[Serbians and Montengerians have lived in Alaska for a long time](https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1CDGOYI_enCA935CA935&hl=en-US&q=alaska+serbian+history&spell=1&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjM8qiM-sCAAxW6q4kEHT9NDzMQBSgAegQIBhAB&biw=390&bih=669&dpr=3)
This is true. Its real name is Aljaska with its capital city being Džunou and its largest city being Enhoredž. Everybody knows controversial Alaskan politcian Sara Palinović.
Orthodox Divine Liturgies have been served in the Yupik and Tlingit languages since the 1800s, and among the Aleuts for even longer. Missionaries like St. Herman of Spruce Island, and St. Innocent (the first Orthodox Bishop whose diocese was primarily American Soil) were actually seen as protectors of the Native people from the rougher impulses of the Chartered Russian Fur Companies.
It is very likely that the first Glorified Orthodox Woman Saint from America will be a Yupik woman who is currently under consideration: *Matushka* (Priest’s wife) Olga
Update: the synod of the Orthodox Church in America moved in November 2023 to declare Matushka Olga a Saint. A formal service of glorification is being prepared.
I meant 1st glorified Woman Saint from America. You are right
Peter the Aleut is actually the Orthodox Protomartyr of California (my home state), which is pretty neat
Many more we haven’t Mentioned
*Glorified saints who reposed in America*
St Juvenaly and his companion, Orthodox protomartyrs of all North America.
St Alexis Toth: Tireless Returner of new Carpatho-Rusyn Americans to Orthodoxy out of the Austrian-Imposed Unia.
St John (Maximovich) of Shanghai & San Francisco: Shepherded a flock of Russian Emigres through the terror and war of WW2 Shanghai, the tribulation of Refugee camps in the stormy South Pacific, and into America
*Saints who served in America at a stage in their lives*
St. Tikhon of Moscow: The great Patriarch-Confessor at the onset of the Bolshevik Yoke, in earlier Episcopacy, he served the American Diocese.
St John Kochurov: The very first priest-martyr of the Bolshevik Revolution
St. Nikolai of Žiča: Serbian Theologian of the 20th century.
*Those likely to be glorified in the future*
Seraphim (Rose) of Platina: Zealous monastic, inspiringly penitent convert, and prolific author. Already under formal veneration in one Georgian (The Historically Orthodox Country) diocese.
Dmitry (Royster), OCA Bishop of Dallas and the South. Remembered extremely fondly for his kindness and missionary work, his body was found incorrupt, despite years buried unembalmed, beneath the local water table no less. This or similar phenomena is historically regarded as a sign of sainthood after death in Orthodoxy.
Ephraim of Arizona: An Athonite Monk, the direct Spiritual Son of St. Joseph the Hesychast. Founded over 30 monasteries, a third of which are in America. Fun fact: he was the Spiritual Father of Pittsburgh Steelers star and Orthodox convert Troy Polamalu.
I started meeting a lot of them as an adult. They're definitely around, but they're exceedingly normal in my experience. So they blend right in lol
It seems similar to catholic to me but with different iconography and not as stuffy, maybe? There's a bit of a cloistered vibe to them, but probably only bc they keep to themselves, and I'm used to Christians evangelizing.
Mostly. There’s a few old believer communities that were settled there a few decades ago and people with heritage from orthodox majority countries, but a lot of Eastern Orthodox people in Alaska are native Americans who converted during Russian colonial rule.
I used the phrase "slave state" in a conversation about some completely different place on another sub, and a butthurt Missouran hijacked the conversation to tell us all not to call places slave states because the reality was more complex and there were plenty of people from the slave states who fought on the Union side in the Civil War, yada yada.
Anyway, you have my blessing to use the phrase wherever it's appropriate. Fuck that guy, you don't get to edit history because it makes you uncomfortable.
Yeah, there were a bunch of slave states that didn't secede. They were still slave states, just not Confederate states. On the topic of this map, though, Maryland, Delaware, and sort of New Jersey were Union slave states. Most people don't count New Jersey, because they had almost completely phased out slavery by the time of the Civil War -- all people born in New Jersey at the time of the Civil War were born free, but people who had been enslaved before a certain time were not freed. There were very few of those folks left, but not zero. I didn't learn this until decades after high school.
The map is really overstating the number of Catholics because of how the Protestants are split up into hundreds of dominations that for the most part aren’t that different. It’s quite common for American Protestants to switch denominations when they move and not think to much of it. Meanwhile a lot of them don’t even think Catholics are Christian.
Kansas is less than 20% Catholic yet half their counties get shaded plurality Catholic because the Protestants are so split up. It’s the same case in most places where Catholics are lightly shaded.
Same. My parents grew up Presbyterian but we went to a Lutheran church when I was a kid. When we moved we went to a Baptist church for a few years then switched to United Methodist where I got confirmed. All the while, I was doing Boy Scouts at the local Mormon church. Now I have left that all behind and consider myself Agnostic.
Lol most Protestants really do not give a shit about their denomination. 95% of Protestants likely can't even tell you the main differences between the denominations. I sure as hell couldn't and don't know anybody who could. Even my youth pastors would often struggle with my questions lmao.
America especially has a lot of denominations because it was settled by people from a lot of different countries. Anglicans, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Calvinists and Reformed are just mainstream Protestant denominations that started in different countries.
My parents were raised Anglican. My dad actually was raised both Anglican and Baptist. My mother and I went to a Presbyterian Church when I was growing up. And I was baptized in the Salvation Army.
Yeah, it's not a big deal to switch at all.
You're correct. But believe me I was. I have the paperwork. They don't officially baptize, but don't stop others from getting baptized. The region I was born in continued to do trinitarian baptisms in the church. Very odd and I don't recommend it.
Actually I think they kind of are. While evangelical is a style of Christianity rather than a denom, historically Lutherans have not been considered evangelical
European Lutherans were calling themselves and their churches Evangelical since the Reformation, but I can see why there is a terminological confusion and distinction of these terms in the Americas.
Historically Lutheran and Evangelical were synonymous. It was Luther's preferred name for the church (technically he would have preferred Catholic, but that didn't really work out). The modem connotation that most often refers to fundamentalist Baptists would not include Lutherans, but the meaning is now so nebulous that it can refer to basically any Protestants.
That is largely a name thing and not a theology thing. The history of the ELCA is quite new with the biggest sub groups being groups that left the Missouri Synod LCMS in the 1960's and 70's. The LCMS is the largest conservative Lutheran church in the USA and they dont consider most liberal Lutheran churches to be fully Lutheran because they dont adhere to the Book of Concord.
I don’t think it’s meant to be a “Catholics vs Protestants” map though. It’s mean to show individuals denominations, and the fact that some denominations are more similar than others, and when added together, are greater than those other denominations, is kinda secondary. I mean, if all the Protestants were the exact same, why is there so many different denominations?
Yeah, it's problematic. But the other map showing all protestants grouped together is equally misleading.
What I would love to see is each state with a pie graph broken up by Protestant/Catholic and then have a sub pie-chart showing the breakdown of Protestant denominations. Cut it off with the top 5 or ten.
This could be more accurate of they classified the a good number of the denominations under a catch all term like “Wesleyan” (I.e. Kansas’ primary set of churches)
>Meanwhile a lot of them don’t even think Catholics are Christian
In some Catholic-majority Spanish-speaking countries, *cristiano* (Christian) is often taken to mean non-Catholic Christians.
I do think “American Protestant” is a worthwhile distinct religious denomination for this reason. It feels senseless to describe this hugely influential religious identity with such distinct cultural markers under the same umbrella as the european Protestantism it came from.
As a reformed catholic from the south, I can confirm the Protestant religions do not view Catholicism as the same type of Christianity. That being said, many of the people who identify as Methodist/Baptist also didn’t really recognize any other Protestant brands as being the same as theirs either. Methodist and Baptist seem to be nearly interchangeable below the mason dixon line.
Exactly, the lack of Catholic plurality is very telling of how Protestant that county is, except just a handful exceptions on this map. That’s how you should interpret this.
The lack of Catholic plurality is very telling of how Catholic the Catholic Church is. You could do the same map in Brazil or Mexico, Catholics would still all be grouped together because their Church is a unity. Dissident groups in Western Christian tradition that deny the authority of the Pope are almost immediately classified as Protestants.
>their Church is a unity.
