Map of American Protestant denominations

[RINO Tom]

This is so interesting and reminds me of how the religious culture in the Midwest really was a throwback to earlier decades in America growing up, at least in my experience (obviously Catholics aren't on this map, but the Mainline vs. Evangelical divide is).  Mainline Protestantism was the norm, and then there were your Catholic friends.  Evangelical Protestantism was mostly a non-entity; I think I knew about two or three people who were Evangelicals.  Here is an anecdotal list of some friends' religions that I could recall growing up to give a snapshot:

14 - CHRISTIAN
8 - Mainline Protestant (3 Lutheran, 2 Methodist, 2 Episcopalian, 1 Presbyterian)
5 - Catholic
1 - Evangelical (Non-Denominational)
2 - JEWISH
2 - UNAFFILIATED

I know Iowa City/Johnson County as a whole is much more Catholic than that, so I am inclined to believe the west side (where we grew up) is much more Protestant.

Surprised Lutheranism isn't higher in Central Illinois, given the huge German populations there and that all of my family from there goes to very active Lutheran churches and seem to have a lot of Lutherans in their communities.

[RINO Tom]

I don't think I pointed this out in the Discord server, but one thing that frustrates me most about this map is Cook County being labeled as "Other". What is this mystery denomination of one of the most populous counties in the country?

A subset of historically Black Protestant counted separately?

[RINO Tom]

Slightly OT: Is there an obvious geographical pattern to German Protestants vs. German Catholics in the United States, a pattern I would also assume largely mirrors German immigrants from Prussia and other northern German states vs. Bavaria, Baden and other southern German states?

It seems German Catholics are quite abundant in, say, Wisconsin, but I feel like the German American community in both places where I grew up (Peoria, IL and Iowa City, IA) were overwhelmingly Lutheran, with the local Catholic populations being mostly Irish.

[RINO Tom]

This is so interesting and reminds me of how the religious culture in the Midwest really was a throwback to earlier decades in America growing up, at least in my experience (obviously Catholics aren't on this map, but the Mainline vs. Evangelical divide is).  Mainline Protestantism was the norm, and then there were your Catholic friends.  Evangelical Protestantism was mostly a non-entity; I think I knew about two or three people who were Evangelicals.  Here is an anecdotal list of some friends' religions that I could recall growing up to give a snapshot:

14 - CHRISTIAN
8 - Mainline Protestant (3 Lutheran, 2 Methodist, 2 Episcopalian, 1 Presbyterian)
5 - Catholic
1 - Evangelical (Non-Denominational)
2 - JEWISH
2 - UNAFFILIATED

I know Iowa City/Johnson County as a whole is much more Catholic than that, so I am inclined to believe the west side (where we grew up) is much more Protestant.

Surprised Lutheranism isn't higher in Central Illinois, given the huge German populations there and that all of my family from there goes to very active Lutheran churches and seem to have a lot of Lutherans in their communities.

Would you say that most of these people were actually committed members of their churches? Because with me growing up (obviously in far more secular Britain), it was a case of counting friends who were religious on two hands. (3 Church of England, 4 Catholics (all 3 out of 4 of whom lost their religion during adolescence to varying degrees), 1 liberal Jew, 1 Orthodox Jew,  1 Muslim, 1 Sikh).

I would say with my religion specifically (ELCA Lutheran), a LOT of people I know no longer go to church or are active followers of the religion but would at the same time absolutely identify as "Lutheran" rather than "Unaffiliated," and I still see most of them on Christmas Eve, lol.  That might have to do with the "don't need the Church to be religious" aspect of Lutheranism I have always felt.  Both Episcopalians, one of the Methodists and two of the Catholics would probably all identify as "Non-Religious" now, though.

[RINO Tom]

West Virginia is not very Southern Baptist; more American Baptist and Methodist, but I shouldn't be surprised.

Also interesting that Montana is considerably more Lutheran than the rest of the Rockies.

