# Southerners and the Baptist Religion. **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 8, 2019, 8:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/southerners-and-the-baptist-religion/844552 "2019-12-08T08:47:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Hermitian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hermitian/32/470_2.png) [@Hermitian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hermitian)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2019, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/southerners-and-the-baptist-religion/844552/21 "2019-12-09T14:02:37Z")
> [@bump](#): > > There are a LOT of Methodists, Episcopalians, and especially Catholics in the South. Being from the Deep South, I don’t think I ever met a Catholic while I was there. Most of the Catholics in the South are on the edges of the area. Baltimore/DC in the north, New Orleans, and Hispanic populations in South Florida and Texas. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2019, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/southerners-and-the-baptist-religion/844552/22 "2019-12-09T14:23:19Z")
> [@Hermitian](#): > > Being from the Deep South, I don’t think I ever met a Catholic while I was there. > > Most of the Catholics in the South are on the edges of the area. Baltimore/DC in the north, New Orleans, and Hispanic populations in South Florida and Texas. Like the 1.2 million Catholics in Georgia? Or the 200,000 in South Carolina? Or the roughly 400,000 in North Carolina? Or the 673,000 in Virginia (12% of the population) And I don’t know how you can hand-wave away Texas, Florida and Louisiana and say there aren’t Catholics in the South. I wasn’t trying to say that most people aren’t Baptist, but that there are a whole lot of people there who aren’t, but you’d never know it, because the Baptists are so obnoxiously outspoken and up in your business about it. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2019, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/southerners-and-the-baptist-religion/844552/23 "2019-12-09T14:41:44Z")
> [@Hermitian](#): > > Being from the Deep South, I don’t think I ever met a Catholic while I was there. I met very few Catholics before the Hispanic influx around 20 years ago. Lots of them now. (I can count the number of people that I’ve met down here that I _know_ to be Jewish I can count on the fingers of one hand.) Oh, and one Buddhist. ---
**Author:** ![Doyle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doyle/32/439_2.png) [@Doyle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doyle)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2019, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/southerners-and-the-baptist-religion/844552/24 "2019-12-09T14:48:52Z")
The Baptist Church was called a frontier religion because it required no hierarchy. This made it much easier to spread in the unsettled South. As for Louisiana, there are many Catholics outside of New Orleans, though mostly in the southern part of the state. Catholic Cajuns live in most all of southern Louisiana. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2019, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/southerners-and-the-baptist-religion/844552/25 "2019-12-09T15:17:07Z")
> [@Kent\_Clark](#): > > As for the Baptists, well, every time the Baptists had an argument, they split. Baptists didn’t really have organized seminaries in the beginning, so anybody who could read a Bible and preach on it could become a minister, which eliminated staffing problems. The Baptists who believed in free will split with the Baptists who believed in predestination. The pro-slavery and anti-slavery Baptists split. Black and white Baptists were split, etc. You could end up with multiple Baptist churches in a small town, each of them a tiny bit different from the others, whereas Lutherans would pretty much have one church for each ethnic group (Germans vs. Scandinavians), and Catholics were limited by how many priests were available. As Emo Phillips put it (joking/not joking): \*Once I saw this guy on a bridge about to jump. I said, “Don’t do it!” He said, “Nobody loves me.” I said, “God loves you. Do you believe in God?” He said, “Yes.” I said, “Are you a Christian or a Jew?” He said, “A Christian.” I said, “Me, too! Protestant or Catholic?” He said, “Protestant.” I said, “Me, too! What franchise?” He said, “Baptist.” I said, “Me, too! Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?” He said, “Northern Baptist.” I said, “Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?” He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist.” I said, “Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region, or Northern Conservative Baptist Eastern Region?” He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region.” I said, “Me, too!” Northern Conservative†Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879, or Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?" He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912.” I said, “Die, heretic!” And I pushed him over.\* ---
**Author:** ![Hermitian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hermitian/32/470_2.png) [@Hermitian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hermitian)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2019, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/southerners-and-the-baptist-religion/844552/26 "2019-12-09T17:15:35Z")
> [@bump](#): > > Like the 1.2 million Catholics in Georgia? Or the 200,000 in South Carolina? Or the roughly 400,000 in North Carolina? Or the 673,000 in Virginia (12% of the population) > > And I don’t know how you can hand-wave away Texas, Florida and Louisiana and say there aren’t Catholics in the South. I wasn’t trying to be offensive, and I didn’t say there weren’t any. I am just giving my experience. I grew up in SC. So that 200,000 is only 4%. Which is probably substantially higher than 30 years ago before the Hispanic population grew. I am just saying I wouldn’t not describe that population as “a LOT.” ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2019, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/southerners-and-the-baptist-religion/844552/27 "2019-12-09T18:48:05Z")
