of how antigay rhetoric, especially to a Bible Belt gay, doesnât have to say anything at all about homosexuality. Itâs the associations. A Bible Belt gay knows homosexuality isnât included in the right column, and in areas where there are higher concentrations of fundamentalist-type churches which will display messages like these regularly, it comes to the point where seeing anything related to this religion feels like an attack on you because of your training in church on what is and isnât moral, and the aggressive way it is worded. I think many people not from the Bible Belt might be shocked by the types of messages some fundamentalist churches regularly put on their signs.
In the summer of 2011, a good friend of Annaâs, and also a Bible Belt gay, stumbled across an openly homophobic church billboard reading, âWednesday Night Bible Study, Politically Incorrect: âGay is not okay.ââ This was on a church in Eastern Kentucky near Annaâs home town. Not only do these signs sometimes feel like an attack to Bible Belt gays like Misty and Anna, they also serve the panoptic function of policing open expression of a homosexual identity. Simply put, these visual markers in the landscape warn Bible Belt gays to stay closeted.
The symbols, messages, signs, and tracts function as a shorthand for conservative Christian beliefs, opinions, and ideology, and teach the Bible Belt gays I interviewed, like Tara, to be careful about how they present themselves to others. Further, some interview subjects, like Julie, who is white, 51, and from Central Kentucky, described learning to read all Christian symbols as potential evidence of homophobic attitudes after the 2004 anti-gay marriage amendment on the Kentucky ballot. Julie shared:
I am scared to death when someone tells me theyâre Christian, and I hate to say that. Anybody that says theyâre Christian, or they have a cross around their neck, I say, âoh hell Iâve got to be careful around this person, because I just donât know.â And I guess thatâs terrible, but I assume that theyâre going to be antigay and very homophobic, and mean and cruel ⊠and after what weâve gone through Iâm right sometimes.
Julieâs partner, Mary, who is white and 61, concurred:
Sometimes when I see these religious bumpers stickers, I feel the way I think a Jew might feel, seeing a swastika displayed on somebodyâs car. There goes somebody who thinks that Iâm less than a full human being, that I can be deprived of my rights. Now granted, these people are not going around collecting us up and putting us in concentration camps, and sentencing us to death by hundreds of thousands, but still, these are people who think we are less human, that we have less in the way of rights than they have. Because of that they are a danger in a great number of ways, and we are harmed by that. And itâs not just symbolic harm, we are truly materially harmed.
Thus, within Bible Belt Christianity, under the Bible Belt panopticon, residents, like Tara, Misty, Julie, and Mary learn to associate even presumably value-neutral Christian symbols like a T-shirt reading âSAVEDâ or a cross over a local grocery store with homophobic social attitudes.
Billâs StoryâThe Bible Belt Panopticon and Social Surveillance
Not only do the surfeit of Christian signs and symbols embedded in the physical landscape reinforce the Bible Belt panopticon by reminding Bible Belt gays to police themselves, so do routine social interactions. To illustrate, conversations in Kentucky are highly mannered with each party careful to spend an appropriate amount of time situating themselves within a common social network (i.e., So you are from Paintsville, do you know Bob Smith? Thereâs been an awful drought round there lately.)5 This repetitive small talk establishes trust. This is particularly the case in small towns and rural areas, but can still be a factor in larger cities to the degree that individuals interact in smaller social networks. You are rude to another at your peril in tight-knit social circles. Members of small town communities know one another. They know each otherâs parents and relatives and neighbors and children. If you say something sharp to Ms. Johnson across the street, cut someone off in front of the convenience store, or neglect to nod at an acquaintance at a local diner, you will be talked aboutâand not in a good way. It will get back to your mom and your aunt and your cousin, all of whom will fuss at you and warn you, for example, not to offend so-and-so because she is on the school board and your little sister is trying to raise money for the cheerleading squad and do you really want to sabotage her chances? This is one example of how southerners regulate one anotherâs behavior, and an important element of the functioning of the âBible Belt panopticon.â
In the Bible Belt the church community, God, and scripture are powerful external authorities. Under a godly veil of righteousness, preachers interpret scripture for community members and set the moral guidelines that family, friends, and neighbors enforce.6 One of my heterosexual students, Jake,7 illustrated this dimension of the Bible Belt panopticon with the story of a young man named âBillâ who was a faithful worshipper at his Baptist church. Jake described Bill as âsomewhat feminine,â devout, and punctual. When a parishioner spotted Bill in the company of a âknown homosexual,â he told the church deacon, a special meeting was called, and Billâs fate in the parish debated. Some wanted him to kick him out of the church community immediately. Others felt the claim that Bill was homosexual must be proven before he was shunned. Jake explained that the âwhole churchâ agreed to get rid of Bill if he were indeed gay because homosexuals are evil in the eyes of God. After investigating the matter with a thoroughness that Jake, a criminology major, compared to the state police, they concluded that since they had no hard proof that Bill was homosexual, they would tolerate him as long as they never had any future reasons to suspect he might be gay. The pastor spoke with Bill and warned him to avoid associating with known homosexuals. He explained that the deacons hated to cause a disturbance in the church, but they were willing to do so if it ever emerged that Bill âis thought for sure to be gay.â Jake concluded:
I have observed that the members who were aware of the situation still harbor negativity toward him. Bill felt shame and guilt about the accusations brought against him, although he seemed to brush it off as a simple misunderstanding. I could tell from talking with him that he felt hurt. He never did completely tell me straight out that he was gay, but he knew I knew he was. He felt like he was evil and sick, and that everyone was ready to stone him to death.
Billâs story illustrates the influence and significance of local churches in small towns and rural counties in the Bible Belt. In rural areas, with few public places to gather, church communities serve as both social support and entertainment. Whole families often attend a specific church, including generations of the same family. Oneâs great-great grandfather may have laid the foundation for the church of which one is a member. Because family, church, an...