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Southerners lead nation in religious devotion: Mississippi is first

There’s a reason the South is known as the Bible Belt: a survey shows that Southerners—and Mississippians in particular—are the most active in their religious practices and beliefs.

Residents of Mississippi ranked first among Americans in all four measures of religiosity in a survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, with 82 percent saying religion is very important in their lives. Five other states had at least seven in 10 people stating that religion holds that kind of importance for them: Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee and South Carolina.

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