Religious Adherents Map

I posted a map few days ago that showed the percentage of the population by county that showed up as members of 149 religious denominations that participated in a 2000 survey.



I received a number of thoughtful and interesting comments.

One reader points out that:

I wouldn't say that religious adherence in LA is concentrated in South Central. Much of what I believe you see in that map, are special factors for LDS and Catholics. Ask any active LDS member, and he will tell you immediately that he is LDS. If he isn't an active member, he probably has already moved somewhere else.

Catholic churches tend to have a strong ethnic affinity, and it is a serious matter for anyone raised Catholic to say that they are not, even if they are only weakly affiliated. If you ask a Mexican his religion, he will certainly answer Catholic even if he only goes to mass twice a year. If you ask a Chicago Pole or someone of Irish ancestry from the East coast, you are likely to get that same answer.

You can see the brown regions in SW areas which are definitely Mexican, and in Louisiana. You can also see it in the Slavic Catholic rust belt.

The situation in the upper midwest is interesting. Historically, Sunday go-to-church is the principal part of community for people who spend 6 days a week on scattered and relatively isolated farms. I suspect that it still is, and that even for the urbanized and more loosely affiliated, they still would claim to be affiliated.

I've seen the claim made that Catholic churches tend to record everyone that has ever been affiliated with a particular parish--even if that person hasn't shown up in years. I also understand that Mormon churches tend to keep people "on the books" long after that person may have stopped attending, or perhaps even actively left.

Another reader observes:

I look at the map of religious density and see white over here in eastern NC. I know that has to be wrong. What it makes me guess is that we are swamped with a zillion small denominations -- Original Free Will Baptist Church being different from the Free Will Baptists, and there are at least two flavors of Missionary Baptist, etc. I bet they were not included in the survey. Makes me wonder to what extent this might be true in other places as well.

Yup, there's probably some truth to that. Why do I suddenly think of the sequence in Monty Python's Life of Brian with the multiplicity of anti-Roman groups:

"The Judean People's Front", "The People's Front of Judea", and (with only one member) "The Popular Front of Judea". According to the DVD commentary, this part of the story is a satire on the multiplication of ineffectual left-wing parties in Britain during the 1970s: these revolutionary groups would splinter every few weeks, and be angrier at each other than they were at the British government.

But heck, there are times it is only a slight exaggeration of the current situation involving Muslims in that part of the world!

Another reader came to the same conclusion about another surprisingly low density part of the map:

What's with the hole in south Ohio/east Kentucky/west West Virginia? That's mostly rural, semi-southern area that ought to be redder - like east Tennessee/west North Carolina.

What's with the very distinct brown streak across central Illinois and south Iowa?

I suspect this map of having a lot of artifacts, due to the vagaries of self-reporting. The study reports numbers provided by "149 religious bodies"; but what about all the independent churches? Some sects are notably unorganized and fissile - their members would be omitted.

That could explain that hole, perhaps - a lot of crossroads pentecostal churches?

Indeed. I get the impression that church attendance in Horseshoe Bend, near where I live, is actually pretty high--but there are three churches in town: Catholic; Lutheran; and a community church that probably isn't affiliated with any of those 149 organizations.

There is indeed a distinct low density streak across central Illinois and south Iowa. I wonder if Amish were represented? There's a lot of them in that area--and some of them are offshoots, such as the oddly named "Amish Mennonites."

Oh, while searching through the web, I found what seems like the ultimate oxymoron: a blog called "Amish America." People that don't drive cars because they are too newfangled of an invention probably aren't using the Internet. Wait a moment, while I imagine an Amish Internet--probably uses heliograph signaling for packet transmission, achieving burst rates of five bits/minute. By, at this rate, you could download a 320x240 resolution picture before the Second Coming!