Which State Sins the Most? Contrasting Kansas State University Study with Scriptural Truth

“Only the naïve really thought Prohibition would do away with alcohol consumption,” mused the Chicago Tribune long after the infamous 13-year period in America when alcohol was outlawed. From 1920 to 1933, the 18th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution barred the “manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors” in America, until the 21st Amendment repealed it.

The Tribune continued: “Chicago’s gangsters, crooked cops, corrupt politicians, and the booze-consuming public all conspired to keep the drinks coming…By 1924, there were 15 breweries in the city going full steam and an estimated 20,000 saloons.” Al Capone’s gang raked in some $70 million a year—roughly $900 million in today’s dollars.

Despite the Prohibition drama, at least a dozen states had outlawed alcohol before the Civil War, and a strong anti-saloon movement had been growing for decades prior to World War I. Further, the 18th Amendment era saw a 60 percent drop in alcohol consumption per capita throughout the nation. The amendment did not produce organized crime, and most Americans respected the law. But the national effort to forbid alcohol eventually collapsed.

Many people resist attempts to legislate morality. Ironically, some secular groups aim to analyze biblical precepts by their own standards. An example of this was a Kansas State University study in 2009 on the prevalence of the “seven deadly sins” in America.

Geographers at the university sought to quantify how much pride, wrath, lust, sloth, envy, greed, and gluttony existed in each county across the United States. They mapped the results with color codes: red, more sin; white, average sin; blue, less sin. The study did not try to predict future sin.

The study suggests that much of the eastern seaboard from Connecticut to Louisiana, as well as a large portion of Washington, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Michigan, and Arkansas, commit the largest percentage of the seven deadly sins. Meanwhile, the central states from North Dakota to Kansas, and across to West Virginia, commit the fewest.

The study has two key flaws. First, the quantity of each sin is based on statistics that may or may not accurately relate to that sin. For example, the reported amount of envy pertains to the number of thefts per person in each county. But theft can be more related to greed or sloth. Similarly, the extent of wrath is based on murder, assault, and rape rates. Yet these crimes can come from envy or lust just as easily as wrath.

Moreover, the criteria for sloth and gluttony are too broad, because nearly the whole nation rates as average. The gauge for greed may be the most controversial, measuring the average income of a population against its number of poor people. This suggests that communal wealth correlates to individual sin.

But Elise Amyx, of the Institute for Faith, Work & Economics, says: “In the Bible, Jesus makes it clear that there are righteous rich and there are unrighteous rich. There are righteous poor and there are unrighteous poor.” She concludes that “greed is a heart issue, not an income issue.”

This leads to the second flaw of the study. Iniquities like murder, adultery, and theft are typically the result of a long line of evil thoughts, words, and deeds. Yet when people grow closer to God, they also grow more aware of their own unrighteousness. They strive to avoid the so-called little sins, believing that “whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it.” (James 2:10)

So how sinful is your state? If you ask enough genuine Christians, the answer may be surprising: “O my God, I am ashamed and blush to lift my face to you, my God, for our iniquities have risen higher than our heads, and our guilt has mounted up to the heavens. From the days of our fathers to this day we have been in great guilt. And for our iniquities we, our kings, and our priests have been given into the hand of the kings of the lands, to the sword, to captivity, to plundering, and to utter shame, as it is today.” (Ezra 9:6-7)

Yet darkness submits to dawn: “If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” (2 Chronicles 7:14)

Please pray boldly and often for repentance, faith, and salvation for your family, community, and state.

~~~~~~~~
(Originally published by The Presidential Prayer Team.)