Residents of Portland and Auburn, Maine, aren’t just living in the far Northeast. They’re in the most “post-Christian” part of the country.
So says Barna Group. Researchers opted for a different way of measuring the state of belief than asking people to say if they are “Christian.”
Those meeting nine or more of 16 criteria were labeled “post-Christian,” or secular.
“These factors include whether individuals identify as ‘atheist,’ have never made a commitment to Jesus, have not attended church in the last year or have not read the Bible in the last week,” Barna said about the study.
In all the top secular-leaning cities, half or more of the respondents met Barna’s secular criteria.
After Portland-Auburn, Maine, which ranked first at 57 percent, the next six areas on Barna’s list also were in the Northeast: Boston and Manchester, New Hampshire (56 percent); Albany, Schenectady and Troy, New York (54 percent); Providence, Rhode Island and New Bedford, Massachusetts (53 percent); Burlington, Vermont, and Plattsburgh, New York (53 percent); Hartford and New Haven, Connecticut (52 percent); and New York City (51 percent).
Rounding out the top 10 were two West Coast centers — the California cities of San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose (50 percent), and the Seattle-Tacoma area of Washington state (50 percent) — and Buffalo, New York (50 percent). Shreveport, Louisiana, was the least “post-Christian” city, at 12 percent.
Chattanooga, Tennessee, was the most churched city, at 59 percent. The California region including San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose was the most unchurched, at 60 percent. (RNS)
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