Party of God
An interesting map by Geitner Simmons color-coding each county in America according to the percentage of religious adherents. Some of this turns out how you'd expect (lots of religion in Utah, little of it in Northern California) but considering how programmed we are to think in these terms, there's surprisingly little correlation between this map and your classic red versus blue election maps. Arizona's way less religious than Massachusettes. Indiana's less religious than Illinois. Georgia's about on a par with New York. Maps of the regional breakdown between where people say "soda" where they say "pop" and where they say "coke" seem to be a better predictor of electoral behavior (although this method gets the Pacific Northwest wrong).
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Religious adherence and religious voting preferances are different things though. People in MA take their Catholic faith seriously. But they also understand the need for a strong separation of church and state.
While the Baptist map in that link seems to provide results we would expect, an additional question and just as important would be how strongly people feel for the state to apply their religious beliefs into law. Not on specific matters like gay marriage, but in general.
This seems to strengthen the case of someone like Jim Wallis who believes that poverty and hunger should be electorally stronger issues to run on and appeal to mass audiences. Democrats just need to find a way to connect with those sentiments better in the South. Hopefully there are more people who would view those issues more important than the standard hot button ones.
April 13, 2006 7:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
I am forced to live in Arizona, and this is exactly what I would expect. The modern Arizonan worships new cars, the golf course, and the plastic surgeon. Sure there is Mesa which is a lot like Salt Lake City (just without the fun), but that is dwarfed by the rest of this strip mall we call a state.
On the plus side, we do have lots of women in their 60s and 70s with absolutely knockout bodies (from a distance.)
The whole thing is one giant squick.
April 13, 2006 9:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm not sure what the map is supposed to tell us - it doesn't measure the depth or nature of religious sentiment - or even what people self-identify as. It reports how many people churches say are in their congregations.
April 13, 2006 10:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
I always knew the pop/soda distinction was a critical one!
Seriously, one of the problems with looking at religion so broadly in politics is that low-income African Americans, who tend to vote Democrat, are also an extremely religious group in the aggregate.
April 13, 2006 11:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
The religiosity map is meaningless because it assumes that all religions are identical, which is absurd. As The Atlantic has documented, there are at least 9 different varieties of Christians alone in the United States (liberal, moderate and conservative wings of Roman Catholicism, Mainline Protestantism, and Evangelical Protestantism). When one considers that each of these groups has a different theology, it is no suprise that it has different impacts on their voting patterns. And that is before one gets into the question of Jews, Muslims, and all of the other religious groups in the United States.
Religion does affect how people look at the world including politics. But that impact cannot be measured without understanding what the people actually believe.
April 13, 2006 2:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
"I always knew the pop/soda distinction was a critical one!"
Please. Pop/soda/coke.
"Seriously, one of the problems with looking at religion so broadly in politics is that low-income African Americans, who tend to vote Democrat, are also an extremely religious group in the aggregate."
Sure. And there's also the fact that the New England religiosity is Catholic, which plays differently electorally than Protestant evangelical religiosity.
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But the map's still pretty useful in the understanding why Democrats are such a minority in the Texas - Oklahoma - Kansas - Nebraska - Dakotas area. That's 12 Senate seats in a very conservative Bible Belt.
April 13, 2006 2:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
This map which breaks down the country by denomination is very useful in conjunction with the adherent map.
April 13, 2006 3:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nice link, but I found it much more interesting for cultural geographic purposes than anything especially political.
The True Bible Belt appears to be North Texas straight up through South Dakota rather than in the Southeast.
There are some pious Mofos in Utah.
The Old Confederacy really is Baptistland. Although Missouri, a midwestern state, is probably the most baptist of them all.
Really surprised at the lack of religiousity in Georgia & West Virginia.
I thought Methodists would have a bigger representation in the South than they do. It appears they are primarily a midwestern phenomenon.
I was disappointed to see my own denomination, Episcopalian, has no real cultural base in the U.S., not even in Virginia. We are just kind of thinly, insubstantatively spread across the map.
I think the weblog's writer is correct in that adherents to "ritualistic" faiths (Jewish, Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, ELC Lutherans) tend to lean (or leaned) more Democratic, where as 'pietistic" faiths like Baptist, Methodist, Mormon, MS Lutherans, Pentecostals tend to vote Republican.
April 13, 2006 8:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Nice link, but I found it much more interesting for cultural geographic purposes than anything especially political."
You gotta be joking.
If you want to understand American national politics in terms of region, these maps are an utterly essential Rosetta stone.
Look at the map. You are seeing the primary American tribal breakdown in ways that directly translate to politics. And the correlation between the tribal boundaries and partisan boundaries has been intensifying of late.
The Republican base in this country are the Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran, and LDS counties. Flat and simple.
Wanna understand why West Virginia has turned from Democratic to Republican? It's because West Virginia is comprised of Baptist and Methodist counties. West Virginia is now Republican with tribal membership increasingly trumping the economic membership which used to make it Democratic.
A huge percentage of current national politics is written on these maps.
April 13, 2006 9:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
There are a lot of Methodists in the South but our widespread diffusion means that although the United Methodist Church is the 2nd largest denomination in almost every Southern county, there are not enough to create a majority in any given county.
April 14, 2006 12:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
My apologies leaving out the "coke" people, but after working as a waitress for a while in one of the "coke" areas, I've tried to block them out of my memory, as, if you're from another part of the country originally, having people constantly order coke only to find out that they really want Sprite or Pepsi is enough to drive one batty. Plus, pop/soda is hotly contested within my own family.
Sure. And there's also the fact that the New England religiosity is Catholic, which plays differently electorally than Protestant evangelical religiosity.
I'm sure you're right, Petey, but I can't say anything about that, as I've never lived or spent much time in New England, while I currently live--and have for several years--in a mostly black neighborhood of a majority black city.
April 14, 2006 8:24 AM | Reply | Permalink