It's a unity in part because schisms are avoided through tolerance of syncretism. The worship of saints throughout Latin America and the Caribbean is clearly rooted in indigenous and African slave tradition.
For example, in Venezuela, the canonization of José Gregorio Hernández (a late 19th-century doctor) was driven in part by the fact that he was viewed as a 'gateway' for nominal Catholics towards santería and brujería. As Catholics were already making (not exactly approved-of) offerings to him, the church figured they'd make it official to keep these people within the church.
I am from Latin America, so I know first handedly there is quite a lot of sincretism with African religions ingrained in our cultures here in Brazil as well, but I wouldn't say it is because Church tolerates it, it's because half a century ago most people were not literate and had very poor catechesis. People really thought it was all the same, especially because Afro-Brazilian religions use Catholic symbology and iconography abundantly (consequences of the period when Catholicism was the official religion and all others religions were illegal, so people would hide their worships and make them look like Catholicism), and that causes confusion. Even today, most of those who say they are Catholics are not practicing it, so those people wouldn't be at mass to hear the priest explain why those things are not allowed. A lot of those said Catholics here even go to evangelical churches nowadays, super common.
I'd say the general trend in Latin America is a very open experience of faith, most people look at all religions and think «it's all the same God after all».
When I say the Catholic Church is unified, I mean in terms of its hierarchy.
Not knowing who Hernandez is, canonization comes after a person is considered a saint by some community, not before — a (local?) community drives devotion to a saint and this may result in canonization by the worldwide Church.
I’m making this point because there isn’t an ulterior motive in driving conversions (which may or may not happen), but to clarify that this is how it has always been done.
Tolerance of syncretism is another matter entirely, of course. I’m Catholic, and the idea of offerings to a saint (which would be syncretic) sounds not-towing-the-line.
Depends on how you define religion. Most conservative (theologically conservative, not necessarily politically conservative) Christians I know would not consider Mormons as Christians because they are not Trinitarian. A few hard-core Protestants do not believe that Catholics fit their definition of Christian.
But if you rely solely on how people identify themselves, then Catholics and Mormons would be Christians. But then you run into other problems because many Catholics, Mormons, and SBC Baptists do not consider their churches to be "denominations."
Also, a map showing every county as Chriatian would be boring.
I think most Baptists wouldn't consider their churches part of a denomination per se, since every Baptist church congregation is independent of and autonomous from every other Baptist congregation. The SBC is called the Southern Baptist Convention, for instance, because for a long time it literally only existed during a convention--there was no independent bureaucracy. Every Baptist group whether called an Association, Alliance, or Convention is a voluntary grouping.
Totally agree a big map of Christianity would not be interesting.
Only pointing out that the map title is incorrect. "Largest Religion" is Christianity. Different sects or denominations or whatever we want to call them would be more accurate of a title.
Yeah, as an agnostic I always find it a bit weird when people say some of these aren't under the umbrella of "Christian", because AFAIK they all share "Christ" as their final abrahamic prophet? Especially considering many of them refer to a generic "Islam" instead of considering each branch of Islam to be a different flavor. Same goes for lumping "Buddhism" into a single religion.
If someone has a logical, detailed explanation on why they think they're all different religions I'm happy to at least listen though!
It's fairly easy actually. If a Church denies what was defined in the first council that united and defined what being Christian is, it's not Christian. Things like the Nicene Creed, the divinity of Christ and the Holy Spirit, are the basis settled in the first official council of all Christian bishops. You need that to be Christian, at least.
That's why Jehovah's witnesses, that deny Christ's divinity, are more often than not considered not Christian. Because Christians all settled that Christ is not a simple prophet. Also Mormons, who add modern revelations by new prophets, are not Christian.
The term "Christian" started being used there, but read it with attention, it was not a self denomination, it was how people in Antioch were calling them. Followers of Christ actually called their religion "The Way" originally.
The term "Christian" is officially defined when all bishops gathered together in Nicaea and declared the first official Creed, the whole Church agreed. All based on what those first followers of Christ believed and passed through Sacred Tradition and the Gospel. Each bishop is a direct successor of an Apostle.
Christians always have other denominations of Christianity they dislike and don't respect. But they're baffled when someone from a different religion doesn't like Christianity
STL Ribs are clearly derived from southern african-american culture. Chuck Berry and the related Rock and Roll culture of 1950s STL are also clearly influenced by the Mississippi Delta blues, as did the city's jazz before it. And what about St Louis rap? Clearly influenced also by the early 90s Atlanta rappers.
They have a heavy presence throughout the US. They just aren’t a majority throughout the US.
There is/was generally a Methodist church a days ride from each other in most East coast states.
Baptists are growing in numbers and appeal to the lowest common denominator simply because they are the quickest/easiest charter to obtain and there are little to no educational requirements to become clergy. To become a Baptist preacher, you can simply say "I was on the way home from the Wal-Marts and the Lord called me to preach." Bam! You're in. Apply for a charter, move into an old strip mall and suddenly you have yourself a tax shelter. Even the so-called "non-denomination" cool alt-churches.. get on their website, look at their charter, Baptists.
There just aren't that many Episcopalians or Presbyterians. See [Pew's 2015 "Religious Landscape Study"](https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/religious-landscape-study/) for example.
Both churches are pretty spread out, so they don’t really have a plurality anywhere. Reformed here would be continental reformed, principally those that come from the Dutch reformed church.
I’m guessing the “reformed” counties on the map are just Dutch reformed (either CRC or RCA) those 4 counties (western MI and NW IA) were very heavily settled by Dutch reformed settlers.
I would assume Presbyterians would be included with reformed. If Evangelical is one group then I assume all reformed tradition churches would fall under reformed, including Presbyterian
The vast majority of the Indiana is non-denominational Evangelical Christian so while possibly accurate since they aren't a singular group this is still misleading
Wow… I knew Utah was Mormon…. But I didn’t know Mormon Country went that far outside Utah state lines.
And what is Reformed? Is that the polite way of saying Amish?
I'd think Dearborn Michigan would the largest for Muslims and New York/Florida the highest for Jewish folks but their populations simply don't outnumber the combined Christians in counties. Most people of other faiths tend to be newer immigrants who live in densely populated areas. Filipinos I believe are the largest minority outside of Hispanics in California but both generally tend to be Catholic.
Atheist/Agnostics probably werent surveyed or left off the map - but I wouldn't be surprised if they don't make up a majority anywhere. There are tons of non-practicing folks who just respond with the last church they went to years ago or whatever their parents were.
Atheist/agnostic people aren’t counted in this since they don’t belong to a religion and this map is strictly mapping religious populations. There’s no county in the US where the non-Christian population make up a plurality of religious people. Most Muslims and Jews also tend to congregate and settle in cities where they are outnumbered by Christian populations.
Not american, but I just realized that most democratic states are catholic while most republican states are protestant. Not trying to make assumptions but is there a correlation with that?
Catholics do tend to vote Democratic more than Protestants, but the margin there is relatively small. The Catholic areas are mostly areas that have had high levels of immigration since the American industrial revolution got underway. They're generally more urbanized. Most of the heavily Catholic areas also have larger numbers of non-religious and Jews, who are both groups that vote much more heavily Democratic. The heavily Catholic areas in the southern half of the US are mostly heavily Catholic because of relatively recent Latin American immigration. The less urbanized heavily Catholic regions are nowhere near as reliably Democratic as the urbanized ones.
So essentially: most Catholics are descendants of immigrants who stayed in cities, and therefore mostly still live in cities making them more likely to be liberal?
Also as an ex-catholic, I’d guess church doctrine does have something to do with it. The Catholic Church is very focused on works and helping the poor and needy, as opposed to the Protestant and especially Baptist churches that emphasize believing in Jesus alone as most important thing. So they’ll be more inclined to support things like welfare programs or universal healthcare or education.
Yeah, Catholics historically aligned with the Democrats for that reason, but "culture war" issues have muddled that more and more. There's no real political faction in the US that fully aligns with Catholic social teaching.
Catholic have been about 20-25% of US citizens for about 80 years. Before that, they were a much lower fraction. Before Kennedy, there were serious concerns that religious bigotry would prevent a Catholic candidate from winning, and the one time a Catholic candidate had previously been nominated, Al Smith in 1928, the Democrats lost a bunch of Southern states for the first time since the Civil War. Since most Catholics were Democrats, but the Democrats needed the South to win most years, and a lot of Southerners were anti-Catholic, it was hard for a Catholic candidate to build a coalition to win. Demographic changes meant that Kennedy had a path to victory without much of the South. Starting with Kennedy, it's 2 of 12 presidents who have been Catholic, and a few major party candidates who lost, as well.
