Versed created this interseting video dealing with the percentage of adults who are highly religious per state is discussed looking at it where you'll notice this southern region is much more distinct than the rest in fact it's so distinct it even has its own name the Bible Belt.
Protestant Christianity plays a strong role in society here and church attendance across the denominations is much higher than the nation's average but why is that? Why is this part of America so much more religious than the rest (New England) was literally founded by Puritans who thought Europe was too Godless and is now the most atheistic region in the union so what's happened well to understand this religious flip-flop and the intensity of it in the South.
There is a need to go all theway back to the beginning and back to the literal founding of the 13 colonies themselves with the first one being Jamestown Virginia in 1607. Like with many other European powers at the time, economic reasons were the best way to sum up the motivations for colonization and the British colonizing North America was no different so people were sent to live in this area to establish a British settlement here and since they came from England where the church of England aka the Anglican Church was the official state religion the people who made up this region were mostly Anglican.
The thing is though the Church of England at this point in time had only been separated by the Roman Catholic church and turned into a Protestant Anglican country. Since 1534 and even then there were some brief Restorations of Catholicism like under the reign of Queen Mary the from 1553 to 1558. So the point to make is even though the Church of England was technically Anglican there were still many retained elements of Catholicism in it and this is where the Puritan Movement became a thing because they were a group of people who wanted to purify the church from what they viewed as Catholic practices and to implement a more rigorous form of worship and church governance but the thing is their efforts and beliefs caused tension and persecution causing them to flee the country and to create a society in the manner they believed God truly intended it to be designed. So from 1620 to 1640, there was a Puritan migration to the New England colonies of British America with as many as 20,000 of them making the trip over mostly in families as opposed to isolated individuals and establishing the now Plymouth Colony the second permanent English colony in America.
Watch and listen to the video. It is well done and speaker is very clear.
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