Living in the Bible Belt

Montgomery, the capital of Alabama, was my hometown for half a year. I lived there with an American host family for six month. I was sixteen at the time and went to the local high school called Jeffersion Davis High School. Being part of a family living in the Deep South is an amazing experience. At the time I have not heard from the Bible Belt or have known anything about it. The Bible Belt and the fact that I actually lived there I just realized a couple of weeks ago as we talked about in class.

To get you a short overview what the Bible Belt is I will briefly summarize the main points. The Bible Belt is located in the south-east of the US. The region is called Bible Belt because large part of inhabitants are fundamentalist Christians. The true Bible Belters take the bible literally, believe in creationism, try to convert others, oppose abortion and the Equal Rights Amendment, ban sex education from school, disapprove of many worldly things like smoking and drinking and most important they think they are doing God’s will. Most people living in the Bible Belt vote the Republican, because their world view are more conservative.

My family, the Kane family, was really very religious. They are part of the 7^th day Adventist community. During my stay in the states I went to church every Saturday. This was nothing special everyone went to church. The funny thing is that some of my classmates from high school just started talking with me after they had seen me in church. Therefore the church was also the first topic I talked about with some of my friends I made in Montgomery during my stay there. The church itself is not comparable with the church in Austria. When we went to church on Saturday I went to the youth lesson first. There I sit together with other young people praying and talking about religious topics. The lesson last for one and a half hour but the first couple of times I was really surprised how fast the time went by. Afterwards the real church started with every member of the community. The priest made the church always interesting and also used powerpoint presentation as well as YouTube videos to make a topic more understandable. I think it is a really good way to get the attention of everyone. In church everyone knows each others. It was very impressive that the priest was able to remember almost every name of the church members. After the church the whole church community had lunch together. The lunch was always fun because it was the time to communicate, make friends, make plans for the rest of the weekend and so on.

Being part of a family living in the Bible Belt was  an amazing experience for me. I definitely want miss my time in the Deep South.