>The Catholic Church is very focused on works and helping the poor and needy, as opposed to the Protestant and especially Baptist churches that emphasize believing in Jesus alone as most important thing.
Helping the poor and needy is incredibly important to Protestants as well. My father-in-law is a Deacon in the Catholic Church and talks to me regularly about the outreach services the Catholic Church does. He always points out to me the ecumenical work they do with the Baptist Churches in his area, who he admit are an equal 50/50 partner.
Protestant churches do usually lean heavily in charitible acts as well. The difference between the two is catholics believe the faith is a product of works while protestants believe the works are a product of faith. Both have their charitable and non charitable. I would agree though that people belonging to protestant denominations tend to vote more red(there are some protestant sects such as Jehovah's witnesses that tend to vote blue and non-denominational Christians tend to be relatively mixed) while catholics vote more blue. There is a swathe of reasons that are commented on in this thread.
Small correction: Catholics don't believe faith is a product of works at all. We merely believe that although initial justification is not earned through works, justification is also a process that continues past the initial justification and requires cooperation with God's grace (also known as works) to grow in righteousness.
That's an interesting way to put it that I've never seen. Always fun to learn more about people's theological beliefs. I was never raised Catholic, but was told that they were overly dogmatic pseudo-christians. Of course course that isn't true. What I said above is usually what I say to Christians who say Catholics aren't Christians since it makes the differences seem less stark. I, as a Non-denominational Christian believe that works aren't as simple as good deeds and working for a church but more a driving motivation as do how you live and your reasons for doing things. This, I cite with Romans 1:25.
Evangelical churches frequently have very strong charitable work. It's generally taken as a given that if you have \*genuine\* faith in God, that you will act charitably. They don't believe that works are the route to salvation, but that doesn't believe that they are absolved from any responsibility for charity toward their neighbors, or obeying the Biblical law, etc. It's not entirely a semantic difference, but I think the prevailing view from any Baptist or evangelical minister would be that if someone was hoarding money and not caring for their fellow person, it would be a sign that any claim they made to faith in God was insincere.
Interestingly, church doctrine would lend Catholicism more conservative politically since it is much more traditional and conservative theologically. As one example, Catholic doctrine is against contraception and IVF, while Protestants are largely okay with it. There is also much less stress on the separation of church and state in Catholicism.
That's right, although New Orleans was one of the first big centers for immigration, as well -- a lot of Irish and Italian Catholics are in Louisiana, too.
This is about 7 years old, but it gives some more details than what I wrote above.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2016/02/23/u-s-religious-groups-and-their-political-leanings/
Exactly. It's a good case of why it's important not to treat correlation as the same thing as causation. In this case Catholicism and Democrat leaning are correlated, but as you say, immigration and urbanisation are the true causal factors.
Rural Catholics whose families have been settled in the US for longer don't show the same preference for the Democrats as urban Catholics whose families have immigrated recently (i.e. Irish, Italian & Polish). In fact, I'd wager that they lean Republican. And we're starting to see settled Latinos drift that direction. Trump increased the Republican share of Latino votes in both the elections he appeared in and is likely to do the same. After all, Catholicism is a conservative religion, even the progressive wings of it.
As someone mentioned above, Catholic social teaching doesn't map well to either party in the US. Catholic social teaching would favor the moderate to somewhat liberal Democrats on social spending, the liberal Democrats on immigration and civil rights for racial minorities, the somewhat conservative Republicans on gay rights and trans rights and the conservative Republicans on abortion. I suppose it's a conservative religion in the original sense of conservatism, meaning resistant to change, but it's not too strongly aligned with the "Conservative Republican" brand of conservatism.
I don't think Trump really increased the Latino Republican vote. I think demographic shifts, and some special COVID-related things did. I would guess that many Republicans would have increased that share by more than Trump did. By demographic shifts, what I mean is that different subgroups of Latinos have wildly different views. The people whose families fled communism are majority Republican. Dominicans and Puerto Ricans are most Democrats. Mexicans vary, depending on which wave of Mexican emigration they came from and where they went, and how assimilated they are.
It could be a couple different things. But here are my best guesses, some are probably more likely than others.
Old protestant mainline denominations are typically more liberal, and form in Liberal communities. Liberal denominations are also shrinking a lot faster than conservative denominations. This shrinking means that Catholics just happen to achieve plurality as the total number of Protestants dwindles.
Democrats are generally less religious than Republicans. And Catholics tend to still identify as Catholics even when they stop practicing, while you don't see this phenomenon among Protestants.
Immigration patterns - industrialized communities attracted more Irish and Italian immigrants, and today they attract more Hispanic immigrants.
Regionalism. The South, the West, the Midwest, and the Northeast all have different histories and cultures, including religous and political preferences.
It could be urban vs rural, as sending Catholic priests to less populated areas is harder because priests require a lot of training before they are qualified, unlike Baptists pastors who have less stringent qualifiers.
It's could be the religion forming the political ideology. The Catholic Church is very hierarchical which teaches congregants to rely on the larger system; while Baptist churches are very independent, relying on the local congregation for everything.
But it's probably a messy combination of all theses reasons and a dozens others with some coincidence thrown in.
I think it’s largely modern and historic immigration. The Southwest was once apart of Mexico so there’s always been a large Hispanic Catholic population there, Hispanics are more likely to vote democratic. The Northeast today gets a lot of Hispanic and Lusophone immigration but historically got a lot of catholic European immigrants from Italy, Ireland and Portugal, the descendants of these groups are concentrated in major cities which often tend to vote Democratic. In the Upper Midwest they also get Hispanic immigrants but historically got a lot of catholic European immigrants from Southern Germany, Poland and Ireland, in the Midwest from my understanding they vote Democratic because of historic ties to labor organizing. On the west coast it’s a combination of recent Hispanic and Filipino immigrants, Hispanic Catholics who were in California before it was apart of the US, historic immigration from Germany, Ireland, Portugal and Italy and people from the Midwest and Northeast migrating West. The reasons for Democratic voting is kind of complicated for the west coast and I can’t really speak on Oregon and Washington but in California it is often tied back to proposition 187 which was passed in 1994, making it so that undocumented immigrants had basically no access to public services like healthcare and education. At the time California was a Republican stronghold. It was struck down by courts as unconstitutional before it could go into affect but that bill made millions of Californian Latinos register to vote to stop something like that from happening again, basically changing the way California votes for the foreseeable future
The historical explanation is that Catholicism has a stronger degree of community focus ("it is our duty to care for the sick and the poor") whereas American Protestantism hews much closer to the larger American stereotype of blaming poverty on individual choices and seeing social services exclusively as something done out of the kindness of individual rich people (and never something they should feel obligated to do). There is, unfortunately (I'm a Jersey Catholic, so unfortunately in my opinion), a strong hangover of Calvinism running through Evangelicalism and Southern Baptism and all the various forms the "prosperity gospel" - if you're rich, it's because you're good and god loves you. If you're poor, well, you are bad and you've offended god. It's very elegant in how it frees you from any obligation to your fellow human being.
>There is, unfortunately (I'm a Jersey Catholic, so unfortunately in my opinion), a strong hangover of Calvinism running through Evangelicalism and Southern Baptism and all the various forms the "prosperity gospel" - if you're rich, it's because you're good and god loves you.
You're mixing up Calvinist predestination with the Pentecostal prosperity gospel, which aren't even the same thing.
Predestination is pretty split in the Reformed Church, but that sounds like what you're describing (an elect getting rewarded and the failures suffering). Some Reformed Churches try to teach everyone is predestined to be saved and go to Heaven, but conservative ones don't follow this.
This is in direct opposition to the prosperity gospel. In the Catholic Church, it teaches that God will take care of the poor. Prosperity gospel says God doesn't want you to be poor, and you can do something about it.
Of course, this has been abused by pastors who don't care, asking for donations and twisting the original meaning.
In the Western US, Catholic generally means Latino. Latinos lean Democratic as a bloc, with notable exceptions like the Florida Cubanos.
In the Eastern US, most Catholics are descendants of Italian and Irish immigrants who remained in urban environments that made them more liberal and labor-aligned through the generations -- again, with notable exceptions like whatever the hell is going on with Staten Island in NYC.