It looks like Montana is a lot more German and Scandinavian than any other state in the region:

https://statisticalatlas.com/United-States/Ancestry

GERMAN ANCESTRY
Montana: 26.0%
Wyoming: 23.6%
Idaho: 17.5%
Utah: 11.2%
Colorado: 20.3%

SCANDINAVIAN ANCESTRY
Montana: 12.3%
Idaho: 6.1%
Utah: 6.1%
Wyoming: 6.1%
Colorado: 4.5%

As I mentioned above, I am not knowledgeable about the geographic patterns of German Protestants (i.e., usually Lutherans) vs. German Catholics, but according to Wikipedia (which cites One Nation Under God: Religion in Contemporary American Society, pg. 120), 51% of German Americans are Protestant, and only 26% are Catholic, so I think German and especially Scandinavian ancestry would be good predictors of high Lutheran populations in the vast majority of states.

[RINO Tom]

Also, has anyone ever come across a good Catholic vs. Mainline vs. Evangelical county map?  Initially, I thought I could just make one using this map and a "Largest Christian denomination" map, but since Catholicism is so centralized and big, it proved harder than I thought...

[RINO Tom]

^ Extremely* sad.

EDIT: I grew up Missouri Synod Lutheran (before we switched to ELCA after moving to another city), and I am always surprised to see it counted as "Evangelical."  Yes, it's more conservative, but I don't think that should be the main distinction, as a MS Lutheran's church experience is going to be fundamentally Mainline, and they would certainly feel more at home in a ELCA service than a Southern Baptist one.  In general, I am not a fan of taking conservative Mainline denominations and categorizing them as "Evangelical," and if you don't (i.e., count them as Mainline instead), that map would actually likely change quite a bit in the Midwest.  (In other words, cross-matching that map with a map of Missouri Synod Lutheran frequency matches some of the "Evangelical" counties in the Midwest pretty well.)

[RINO Tom]

Why is it sad? Mainline Protestantism's erosion is entirely its own doing.

Have to agree for the most part. The Mainline churches have made a lot of very poor decisions over the past half century, even down to relatively mundane administrative stuff.

Regardless of the cause of its decline, I would argue the loss of relevance for Mainline Protestantism in the United States has had a huge impact on cultural attitudes and contributed quite negatively to an "us vs. them" dynamic for Evangelicals and more secular Americans.  I believe that if Mainline Protestantism enjoyed the prevalence it had in the mid-Twentieth Century, you would have a lot less toxic of cultural debates in this country right now.  It's also just sad to see the religious segment that was the majority of this country for ages and informed much of its philosophy wither away.

[RINO Tom]

Why is it sad? Mainline Protestantism's erosion is entirely its own doing.

Have to agree for the most part. The Mainline churches have made a lot of very poor decisions over the past half century, even down to relatively mundane administrative stuff.

Mainline Protestantism's woes are definitely at least partly self-inflicted but I wholly disagree with describing them as "entirely" so. My theory of the mainline decline hinges on the Great Sort; mainline Protestantism is too "establishment" to become a Blue Tribe religion (like, say, Reform or Reconstructionist Judaism) and has staked out sociopolitical Stances too liberal to become a Red Tribe religion (like, say, the Southern Baptist Convention), so there's nowhere for it to go or to be except the "disappearing center" along with Conservative and Modern Orthodox Judaism, Pauline Mass normie Catholicism, etc. I tend to think pretty well of all those "disappearing center" religions because I think the sociological point of religion in America should be social cohesion rather than sectionalist enmity-mongering, but I don't think my reluctance to completely blame them for their own troubles is entirely due to personal fondness.

Similar, but related, I would say that the cause of Mainline Protestantism’s decline is that as, over the past 50 years, more and more Americans have become irreligious, it has been from these denominations they have mainly been drawn. As a population becomes less religious, those left are likely to be more extreme in their beliefs.

I would argue it's not about simply extremity of beliefs, but that Mainline Protestantism doesn't fulfill a core emotional need in the same way other branches of Christianity do.

I guess that 50-60 years ago, a large number of Mainline Protestants viewed religion and going to church as a primarily social activity. Their children and grandchildren have simply dispensed with this facade as it has become socially acceptable to be irreligious.

As a Mainline Protestant (though, quite relevantly, also a Lutheran), I’d say they viewed at as a PRIVATE thing, hence outsiders viewing our joining together for service as “social.”  The entirely community-based nature of many Evangelical congregations makes many Mainliners uncomfortable and seems like a sort of distortion of tradition.

If anything, the theatrics of these mega churches are the “social” nonsense, and the few remaining Mainliners are committing to a more personal and private relationship with God, as we believe it should be.