Posted on 08/16/2004 12:31:14 PM PDT by fishtank
Heh...It's not gonna keep me up at nite either.
I can't find my exact search in my history! Sorry! This has some other maps you may find useful : http://www.adherents.com/rel_USA.html
Here's a possible lead too : http://www.ecai.org/epubs/Nara/nara_web_map.html
About your map post.
I used to live in Texas. Look at the little RC horseshoe in Texas. I'm going to guess the little pink Lutheran dot above the horseshoe is New Braunfels. I'm going to guess that the two major rivers are the Colorado and the Brazos, and if that's so, I'm curious why the Brazos valley from about Waco to the Gulf is white, while East and North of that is Baptist.
If I recall correctly, a lot of those Baptist counties were dry counties as far as alcohol sales goes, but that may be changed by now.
Not to bad, but can't expand the pdf file to make sense. Interesting that there are not as many Lutherans as I expected in Chciago. Figured with the German areas it would show up more.
Your basic premise might be off. Gallup showed that CHURCH-GOING Catholics and CHURCH-GOING Born-again Christians were both about 68% Republican-leaning. The distinction between Catholics being more liberal than white Protestants from "born-again" denomination is only from two areas: apostate Catholics tend to persist in identifying themselves by their denomination, and tend to have remained Democrat. Church-going Catholics went Republican as issues such as abortion, homosexuality, and the culture wars came to the fore.
Catholics also tended towards urban areas until recently. This correlates them to liberalism, but the correlation is merely incidental: I don't think Mayor David Dinkins got more than 1% of the church-going, anglo Catholic vote.
Urban areas tend to have the most non-religious and the most minorities. As such, they tend to be very Democratic. Even as Catholics have moved out of cities, they have stayed in the suburbs. That means they ended up in states dominated by central cities, and therefore dominated by liberals: NY, MA, NJ, MD, PA, MI, IL, and CA. You don't need Catholics to see central cities become ridiculously lefty. Look at places like Dallas, Seattle and San Francisco.
Notice that New England, for which Catholics get a bad rap politically, is dominated by the United Church of Christ, and American (Northern) Baptists. Lots of other Lefty Protestant religions: Christian Science, Presbyterian PCA, ECLA, United Methodist, Episcopalian. Of course the number of apostate Catholics in New England is breath-taking. And no, I mean apostates, not heretics. The RC churches are empty!
What makes a Red State? States where the white Protestants are from conservative denominations: Southern Baptist, Southern Methodist, Pentecostalist, etc.
So named because that's where your 21st century taxes will be going.
No... it turns out that's where Lutherans live. Must be ECLA. :^)
Chicago is Catholic and minority now.
How old is that map?
I'm looking at that crescent shaped area in south central Texas and then the Lutheran dot above it with the rest being white I find that hard to believe that the Baptist are not more pronounced than that.
"Your basic premise might be off."
Yeah, I know. But the thought is still interesting.
The Lutheran blob shaped kind of like Mexico in the Dakotas and Minnesota is interesting. I suppose that's where the Scandinavian immigrants tended to go (the climate being rather like home after all.) I live in the SE corner of ND and it sometimes feels like I'm weird for not being Lutheran or Catholic (haven't picked a church yet but I'll probably settle in either with Assembly of God or Evangelical Free -- E-Free is closest to what I grew up with as a Mennonite.)
Looks like southwest. Russians got the major foothold there.
You're right. Alaska, especially in native areas,
is Orthodox, not Catholic. Maybe whoever created this map
didn't know the difference.
I've got two maps in a book that would interest you. Let me describe them.
First is a map of Christian adherance. It shows four brakcets (0-25, 25-50, 50-75, 75-100) of population that are members of a Church.
The 75-100 bracket occurs mostly in the Black-belt of the South, Cajun country in Lousiana, southern and western Texas, western Oklahoma, eastern New Mexico, northern Iowa, southern and western Minnestoa, almost all of North Dakota, and northern South Dakota, and almost all of Utah.
The 50-75 bracket fills up most of the remainder of the south from North Carolina and Tennessee on down except Florida, all Kentucky except Appalachia, south-central Virginia, and nearly all the rest of the midwest from Illinois to Nebraska, north from Wisconsin and south through Missouri to Arkansas, eastern and western but not central Pennsylvania, most of New Jersey, metro New York, and western Connecticut, most of Massachusetts, the great lake rim of Ohio and New York up to the Adirondacks.
The 25-50 bracket takes in most of Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, Michigan, Florida, the remainder of the northeast and Virginia, and most of the west beyond the front range of the Rockies.
The 0-25 bracket is found scattered in northern California and coastal Oredon and Washington, southern Idaho, western Montana, central Colorado, parts of Appalachia, and up in the woods of Maine.
While the Bible belt (50-75 and 75-100) is clearly distinguished by this map and is a staunchly Republican area for the most part, the correlation is not entire and exact.
The next map is the denominational plurality map, showing which denomination has at least 25% of the total Church membership.
Catholics have Hawaii, central Alaska, the entire west (excepting northern Oregon an odd county here or there) beyond the western boundaries of states from Texas-North Dakota except Utah, Nevada, and southern Idaho. Catholics also have southern Texas, Cajun Lousiana, southern Florida, all of New England and New Jersey, almost all of Maryland and New York, eastern and western Pennsylvania, Michigan, northern Ohio, western Ohio, western Indiana, northern Illinois, St. Louis area, most of Wisconsin, central Minnesota, central and southwestern South Dakota, the middle of Nebraska and a scattering across the rest of the midwest.
Baptists have southeastern Alaska, northern and eastern Texas, Oklahoma, northern Lousiana, northern Florida, all of the South from Kentucky to Georgia and Arkansas, southern West Virginia, Missouri except St. Louis, and southern Illinois.
Methodists have Delaware eastern Maryland, central Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, northern West Virginia, much of Kansas, and a scattering from Nebraska to Indiana across the central midwest.
Lutherans have Minnesota (except the center), North Dakota, eastern South Dakota, northern Iowa, and western Wisconsin.
There is a scattering of counties with no denomination over 25% from southern Pennsylvania across Indiana and Iowa to northern Oregon.
Again there is no immediate correlation with presidential voting.
A lot of Presbyterians in the Piedmont as well.
Cental Minnesota should be colored Catholic!
As to the PCA, you are wrong, incorrect, mistaken.... The PCA is a conservative to moderate Bible believing and Bible teaching organization. D. James Kennedy is the pastor of the largest and best known PCA church (Coral Ridge), and the founder of Evangelism Explosion.
read later
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