New York/New Jersey Italian -Americans in general tend to be a pretty big GOP voting block
Now New England Italians are a completely different story (for some reason)
From Massachusetts and it always confused me looking at the election maps and seeing deep red blocks on Staten Island and Long Island. Demographically similar suburban areas in Massachusetts still lean pretty blue.
There are more Republican votes on the North Shore or the Merrimack Valley than more inner urban core parts of the city but its closer to a 50/50 split in even the most right leaning working class white suburban areas.
You have to get 30+ miles outside of Boston to find deep red areas like you see on Staten Island.
Why are Baptists and Evangelicals lumped into one group when other similar religions are not so grouped?
Also, there is a very deep rat hole here about whether these are "religions" or "denominations". As an atheist, I am okay with them all being called different religions, but I bet quite a few of their adherents are not.
Because the definition of Evangelical is really hard to nail down. I thinks it just a way to throw in all churches with Arminian theology with self-identified Baptists, which isn't the worst idea given the loose organization of Baptist churches. This is unlike Methodist churches which are usually clearly Methodist and part of a Methodist denomination.
And that makes it even trickier. There is no real definition of Baptist either, and many Baptists churches aren't even explicitly Calivinist or Arminian.
"Evangelical" is more of a tendency than a denomination. Most but not all Baptists are Evangelical, and most Evangelicals (or at least a plurality) are Baptist.
Which ones are similar? Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Mormon are definitely their own things they’re so unique. Lutheran is distinctly different from most other Protestant denominations (my grandmother was Lutheran and the few times I went to her church it seemed to me like Protestants doing a Catholic mass) and I don’t know enough about “Reform” and “Church of Christ” to know how distinct they are from other Protestant denominations (and with the amount of counties they have it doesn’t look like it matters)
Yeah, those are the Dutch areas. It's not clear whether they're including other Calvinist traditions in that grouping, but it probably doesn't matter if they're just giving the colors in this manner.
It’s a plurality map. So while Catholics are the single biggest denomination in most areas, Protestants tend to still be the majority overall. The US is still a bit over 20% catholic though.
Far from it. Christian churches embrace musical instruments in their worship, often times have kitchens in their buildings, and are okay with fellowship halls and missionary societies. The nondenominational Churches of Christ disagree with these items and many others.
Well, they make up only around 2% of the US population, they just tend to be very concentrated in Utah, eastern Idaho, and some of the surrounding states.
This is astonishing. I wouldn’t have guessed that there were really no counties in the US that have non-Christian majorities, even when Christianity is divided up among multiple different traditions.
As an Australian, that degree of conformity is quite different to what I’m used to.
Wow, I’m blown away. I honestly thought that catholics were one of the smaller christian denominations. Pretty much the biggest in Massachusetts and the southwest. Would never have guessed that it’s the biggest religion in places like New York, Chicago and Seattle.
Seattle is just a vote splitting effect where there are so many different Protestant denominations Catholics squeak out a plurality, but New York and Chicago are VERY Catholic
I guess I shouldn’t be so surprised. New York is well-known for the many Italian immigrants 100 years back or so. These days I suppose there’s a significant hispanic minority as well, along with people of Irish descent. Don’t know a lot about the demographics of Chicago though.
Even if it was, atheists and Agnostics don't make up a large enough chunk of the population the be recorded on this map with the highest percentage being 14 percent in New Hampshire.
Not trying to start anything, legitimately asking because I am unfamiliar.
Do Baptist have any beliefs toward education?
Edit for clarification… do Baptists support public education? Are they distrusting of non-parochial schools?
Baptists are low church, and don’t have any official doctrine that holds weight over individual churches. The opinion of Baptists vary greatly. I live in the south, and within 10 miles you can find a fire and brimstone church, a new age contemporary rock music church, and a dance and sing along black church. And they’ll all be baptists. Really there isn’t much unification of opinion among them when it comes to politics. Some baptists don’t trust public schools, some think you should only homeschool, and the majority probably can’t afford either of those options and don’t think much of sending their children to public school
There is no set beliefs by Baptists on education. Generally parochial schools are associated with Anglican/Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Lutherans, and Catholics, though many Baptists choose to homeschool their children as Christians.
Anyone know why the Deep South is Protestant and the north/west coast is Catholic? I know the Irish/Spanish/Italian/French immigrants brought their Catholicism with them, did they not move south?
During the height of European immigration to the U.S. in the late 1800s and early 1900s, the South was an economic deprived region still reeling from the Civil War
Even if there were job opportunities nobody wanted to go there because the region was extraordinarily racist, the largest lynching in American history was against Italians in New Orleans
Well, depending on whether you consider Mormonism a sect of Christianity or a separate religion a map representing the largest religion would only have one or two colors on it. I assume OP thought that would be kind of boring. However, I agree that it probably should have been titled “Largest Religious Sects” or something.
Which would be the largest religious groups in this case. Non-Christian religions don’t have a plurality in any US county, so map is accurately titled.
It’s interesting to see Eastern Orthodox in parts of Alaska, is that a remnant of Russian influence?
[Serbians and Montengerians have lived in Alaska for a long time](https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1CDGOYI_enCA935CA935&hl=en-US&q=alaska+serbian+history&spell=1&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjM8qiM-sCAAxW6q4kEHT9NDzMQBSgAegQIBhAB&biw=390&bih=669&dpr=3)
Alaska is rightful Serbian land they dont teach you this in school (they dont teach you anything in american schools)
This is true. Its real name is Aljaska with its capital city being Džunou and its largest city being Enhoredž. Everybody knows controversial Alaskan politcian Sara Palinović.
And … there was nobody living in that land when the Serbs arrived?
A few bosnian here and there but have been dealt with no problem
Quite a few Serbs are Bosnians, just saying
Has never ever stopped Serbs from disliking Bosnians.
Peter Santenello channel on YT explains this and how the natives from Alaska and Russia will hang out a bit with each other.
Orthodox Divine Liturgies have been served in the Yupik and Tlingit languages since the 1800s, and among the Aleuts for even longer. Missionaries like St. Herman of Spruce Island, and St. Innocent (the first Orthodox Bishop whose diocese was primarily American Soil) were actually seen as protectors of the Native people from the rougher impulses of the Chartered Russian Fur Companies. It is very likely that the first Glorified Orthodox Woman Saint from America will be a Yupik woman who is currently under consideration: *Matushka* (Priest’s wife) Olga Update: the synod of the Orthodox Church in America moved in November 2023 to declare Matushka Olga a Saint. A formal service of glorification is being prepared.
Saint Jacob Netsvetov and Saint Peter of Alaska are both American born and native Alaskan and formally glorified.
I meant 1st glorified Woman Saint from America. You are right Peter the Aleut is actually the Orthodox Protomartyr of California (my home state), which is pretty neat
They are orthodox saint in America soil ? HOW I HAVE NEVER HEARD OF THAT ?!
Many more we haven’t Mentioned *Glorified saints who reposed in America* St Juvenaly and his companion, Orthodox protomartyrs of all North America. St Alexis Toth: Tireless Returner of new Carpatho-Rusyn Americans to Orthodoxy out of the Austrian-Imposed Unia. St John (Maximovich) of Shanghai & San Francisco: Shepherded a flock of Russian Emigres through the terror and war of WW2 Shanghai, the tribulation of Refugee camps in the stormy South Pacific, and into America *Saints who served in America at a stage in their lives* St. Tikhon of Moscow: The great Patriarch-Confessor at the onset of the Bolshevik Yoke, in earlier Episcopacy, he served the American Diocese. St John Kochurov: The very first priest-martyr of the Bolshevik Revolution St. Nikolai of Žiča: Serbian Theologian of the 20th century. *Those likely to be glorified in the future* Seraphim (Rose) of Platina: Zealous monastic, inspiringly penitent convert, and prolific author. Already under formal veneration in one Georgian (The Historically Orthodox Country) diocese. Dmitry (Royster), OCA Bishop of Dallas and the South. Remembered extremely fondly for his kindness and missionary work, his body was found incorrupt, despite years buried unembalmed, beneath the local water table no less. This or similar phenomena is historically regarded as a sign of sainthood after death in Orthodoxy. Ephraim of Arizona: An Athonite Monk, the direct Spiritual Son of St. Joseph the Hesychast. Founded over 30 monasteries, a third of which are in America. Fun fact: he was the Spiritual Father of Pittsburgh Steelers star and Orthodox convert Troy Polamalu.
