The religion maps

[mmcirvin]

Here is a set of maps of religious affiliation in the United States by county. (Michael Bacon says that they're "all over the blogosphere", but I guess I'm not as much on the ball as he is, since I just saw them now.)

Anyway, the maps are not so surprising except for the first one, which is extremely surprising if you imagine that American organized religiosity falls along red state/blue state lines, because it doesn't. There's basically a belt of heavy religious affiliation running north-south through the middle of the country from North Dakota to Texas, and a big unsurprising splotch of Mormons in Utah and eastern Idaho (though the rest of the Great Basin is pretty secular); but mildly liberal Minnesota and swing-state Missouri are about as religious as heavily Republican Nebraska, and Massachusetts far more so than Pat Robertson's stomping grounds in Tidewater Virginia! What's going on? Where did the Southeastern Bible Belt go?

I think Bacon's got it basically right: it's all about the dominance of different churches. In the Southeast, the Southern Baptists overwhelmingly dominate religious discourse and consequently are very powerful in spite of the overall moderate degree of religious practice. In most of the rest of the country, Catholics have a plurality, though in most places that's a mild illusion: Protestants are probably the majority, but are fragmented into different denominations. In the Northeast, the Catholics have a particularly strong presence (and generally have values that don't comfortably fall into American liberal/conservative categories), but there's a lot of other stuff going on too; around Boston there's a lot of activity in the extremely liberal UU and UCC churches, for instance.

I also think it's interesting that that actual Bible Belt running north/south through the middle is not made up of any one particular church; it's Lutherans up north, Southern Baptists in Oklahoma and Texas, and Catholics nearer the Mexican border.

Comments

[asienieizi.livejournal.com]

Oh right, I was going to mention my observations of the two main religions during my time spent living around New Orleans which were Southern Baptist and Catholic. I had expected Catholics to be the more politically conservative of the two but I was surprised that it was the other way around. The more conservative Baptists tended to be more Democratically inclined in their politics.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

The influence of Catholicism is interesting because it's so hard to pigeonhole in the American political spectrum. We think of the church hierarchy these days as ultra-conservative because of the emphasis on sex-related issues, on which they definitely swing right by the usual definitions. But the church also has a strong pacifist and economically progressive strain.

And, of course, a lot of American Catholics are somewhere to the left of the church hierarchy on the sex-and-culture issues too. (But on the other hand, there are those conservative guys like Bork, Bennett, Brownback and Santorum who seem to be somewhere to the right of Opus Dei. Some of them are recent converts to Catholicism from various hardcore Protestant churches; it's an interesting and strange trend.)

Also, the variants practiced in Louisiana, in the Southwest, and in the Northeast may be somewhat different because of the different ethnic groups they're associated with.

[piehead.livejournal.com]

The Catholic-political party mapping is indeed complicated.

I know plenty of conservative Catholics who are staunchly Republican and thank God for Bush. And I know plenty of liberal Catholics who are staunch Democrats and God damn Bush.

There's a range, and I've taken to thinking in terms of "Roman Catholics" and "American Catholics" (aka Catholics with Condoms.)

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

...hmm, what I thought was a "trend" may be largely just the influence of the Rev. John McCloskey (http://www.slate.com/id/2069194/).

Cat'lick

[infrogmation.livejournal.com]

I was a bit surprised to see that Catholic was less than 50% in Orleans Parish. I wonder when that demographic shift happened.

The GOP has done a good job of making abortion a wedge issue with Catholics who otherwise agree more with the Democrats on most issues.

Re: Cat'lick

[asienieizi.livejournal.com]

"I wonder when that demographic shift happened."
I'd dearly love to know myself. Maybe it's just me but lately I've been fascinated not by the shifts themselves, but rather how rapidly they are occurring. Right now as we speak Idaho has gone under an accelerated shift with a massive influx of relocation and building taking place which began almost as soon as I left just 2.5 years ago.
What's different this time around is that it's not just Californians, these are people coming in from _everywhere_and I wonder how fast the metro Boise area political maps will turn blue, (if they turn that is.) Should be interesting to see what happens as Idaho has always been a die hard red state.

Re: Cat'lick

[piehead.livejournal.com]

At least one blog occassionally has posts lamenting the bluing of Idaho (Boise).

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

HA HA HA CLAYTON CRAMER HA HA

[piehead.livejournal.com]

Heh... yeah.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Wow, i just looked in Google Groups and that nutbar is still active out there. He's definitely a dinosaur of Usenet conservative kookdom.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

I remember when he briefly joined Eugene Volokh's group blog. They parted ways when the rest of them decided that endless ranting about the gay menace wasn't part of their mission statement.

CLAYTON CRAMER

[asienieizi.livejournal.com]

I was um...going to say something but thought I better of it at the last minute. I cannot believe we now share the same state. Oy!

Re: Cat'lick

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Idaho is, I believe, traditionally the most Republican state, or close to it. The last time I was there was a few years ago now, and it already seemed like the Boise area was changing because of the local tech boom. They definitely seemed to want to differentiate themselves from Northern Idaho.