FaithWorld

The small Bible Belt town of Georgetown, Kentucky, knows how to help when one of its own is in trouble.

As local employer Toyota Motor Corp struggles with a vehicle safety crisis, residents  are closing ranks and turning to prayer.

“They are our great corporate citizen. We’ve got to pray for Toyota,” State Representative Charlie Hoffman told community leaders at a breakfast on the outskirts of town and near the automaker’s flagship U.S. plant in rolling Kentucky horse country.

The Georgetown plant has been key to Toyota’s growth over the past two decades and builds the Camry, Toyota’s perennial top-seller and a vehicle that dominates the mid-sedan market.

Read the whole story here.

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(PHOTO: A delivery truck enters gate three at the Toyota Motor Manufacturing Plant, home of the Toyota Camry, Avalon and Venza, in Georgetown, Kentucky, January 27, 2010. REUTERS/ John Sommers II)

The U.S. South remains the undisputed “Bible Belt” of America and Mississippi is its buckle, according to a new bit of number crunching from the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. You can see the interactive report here.

Pew has attempted a state-by-state ranking of U.S. religiosity using four measures that draw on polling data: the importance of religion in people’s lives, frequency of attendance at worship services, frequency of prayer and absolute certainty of belief in God.

Mississippi tops all four rankings with 82 percent of its adult population saying religion is very important in their lives. In fact, the top 10 states by this measure are all in the South (some would say nine out of 10 as it includes Oklahoma. But many analysts lump Oklahoma in the southern category based on its politics and culture as well as its geography as it shares borders with Texas and Arkansas.)