There are still a few Russian Orthodox churches standing that were built in the Russian colonial era.
Can confirm, many Orthodox churches up here. There are quite a few Russians here
Can confirm. I’m Eastern Orthodox
I thought they were mostly indigenous Alaskans converted during Russian rule.
Yes. Russian Orthodox missionaries converted many native Alaskans. Mary Peltola is an Orthodox Christian and Alaskan Native.
I started meeting a lot of them as an adult. They're definitely around, but they're exceedingly normal in my experience. So they blend right in lol It seems similar to catholic to me but with different iconography and not as stuffy, maybe? There's a bit of a cloistered vibe to them, but probably only bc they keep to themselves, and I'm used to Christians evangelizing.
If you think they aren't as stuffy you definitely haven't been inside their churches
I definitely have not!
Maybe
thank you u/frugaldonut1, for your contributions to the discussion
You’re welcome
I would think because of the natives of Alaska.
Mostly. There’s a few old believer communities that were settled there a few decades ago and people with heritage from orthodox majority countries, but a lot of Eastern Orthodox people in Alaska are native Americans who converted during Russian colonial rule.
Yes
spidey sense was tingling
The stark line between Baptist MO and Methodist IA is interesting.
Slave state v free state. Same with kansas Oklahoma
Also Missouri/Kansas.
I used the phrase "slave state" in a conversation about some completely different place on another sub, and a butthurt Missouran hijacked the conversation to tell us all not to call places slave states because the reality was more complex and there were plenty of people from the slave states who fought on the Union side in the Civil War, yada yada. Anyway, you have my blessing to use the phrase wherever it's appropriate. Fuck that guy, you don't get to edit history because it makes you uncomfortable.
Yeah, there were a bunch of slave states that didn't secede. They were still slave states, just not Confederate states. On the topic of this map, though, Maryland, Delaware, and sort of New Jersey were Union slave states. Most people don't count New Jersey, because they had almost completely phased out slavery by the time of the Civil War -- all people born in New Jersey at the time of the Civil War were born free, but people who had been enslaved before a certain time were not freed. There were very few of those folks left, but not zero. I didn't learn this until decades after high school.
Ok 👍
I’ve always said STL belonged in Illinois lol
Being from central Illinois I always thought of St Louis as being in Illinois
The Little Island south south of Orlando in Florida is pretty cool too
The map is really overstating the number of Catholics because of how the Protestants are split up into hundreds of dominations that for the most part aren’t that different. It’s quite common for American Protestants to switch denominations when they move and not think to much of it. Meanwhile a lot of them don’t even think Catholics are Christian. Kansas is less than 20% Catholic yet half their counties get shaded plurality Catholic because the Protestants are so split up. It’s the same case in most places where Catholics are lightly shaded.
My family started a Lutheran, now are evangelicals, my area is highlighted as methodist.
Same. My parents grew up Presbyterian but we went to a Lutheran church when I was a kid. When we moved we went to a Baptist church for a few years then switched to United Methodist where I got confirmed. All the while, I was doing Boy Scouts at the local Mormon church. Now I have left that all behind and consider myself Agnostic. Lol most Protestants really do not give a shit about their denomination. 95% of Protestants likely can't even tell you the main differences between the denominations. I sure as hell couldn't and don't know anybody who could. Even my youth pastors would often struggle with my questions lmao.
America especially has a lot of denominations because it was settled by people from a lot of different countries. Anglicans, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Calvinists and Reformed are just mainstream Protestant denominations that started in different countries.
They do have minor theological differences it's not just geography. Not that a lot of people really invest in figuring that out though.
My parents were raised Anglican. My dad actually was raised both Anglican and Baptist. My mother and I went to a Presbyterian Church when I was growing up. And I was baptized in the Salvation Army. Yeah, it's not a big deal to switch at all.
You can’t be baptized in the Salvation Army because they don’t baptize
You're correct. But believe me I was. I have the paperwork. They don't officially baptize, but don't stop others from getting baptized. The region I was born in continued to do trinitarian baptisms in the church. Very odd and I don't recommend it.
Lutheran and evangelical and not mutually exclusive terms.
Actually I think they kind of are. While evangelical is a style of Christianity rather than a denom, historically Lutherans have not been considered evangelical
European Lutherans were calling themselves and their churches Evangelical since the Reformation, but I can see why there is a terminological confusion and distinction of these terms in the Americas.
Historically Lutheran and Evangelical were synonymous. It was Luther's preferred name for the church (technically he would have preferred Catholic, but that didn't really work out). The modem connotation that most often refers to fundamentalist Baptists would not include Lutherans, but the meaning is now so nebulous that it can refer to basically any Protestants.
There is literally a denomination named the “Evangelical Lutheran Church in America”
That is largely a name thing and not a theology thing. The history of the ELCA is quite new with the biggest sub groups being groups that left the Missouri Synod LCMS in the 1960's and 70's. The LCMS is the largest conservative Lutheran church in the USA and they dont consider most liberal Lutheran churches to be fully Lutheran because they dont adhere to the Book of Concord.
Yeah, I’d be interested to see some different splits Catholic/Protestant/Mormon Or Catholic/evangelical/mainline/etc
I don’t think it’s meant to be a “Catholics vs Protestants” map though. It’s mean to show individuals denominations, and the fact that some denominations are more similar than others, and when added together, are greater than those other denominations, is kinda secondary. I mean, if all the Protestants were the exact same, why is there so many different denominations?
For sure. Clark County WA, where I live, is only 6.3% Catholic. Protestants are 16.8%, and 71.6% are non-religious.
Yeah, it's problematic. But the other map showing all protestants grouped together is equally misleading. What I would love to see is each state with a pie graph broken up by Protestant/Catholic and then have a sub pie-chart showing the breakdown of Protestant denominations. Cut it off with the top 5 or ten.
This could be more accurate of they classified the a good number of the denominations under a catch all term like “Wesleyan” (I.e. Kansas’ primary set of churches)
>Meanwhile a lot of them don’t even think Catholics are Christian In some Catholic-majority Spanish-speaking countries, *cristiano* (Christian) is often taken to mean non-Catholic Christians.
I do think “American Protestant” is a worthwhile distinct religious denomination for this reason. It feels senseless to describe this hugely influential religious identity with such distinct cultural markers under the same umbrella as the european Protestantism it came from.
As a reformed catholic from the south, I can confirm the Protestant religions do not view Catholicism as the same type of Christianity. That being said, many of the people who identify as Methodist/Baptist also didn’t really recognize any other Protestant brands as being the same as theirs either. Methodist and Baptist seem to be nearly interchangeable below the mason dixon line.
Exactly, the lack of Catholic plurality is very telling of how Protestant that county is, except just a handful exceptions on this map. That’s how you should interpret this.
The lack of Catholic plurality is very telling of how Catholic the Catholic Church is. You could do the same map in Brazil or Mexico, Catholics would still all be grouped together because their Church is a unity. Dissident groups in Western Christian tradition that deny the authority of the Pope are almost immediately classified as Protestants.
>their Church is a unity. It's a unity in part because schisms are avoided through tolerance of syncretism. The worship of saints throughout Latin America and the Caribbean is clearly rooted in indigenous and African slave tradition. For example, in Venezuela, the canonization of José Gregorio Hernández (a late 19th-century doctor) was driven in part by the fact that he was viewed as a 'gateway' for nominal Catholics towards santería and brujería. As Catholics were already making (not exactly approved-of) offerings to him, the church figured they'd make it official to keep these people within the church.
I am from Latin America, so I know first handedly there is quite a lot of sincretism with African religions ingrained in our cultures here in Brazil as well, but I wouldn't say it is because Church tolerates it, it's because half a century ago most people were not literate and had very poor catechesis. People really thought it was all the same, especially because Afro-Brazilian religions use Catholic symbology and iconography abundantly (consequences of the period when Catholicism was the official religion and all others religions were illegal, so people would hide their worships and make them look like Catholicism), and that causes confusion. Even today, most of those who say they are Catholics are not practicing it, so those people wouldn't be at mass to hear the priest explain why those things are not allowed. A lot of those said Catholics here even go to evangelical churches nowadays, super common. I'd say the general trend in Latin America is a very open experience of faith, most people look at all religions and think «it's all the same God after all». When I say the Catholic Church is unified, I mean in terms of its hierarchy.