> [@Doyle](#): > > The Baptist Church was called a frontier religion because it required no hierarchy. This made it much easier to spread in the unsettled South. > > As for Louisiana, there are many Catholics outside of New Orleans, though mostly in the southern part of the state. Catholic Cajuns live in most all of southern Louisiana. When I lived in Lafayette Catholicism was the default religion. The Baptists were oil people who came from Texas. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2019, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/southerners-and-the-baptist-religion/844552/28 "2019-12-09T19:44:30Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > When it happened was during the Second Great Awakening. This was a religious revival movement that swept through the United States from around 1800 to 1830. It was a movement based on emotional religious sermons addressed to very large crowds of people at public gatherings which were aimed at converting large groups of listeners. > > There had been some Baptists before the SGA but they were a minor sect. But their message fit in well with the movement and they expanded greatly. That’s what I was going to post … the reasons the South has a lot of Baptists are complex, historically, but the Second Great Awakening is a major factor. ---
**Author:** ![RioRico](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f04885/32.png) [@RioRico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RioRico)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2019, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/southerners-and-the-baptist-religion/844552/29 "2019-12-09T20:01:09Z")
Does my dad’s family of West Virginia Quakers count as Southern? I was in Mexico City five decades ago drinking with an older Gringo who said he was a Free Baptist bishop. He ordained me, no charge except more cheap _aguardiente_. Voices in my head later promoted me to bishop but I have no ambition to be archbishop or establish a Naked Baptist church adjacent to a WalMart. Am I damned? 😕 Back to demographics. Does anyone have numbers on the economic status of various Southern denominations? Which denominations tend to be richest and poorest? ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2019, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/southerners-and-the-baptist-religion/844552/30 "2019-12-09T21:40:22Z")
> [@Hermitian](#): > > I wasn’t trying to be offensive, and I didn’t say there weren’t any. I am just giving my experience. > > I grew up in SC. So that 200,000 is only 4%. Which is probably substantially higher than 30 years ago before the Hispanic population grew. > > I am just saying I wouldn’t not describe that population as “a LOT.” Maybe not Catholics themselves, but if you roll in Methodists, Episcopalians, Presbyterians and Lutherans, you have a pretty sizeable number. I mean, I grew up in Texas, and while Catholicism is pretty popular here, as is Baptist-ism, there were always a whole lot of Methodists around, and a fair number of the other denominations as well, especially as you go up the socio-economic scale. In other words, the poorer someone is, the more likely they are to be Baptist (or Catholic), while the other denominations seem to be more popular among more wealthy people. That actually tracks with this study as well: > **[Religious Landscape Study](https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/religious-landscape-study/income-distribution/)** > > Explore the geographic distribution and demographics of America's major religious groups. ---
**Author:** ![ZonexandScout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zonexandscout/32/544_2.png) [@ZonexandScout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZonexandScout)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2019, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/southerners-and-the-baptist-religion/844552/31 "2019-12-09T21:48:26Z")
Pedant alert. There is no “Southern Baptist Church.” There are Southern Baptist churches. Individual churches are fully autonomous, unlike many other denominations. Individual churches may voluntarily join the Southern Baptist Convention, but the SBC has no actual authority over the actions of the individual churches (other than to expel them or otherwise express displeasure). The individual churches may vary a great deal in their attitudes and actions. My former wife was ordained as a minister in a Southern Baptist church in the 1980s. I have attended several same-sex unions at Southern Baptist churches as far back as 1993. Now, the SBC wasn’t happy about these events, but that’s a story for another time. ---
**Author:** ![rsat3acr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a3d4f5/32.png) [@rsat3acr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rsat3acr)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2019, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/southerners-and-the-baptist-religion/844552/32 "2019-12-09T23:03:23Z")
> [@thelurkinghorror](#): > > There are a lot of Methodists in the south, it’s the “second” religion. There aren’t many Episcopalians (they’re not concentrated in any particular area I think, maybe the northeast). There are very, very few Catholics except in New Orleans (and not necessarily so in all parts of Louisiana). Plus e.g. Cuban and Mexican Catholics in Florida and Texas. > > Catholics in the south range from 26% of Louisiana to 4% (!) of Mississippi. Depends on what one means by “the South”. We have a lot of Catholics in Texas. Texas may or may not be considered South depending on the situation. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2019, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/southerners-and-the-baptist-religion/844552/33 "2019-12-09T23:40:57Z")
> [@rsat3acr](#): > > Depends on what one means by “the South”. We have a lot of Catholics in Texas. Texas may or may not be considered South depending on the situation. Texas is simultaneously the south and a region that can only be called “Texas.” Louisiana is still more Catholic, but as noted upthread it’s not as strongly so as you might expect from Mardi Gras and other cultural depictions. ---
