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

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

...On the other hand, I don't cotton to a lot of the whining in the comments about how it all means liberal atheists should sit down and shut up. You'll notice that in my atheistical ways I don't go around attacking the UCC or liberal Lutherans. Even far more evangelical atheists than I typically don't do that; what would be the point?

[asienieizi.livejournal.com]

"What's going on? Where did the Southeastern Bible Belt go?"
I'm going to say a massive demographic shift that began taking place in the past 15 or so years, first noticed by meself during the first(2nd?) Bush election. I remember being gobsmacked when I saw the red/blue political map for the first time and I wondered what happened too.
When I'd lived in Oregon and Washington they were firmly Republic and now, that I5 corridor is now shown as Democratic Blue. I'm theorizing it's from the massive migration of ex-Californians who are usually Democrats.
BUT I HAVE NO PROOF! (other than the fact that I myself was one of those migrating Californicans.)
That reminds me: Upon first arriving in Idaho in 1985 I was greeted by many signs and bumper stickers that said:
"Welcome to Idaho, now go home" and " Don't Californicate Idaho".

[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.

[pompe.livejournal.com]

Hmm. The data is based upon what the _churches_ reported, not what citizens said or what observers counted. I wonder if that might make a difference and if that difference might be more pronounced in different parts of the nation.

I must say these numbers do seem extraordinarily high even accounting for what I as a foreigner would interpret as the distinct American religiousity so I wonder what they count as "adherents".* More than 75% of the population in some zones which must include sick, old, very young, people away from home, and just non-believers. More than 50% in what must be major cities.

As a Scando-atheist I also see that my completely prejudiced like of the Pacific Northwest is strengthened by the light color of that area... ,-)

*I'll give a local example of how weird numbers can be. Sweden is often in stats reported as being what, 80-90% Lutheran faith. That's a joke, because it is based upon how many people are members of the church, something you basically was by birth not long ago. It certainly does not mean 90% of Swedes 1) go to church or 2) believe in the Lutheran faith. Lots of people not believing in Lutheran Christianity has simply not bothered to leave or they like the church in their village and some of the stuff the church does, or they want to be able to marry for free. But they are not Lutherans or in many cases even believers in any sort of Christianity. Actual church-going rates are much lower, and even more so if you discount people who go to church by tradition twice a year at Christmas and Easter.

[http://users.livejournal.com/erasmus__/]

Thanks so much for doing this. Believe it or not, last night, drifting off to sleep, I was wondering about the comparative strength of Presbyterians and Methodists in NC and VA (Presbyterians stronger in VA?). And I thought I COULD search for hours on the internet and never find it. so I figured, fuggedaboutit.

And this morning, sitting waiting on my computer, here it is! (NC does appear a little more Methodist than VA by land area).


Tonight when I go to sleep I'm going to hope for world peace.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

The other thing about these maps is that they're all plotted as fractions of total population, which can give a misleading impression of how people are distributed, especially when some counties are very sparsely populated and you color a county by the plurality leader. (This was famously an issue with the red/blue election maps.) It's not necessarily that there are more practicing church members in the middle of the continent, just that they're a larger fraction of the total.