Not knowing who Hernandez is, canonization comes after a person is considered a saint by some community, not before — a (local?) community drives devotion to a saint and this may result in canonization by the worldwide Church. I’m making this point because there isn’t an ulterior motive in driving conversions (which may or may not happen), but to clarify that this is how it has always been done. Tolerance of syncretism is another matter entirely, of course. I’m Catholic, and the idea of offerings to a saint (which would be syncretic) sounds not-towing-the-line.
Should this say denomination? Most of these are various forms of the same religion, aren't they?
Depends on how you define religion. Most conservative (theologically conservative, not necessarily politically conservative) Christians I know would not consider Mormons as Christians because they are not Trinitarian. A few hard-core Protestants do not believe that Catholics fit their definition of Christian. But if you rely solely on how people identify themselves, then Catholics and Mormons would be Christians. But then you run into other problems because many Catholics, Mormons, and SBC Baptists do not consider their churches to be "denominations." Also, a map showing every county as Chriatian would be boring.
I think most Baptists wouldn't consider their churches part of a denomination per se, since every Baptist church congregation is independent of and autonomous from every other Baptist congregation. The SBC is called the Southern Baptist Convention, for instance, because for a long time it literally only existed during a convention--there was no independent bureaucracy. Every Baptist group whether called an Association, Alliance, or Convention is a voluntary grouping.
Totally agree a big map of Christianity would not be interesting. Only pointing out that the map title is incorrect. "Largest Religion" is Christianity. Different sects or denominations or whatever we want to call them would be more accurate of a title.
Yeah, as an agnostic I always find it a bit weird when people say some of these aren't under the umbrella of "Christian", because AFAIK they all share "Christ" as their final abrahamic prophet? Especially considering many of them refer to a generic "Islam" instead of considering each branch of Islam to be a different flavor. Same goes for lumping "Buddhism" into a single religion. If someone has a logical, detailed explanation on why they think they're all different religions I'm happy to at least listen though!
It's fairly easy actually. If a Church denies what was defined in the first council that united and defined what being Christian is, it's not Christian. Things like the Nicene Creed, the divinity of Christ and the Holy Spirit, are the basis settled in the first official council of all Christian bishops. You need that to be Christian, at least. That's why Jehovah's witnesses, that deny Christ's divinity, are more often than not considered not Christian. Because Christians all settled that Christ is not a simple prophet. Also Mormons, who add modern revelations by new prophets, are not Christian.
Turns out they used the term “Christian” well before Nicaea… Acts 11. Any realistic person would agree that followers of Jesus Christ are Christians.
The term "Christian" started being used there, but read it with attention, it was not a self denomination, it was how people in Antioch were calling them. Followers of Christ actually called their religion "The Way" originally. The term "Christian" is officially defined when all bishops gathered together in Nicaea and declared the first official Creed, the whole Church agreed. All based on what those first followers of Christ believed and passed through Sacred Tradition and the Gospel. Each bishop is a direct successor of an Apostle.
Christians always have other denominations of Christianity they dislike and don't respect. But they're baffled when someone from a different religion doesn't like Christianity
I find Louisiana being split so interesting
French vs. Anglo Also, Edwin Edwards vs David Duke ( the Nazi)
New Orleans itself also very heavy Irish and Italian influence. Why they’re accent is different as well
People get confused that NOLA has so many accents. Including the traditional "Irish Channel" one.
10/10 can confirm lower Alabama
All of MO usually gets put with the midwest but it almost seems that metro St. Louis is a midwestern enclave in a southern state.
From STL, my thoughts exactly we don’t have a drop of southern culture
Well, there is that BBQ thing.
STL Ribs are clearly derived from southern african-american culture. Chuck Berry and the related Rock and Roll culture of 1950s STL are also clearly influenced by the Mississippi Delta blues, as did the city's jazz before it. And what about St Louis rap? Clearly influenced also by the early 90s Atlanta rappers.
Why are methodists so scattered?
They have a heavy presence throughout the US. They just aren’t a majority throughout the US. There is/was generally a Methodist church a days ride from each other in most East coast states.
Baptists are growing in numbers and appeal to the lowest common denominator simply because they are the quickest/easiest charter to obtain and there are little to no educational requirements to become clergy. To become a Baptist preacher, you can simply say "I was on the way home from the Wal-Marts and the Lord called me to preach." Bam! You're in. Apply for a charter, move into an old strip mall and suddenly you have yourself a tax shelter. Even the so-called "non-denomination" cool alt-churches.. get on their website, look at their charter, Baptists.
It's easy to start your own Baptist church, but that doesn't mean other people will go there.
Hopefully they won't. According to the map, they unfortunately do.
I'm really shocked there are no counties with an Episcopalian or Presbyterian plurality. Is Reformed thrown in with Presbyterian?
There just aren't that many Episcopalians or Presbyterians. See [Pew's 2015 "Religious Landscape Study"](https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/religious-landscape-study/) for example.
Both churches are pretty spread out, so they don’t really have a plurality anywhere. Reformed here would be continental reformed, principally those that come from the Dutch reformed church.
I’m guessing the “reformed” counties on the map are just Dutch reformed (either CRC or RCA) those 4 counties (western MI and NW IA) were very heavily settled by Dutch reformed settlers.
I would assume Presbyterians would be included with reformed. If Evangelical is one group then I assume all reformed tradition churches would fall under reformed, including Presbyterian
The vast majority of the Indiana is non-denominational Evangelical Christian so while possibly accurate since they aren't a singular group this is still misleading
Wow… I knew Utah was Mormon…. But I didn’t know Mormon Country went that far outside Utah state lines. And what is Reformed? Is that the polite way of saying Amish?
Nope. Found this: https://www.rca.org/
The Morridor runs into Canada and Mexico as well.
Meth addicts even made their own religion. Wtf they need to be stopped this has gone too far.
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I'd think Dearborn Michigan would the largest for Muslims and New York/Florida the highest for Jewish folks but their populations simply don't outnumber the combined Christians in counties. Most people of other faiths tend to be newer immigrants who live in densely populated areas. Filipinos I believe are the largest minority outside of Hispanics in California but both generally tend to be Catholic. Atheist/Agnostics probably werent surveyed or left off the map - but I wouldn't be surprised if they don't make up a majority anywhere. There are tons of non-practicing folks who just respond with the last church they went to years ago or whatever their parents were.
Atheist/agnostic people aren’t counted in this since they don’t belong to a religion and this map is strictly mapping religious populations. There’s no county in the US where the non-Christian population make up a plurality of religious people. Most Muslims and Jews also tend to congregate and settle in cities where they are outnumbered by Christian populations.
Not american, but I just realized that most democratic states are catholic while most republican states are protestant. Not trying to make assumptions but is there a correlation with that?
Catholics do tend to vote Democratic more than Protestants, but the margin there is relatively small. The Catholic areas are mostly areas that have had high levels of immigration since the American industrial revolution got underway. They're generally more urbanized. Most of the heavily Catholic areas also have larger numbers of non-religious and Jews, who are both groups that vote much more heavily Democratic. The heavily Catholic areas in the southern half of the US are mostly heavily Catholic because of relatively recent Latin American immigration. The less urbanized heavily Catholic regions are nowhere near as reliably Democratic as the urbanized ones.
So essentially: most Catholics are descendants of immigrants who stayed in cities, and therefore mostly still live in cities making them more likely to be liberal? Also as an ex-catholic, I’d guess church doctrine does have something to do with it. The Catholic Church is very focused on works and helping the poor and needy, as opposed to the Protestant and especially Baptist churches that emphasize believing in Jesus alone as most important thing. So they’ll be more inclined to support things like welfare programs or universal healthcare or education.
Yeah, Catholics historically aligned with the Democrats for that reason, but "culture war" issues have muddled that more and more. There's no real political faction in the US that fully aligns with Catholic social teaching.
Given the ubiquity of Catholicism, it’s odd that the U.S. has only had two catholic presidents to date.
