Highest teen birth rate in South/Southwest (USA)?
The latest report, released Wednesday by the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics, includes state-by-state teen birth rate statistics based on all birth certificates issued in 2006.
The report revealed that teen birth rates were highest in the South and Southwest, with the highest rate recorded in Mississippi (68.4), followed by New Mexico (64.1) and Texas (63.1). (These States generally vote Conservative / Republican and are part of the Bible Belt).
Teen birth rates for 2006 were lowest in the Northeast, with the lowest rates in New Hampshire (18.7), Vermont (20.8), and Massachusetts (21.3), according to the report. (These States generally vote Liberal / Democrat and are not part of the Bible Belt).
This seems to infer that what is being preached isn’t being practiced. Why doesn’t the moralistic agenda of the Conservative Bible Belt translate into reality?
Your thoughts?
Perhaps that does have something to do with the conservative tendency toward pro-life choices. Abortion is an option that most conservative christians don’t even consider.
I do agree that some conservative parents do tend to overdo it on rules and over-protection, but not all. And children do tend to pull free of overdone rules and religion.
But I do not agree that all those statistics that you mention are of a religious background. Not all people who live in the Bible belt go to church. And though I agree with you that what may be preached isn’t being practiced. (I have waited on a few “paper-cup baptists” who preach “don’t drink” but do, and try to hide it by drinking out of the paper cup rather than the bottle or the can.) I am sure that the percentage of those who actually receive the preaching is not as big as hoped to be.
Preaching isn’t practiced because people either don’t know how to apply the Word of God or don’t want to. Assuming the preaching is actually Biblical.