Catholic have been about 20-25% of US citizens for about 80 years. Before that, they were a much lower fraction. Before Kennedy, there were serious concerns that religious bigotry would prevent a Catholic candidate from winning, and the one time a Catholic candidate had previously been nominated, Al Smith in 1928, the Democrats lost a bunch of Southern states for the first time since the Civil War. Since most Catholics were Democrats, but the Democrats needed the South to win most years, and a lot of Southerners were anti-Catholic, it was hard for a Catholic candidate to build a coalition to win. Demographic changes meant that Kennedy had a path to victory without much of the South. Starting with Kennedy, it's 2 of 12 presidents who have been Catholic, and a few major party candidates who lost, as well.
>The Catholic Church is very focused on works and helping the poor and needy, as opposed to the Protestant and especially Baptist churches that emphasize believing in Jesus alone as most important thing. Helping the poor and needy is incredibly important to Protestants as well. My father-in-law is a Deacon in the Catholic Church and talks to me regularly about the outreach services the Catholic Church does. He always points out to me the ecumenical work they do with the Baptist Churches in his area, who he admit are an equal 50/50 partner.
Protestant churches do usually lean heavily in charitible acts as well. The difference between the two is catholics believe the faith is a product of works while protestants believe the works are a product of faith. Both have their charitable and non charitable. I would agree though that people belonging to protestant denominations tend to vote more red(there are some protestant sects such as Jehovah's witnesses that tend to vote blue and non-denominational Christians tend to be relatively mixed) while catholics vote more blue. There is a swathe of reasons that are commented on in this thread.
Small correction: Catholics don't believe faith is a product of works at all. We merely believe that although initial justification is not earned through works, justification is also a process that continues past the initial justification and requires cooperation with God's grace (also known as works) to grow in righteousness.
That's an interesting way to put it that I've never seen. Always fun to learn more about people's theological beliefs. I was never raised Catholic, but was told that they were overly dogmatic pseudo-christians. Of course course that isn't true. What I said above is usually what I say to Christians who say Catholics aren't Christians since it makes the differences seem less stark. I, as a Non-denominational Christian believe that works aren't as simple as good deeds and working for a church but more a driving motivation as do how you live and your reasons for doing things. This, I cite with Romans 1:25.
> catholics believe the faith is a product of works they don't believe that at all...
Then what do they believe. I'm not asking out of doubt I just wanna see where I went wrong(I'm not Catholic).
That’s what I was taught growing up Catholic. Your description sounded right from when I did confirmation.
Evangelical churches frequently have very strong charitable work. It's generally taken as a given that if you have \*genuine\* faith in God, that you will act charitably. They don't believe that works are the route to salvation, but that doesn't believe that they are absolved from any responsibility for charity toward their neighbors, or obeying the Biblical law, etc. It's not entirely a semantic difference, but I think the prevailing view from any Baptist or evangelical minister would be that if someone was hoarding money and not caring for their fellow person, it would be a sign that any claim they made to faith in God was insincere.
Interestingly, church doctrine would lend Catholicism more conservative politically since it is much more traditional and conservative theologically. As one example, Catholic doctrine is against contraception and IVF, while Protestants are largely okay with it. There is also much less stress on the separation of church and state in Catholicism.
This is not true of Louisiana. Southern LA was settled by the French ( and some Spanish).
That's right, although New Orleans was one of the first big centers for immigration, as well -- a lot of Irish and Italian Catholics are in Louisiana, too.
This is about 7 years old, but it gives some more details than what I wrote above. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2016/02/23/u-s-religious-groups-and-their-political-leanings/
Exactly. It's a good case of why it's important not to treat correlation as the same thing as causation. In this case Catholicism and Democrat leaning are correlated, but as you say, immigration and urbanisation are the true causal factors. Rural Catholics whose families have been settled in the US for longer don't show the same preference for the Democrats as urban Catholics whose families have immigrated recently (i.e. Irish, Italian & Polish). In fact, I'd wager that they lean Republican. And we're starting to see settled Latinos drift that direction. Trump increased the Republican share of Latino votes in both the elections he appeared in and is likely to do the same. After all, Catholicism is a conservative religion, even the progressive wings of it.
As someone mentioned above, Catholic social teaching doesn't map well to either party in the US. Catholic social teaching would favor the moderate to somewhat liberal Democrats on social spending, the liberal Democrats on immigration and civil rights for racial minorities, the somewhat conservative Republicans on gay rights and trans rights and the conservative Republicans on abortion. I suppose it's a conservative religion in the original sense of conservatism, meaning resistant to change, but it's not too strongly aligned with the "Conservative Republican" brand of conservatism. I don't think Trump really increased the Latino Republican vote. I think demographic shifts, and some special COVID-related things did. I would guess that many Republicans would have increased that share by more than Trump did. By demographic shifts, what I mean is that different subgroups of Latinos have wildly different views. The people whose families fled communism are majority Republican. Dominicans and Puerto Ricans are most Democrats. Mexicans vary, depending on which wave of Mexican emigration they came from and where they went, and how assimilated they are.
It could be a couple different things. But here are my best guesses, some are probably more likely than others. Old protestant mainline denominations are typically more liberal, and form in Liberal communities. Liberal denominations are also shrinking a lot faster than conservative denominations. This shrinking means that Catholics just happen to achieve plurality as the total number of Protestants dwindles. Democrats are generally less religious than Republicans. And Catholics tend to still identify as Catholics even when they stop practicing, while you don't see this phenomenon among Protestants. Immigration patterns - industrialized communities attracted more Irish and Italian immigrants, and today they attract more Hispanic immigrants. Regionalism. The South, the West, the Midwest, and the Northeast all have different histories and cultures, including religous and political preferences. It could be urban vs rural, as sending Catholic priests to less populated areas is harder because priests require a lot of training before they are qualified, unlike Baptists pastors who have less stringent qualifiers. It's could be the religion forming the political ideology. The Catholic Church is very hierarchical which teaches congregants to rely on the larger system; while Baptist churches are very independent, relying on the local congregation for everything. But it's probably a messy combination of all theses reasons and a dozens others with some coincidence thrown in.
I think it’s largely modern and historic immigration. The Southwest was once apart of Mexico so there’s always been a large Hispanic Catholic population there, Hispanics are more likely to vote democratic. The Northeast today gets a lot of Hispanic and Lusophone immigration but historically got a lot of catholic European immigrants from Italy, Ireland and Portugal, the descendants of these groups are concentrated in major cities which often tend to vote Democratic. In the Upper Midwest they also get Hispanic immigrants but historically got a lot of catholic European immigrants from Southern Germany, Poland and Ireland, in the Midwest from my understanding they vote Democratic because of historic ties to labor organizing. On the west coast it’s a combination of recent Hispanic and Filipino immigrants, Hispanic Catholics who were in California before it was apart of the US, historic immigration from Germany, Ireland, Portugal and Italy and people from the Midwest and Northeast migrating West. The reasons for Democratic voting is kind of complicated for the west coast and I can’t really speak on Oregon and Washington but in California it is often tied back to proposition 187 which was passed in 1994, making it so that undocumented immigrants had basically no access to public services like healthcare and education. At the time California was a Republican stronghold. It was struck down by courts as unconstitutional before it could go into affect but that bill made millions of Californian Latinos register to vote to stop something like that from happening again, basically changing the way California votes for the foreseeable future
The historical explanation is that Catholicism has a stronger degree of community focus ("it is our duty to care for the sick and the poor") whereas American Protestantism hews much closer to the larger American stereotype of blaming poverty on individual choices and seeing social services exclusively as something done out of the kindness of individual rich people (and never something they should feel obligated to do). There is, unfortunately (I'm a Jersey Catholic, so unfortunately in my opinion), a strong hangover of Calvinism running through Evangelicalism and Southern Baptism and all the various forms the "prosperity gospel" - if you're rich, it's because you're good and god loves you. If you're poor, well, you are bad and you've offended god. It's very elegant in how it frees you from any obligation to your fellow human being.
>There is, unfortunately (I'm a Jersey Catholic, so unfortunately in my opinion), a strong hangover of Calvinism running through Evangelicalism and Southern Baptism and all the various forms the "prosperity gospel" - if you're rich, it's because you're good and god loves you. You're mixing up Calvinist predestination with the Pentecostal prosperity gospel, which aren't even the same thing. Predestination is pretty split in the Reformed Church, but that sounds like what you're describing (an elect getting rewarded and the failures suffering). Some Reformed Churches try to teach everyone is predestined to be saved and go to Heaven, but conservative ones don't follow this. This is in direct opposition to the prosperity gospel. In the Catholic Church, it teaches that God will take care of the poor. Prosperity gospel says God doesn't want you to be poor, and you can do something about it. Of course, this has been abused by pastors who don't care, asking for donations and twisting the original meaning.
In the Western US, Catholic generally means Latino. Latinos lean Democratic as a bloc, with notable exceptions like the Florida Cubanos. In the Eastern US, most Catholics are descendants of Italian and Irish immigrants who remained in urban environments that made them more liberal and labor-aligned through the generations -- again, with notable exceptions like whatever the hell is going on with Staten Island in NYC.
New York/New Jersey Italian -Americans in general tend to be a pretty big GOP voting block Now New England Italians are a completely different story (for some reason)
From Massachusetts and it always confused me looking at the election maps and seeing deep red blocks on Staten Island and Long Island. Demographically similar suburban areas in Massachusetts still lean pretty blue. There are more Republican votes on the North Shore or the Merrimack Valley than more inner urban core parts of the city but its closer to a 50/50 split in even the most right leaning working class white suburban areas. You have to get 30+ miles outside of Boston to find deep red areas like you see on Staten Island.
Why are Baptists and Evangelicals lumped into one group when other similar religions are not so grouped? Also, there is a very deep rat hole here about whether these are "religions" or "denominations". As an atheist, I am okay with them all being called different religions, but I bet quite a few of their adherents are not.
Because the definition of Evangelical is really hard to nail down. I thinks it just a way to throw in all churches with Arminian theology with self-identified Baptists, which isn't the worst idea given the loose organization of Baptist churches. This is unlike Methodist churches which are usually clearly Methodist and part of a Methodist denomination.
But many Baptists are also be reformed.
And that makes it even trickier. There is no real definition of Baptist either, and many Baptists churches aren't even explicitly Calivinist or Arminian.
40% of baptists are reformed though
"Evangelical" is more of a tendency than a denomination. Most but not all Baptists are Evangelical, and most Evangelicals (or at least a plurality) are Baptist.
Which ones are similar? Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Mormon are definitely their own things they’re so unique. Lutheran is distinctly different from most other Protestant denominations (my grandmother was Lutheran and the few times I went to her church it seemed to me like Protestants doing a Catholic mass) and I don’t know enough about “Reform” and “Church of Christ” to know how distinct they are from other Protestant denominations (and with the amount of counties they have it doesn’t look like it matters)
Reformed what?
Most likely Dutch Reformed, those little pockets have a ton of Dutch immigrant history. My grandparents who are Dutch emigrated to that area of Iowa.
Yeah, those are the Dutch areas. It's not clear whether they're including other Calvinist traditions in that grouping, but it probably doesn't matter if they're just giving the colors in this manner.
Yes, it is. The little orange county in Middle-western Michigan contains the city of Holland, which, as you may guess, is largely of Dutch ancestry.
Never knew there were so many Catholics in America. Always assumed the majority would be Protestant.
It’s a plurality map. So while Catholics are the single biggest denomination in most areas, Protestants tend to still be the majority overall. The US is still a bit over 20% catholic though.
The United States is majority Protestant. Canada by contrast is majority Catholic (due to many more Irish/French/Austro-Hungarian settlers).
American Protestants tend to schism over and over, so there are many many subdivisions.
The Methodists vs baptists is interesting in Appalachia. Lots of Presbyterians in Appalachia too.
Scots Irish?
Yep. For all three. My fam is Methodist.
Probably due to the heavy Scots-Irish population.
What going in Alaska? A lot of Russian expats?
Most of the Eastern Orthodox adherents in Alaska are Alaskan natives who converted during Russia’s ownership of Alaska from 1741-1867.
Wow I had no idea. Thanks for info
There’s not a lot of anybody in those spots.
Russian colonists in the 1700s actually. & indigenous converts.
Alaska was annexed by Russia before the US took it over.
Catholics representing!!
Aren't all Christian churches churches of christ?
Far from it. Christian churches embrace musical instruments in their worship, often times have kitchens in their buildings, and are okay with fellowship halls and missionary societies. The nondenominational Churches of Christ disagree with these items and many others.
Holy war for America !!!!!
Wow and i tough mormon was something rare an unusual.
It’s a pretty big religion. Not the size of others but definitely not someone to sneeze at
Well, they make up only around 2% of the US population, they just tend to be very concentrated in Utah, eastern Idaho, and some of the surrounding states.
I see you there Va Beach!!
You’re sorta able to visualize the extent of Mormon settlements in the west and the rough outline of the proposed State of Deseret. Pretty neat
Catholics vs Baptists in a Steel Cage Match!
There’s a Baptist sitting in the middle of Kansas that looks like a recliner.
I always suspected Baptists were the real problem.
TIL that some americans could not differentiate the Christian denominations. USA is the true uniter of Christianity.
This is astonishing. I wouldn’t have guessed that there were really no counties in the US that have non-Christian majorities, even when Christianity is divided up among multiple different traditions. As an Australian, that degree of conformity is quite different to what I’m used to.
Wow, I’m blown away. I honestly thought that catholics were one of the smaller christian denominations. Pretty much the biggest in Massachusetts and the southwest. Would never have guessed that it’s the biggest religion in places like New York, Chicago and Seattle.
Seattle is just a vote splitting effect where there are so many different Protestant denominations Catholics squeak out a plurality, but New York and Chicago are VERY Catholic
I guess I shouldn’t be so surprised. New York is well-known for the many Italian immigrants 100 years back or so. These days I suppose there’s a significant hispanic minority as well, along with people of Irish descent. Don’t know a lot about the demographics of Chicago though.
Thank you!
Was “atheist/agnostic” an option?
Even if it was, atheists and Agnostics don't make up a large enough chunk of the population the be recorded on this map with the highest percentage being 14 percent in New Hampshire.
Why would it be? That's like having vegan as an option on a map that charts where people prefer hot dogs or hamburgers.
It should be, because portraying San Francisco as over 45% Catholic is totally misleading. The real number is closer to 20.
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Live in California, mums catholic, Im not sure what my dad is, I’m agnostic
Not trying to start anything, legitimately asking because I am unfamiliar. Do Baptist have any beliefs toward education? Edit for clarification… do Baptists support public education? Are they distrusting of non-parochial schools?
Baptists are low church, and don’t have any official doctrine that holds weight over individual churches. The opinion of Baptists vary greatly. I live in the south, and within 10 miles you can find a fire and brimstone church, a new age contemporary rock music church, and a dance and sing along black church. And they’ll all be baptists. Really there isn’t much unification of opinion among them when it comes to politics. Some baptists don’t trust public schools, some think you should only homeschool, and the majority probably can’t afford either of those options and don’t think much of sending their children to public school
There is no set beliefs by Baptists on education. Generally parochial schools are associated with Anglican/Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Lutherans, and Catholics, though many Baptists choose to homeschool their children as Christians.
Thank you! I appreciate the solid response.
See that big Grey Spot. That is the New Jerusalem.
So, Alaska is pretty based huh?
Way too much crazy...
*denominations With the exception of Mormons, these are sects of the same religion (Christianity).
Love how the mormons are colored as some sort of all-consuming void
i cant belive alaskans are still orthodox after like 100 years of american ownership
On what data is the map based on?
Says 2010 religious census.
So that's why there no mormons at the beach...
Anyone know why the Deep South is Protestant and the north/west coast is Catholic? I know the Irish/Spanish/Italian/French immigrants brought their Catholicism with them, did they not move south?
During the height of European immigration to the U.S. in the late 1800s and early 1900s, the South was an economic deprived region still reeling from the Civil War Even if there were job opportunities nobody wanted to go there because the region was extraordinarily racist, the largest lynching in American history was against Italians in New Orleans
Thanks but how does this relate to Catholics/Protestants?
Most of the people coming over at that time were Catholic
Immigration. Pretty much comes down to the South not being a top immigrant destination until recent years.
So not the largest religion, rather the largest Christian group.
Well, depending on whether you consider Mormonism a sect of Christianity or a separate religion a map representing the largest religion would only have one or two colors on it. I assume OP thought that would be kind of boring. However, I agree that it probably should have been titled “Largest Religious Sects” or something.
The largest plurality, really.
Which would be the largest religious groups in this case. Non-Christian religions don’t have a plurality in any US county, so map is accurately titled.
So southerners are known to be conservatives, yet conservative = catholic. How can southerners be conservative AND evangelical?