**Author:** ![breezman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4491bb/32.png) [@breezman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/breezman)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2019, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/southerners-and-the-baptist-religion/844552/34 "2019-12-10T00:31:11Z")
> [@P-man](#): > > There is a small sect of Universalist Baptists, who believe that God is too loving to not eventually save everyone. The most famous member of this group was probably bluegrass legend Ralph Stanley. Yes. Ralph Stanley was a Primitive Baptist Universalist. Primitive Baptists generally believe in predestination with regard to salvation, with PBUs believing that everyone is predestined to go to heaven. Non-universalist Primitive Baptists often refer to the Universalists as “No hellers.” ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2019, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/southerners-and-the-baptist-religion/844552/35 "2019-12-10T01:04:10Z")
> [@ZonexandScout](#): > > Pedant alert. > > There is no “Southern Baptist Church.” There are Southern Baptist churches. Individual churches are fully autonomous, unlike many other denominations. Individual churches may voluntarily join the Southern Baptist Convention, but the SBC has no actual authority over the actions of the individual churches (other than to expel them or otherwise express displeasure). Which is why I once saw a sign that read “4th Baptist Church, Reformed” and I thought “There’s somebody in there that doesn’t get along with _anybody_!” ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2019, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/southerners-and-the-baptist-religion/844552/36 "2019-12-10T01:19:31Z")
> [@RioRico](#): > > Does my dad’s family of West Virginia Quakers count as Southern? Probably not for this discussion. West Virginia became a state because the Civil War. That part of Virginia was more closely allied culturally to the northern states. People in that area generally did not own slaves, and did not want to secede from the Union. When Virginia left the Union, West Virginia left Virginia. Since there wasn’t much slavery in that area before the state formed, Quakers with their strong anti-slavery sentiments would have been quite welcome there. West Virginia started out mostly Presbyterian, because that’s who settled there first. During the first half of the 1800s, Methodists and Baptists converted a lot of other protestant religions. Methodists came to dominate the state. There are plenty of Baptists in the state, but not in the same proportions that you see in states further south. The most popular religion in the years leading up to the Civil War were the “northern” Methodists, who were more strongly opposed to slavery than Methodists in southern states. To this day, Methodists remain the most popular religion. In other discussions, you might want to group West Virginia differently. Culturally, West Virginia is Appalachian, so it shares a lot of that culture with Tennessee and Kentucky. And in more rural areas you’ll find a lot of yahoos with Confederate flags on their pickup trucks, which I never understood. It’s like dude, you remember why we became a state, right? Some people put the north-south divide at the Mason-Dixon line, which means that only us folks who are from the northern panhandle (like me) are technically northern. The accent does change a bit and becomes more of a southern drawl once you get below the Mason-Dixon line. ---
**Author:** ![gkster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gkster/32/14107_2.png) [@gkster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gkster)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2019, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/southerners-and-the-baptist-religion/844552/37 "2019-12-10T02:17:10Z")
The Pew Forum website has a breakdown and statistics by state and by region: > **[Religious Landscape Study](https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/religious-landscape-study/)** > > Explore the geographic distribution and demographics of America's major religious groups. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2019, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/southerners-and-the-baptist-religion/844552/38 "2019-12-10T02:39:38Z")
> [@RioRico](#): > > Back to demographics. Does anyone have numbers on the economic status of various Southern denominations? Which denominations tend to be richest and poorest? In the Pew study that gkster and bump linked to, if you drill down to the Southern region, and “Evangelical Protestants” (which is going to include the Baptists, among others), you see: - 36% make less than $30,000 a year - 22% make between $30,000 and $49,999 Compare that to “Mainline Protestants” (e.g., Methodists, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Lutherans, etc.) in the South: Catholics: - 27% under $30,000 - 17% between $30,000 and $49,999 Not a _huge_ difference, but the Evangelicals are, indeed, more likely to be lower income. ---
**Author:** ![gkster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gkster/32/14107_2.png) [@gkster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gkster)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2019, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/southerners-and-the-baptist-religion/844552/39 "2019-12-10T04:11:17Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > Not a _huge_ difference, but the Evangelicals are, indeed, more likely to be lower income. I asked a friend about this; she grew up in Georgia and has lived near me in the Northeast for several years. She said that her mom was proud of being Methodist because that meant they were a cut above the Baptists, even though they weren’t really well-off either. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2019, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/southerners-and-the-baptist-religion/844552/40 "2019-12-10T06:42:56Z")
> [@thelurkinghorror](#): > > Texas is simultaneously the south and a region that can only be called “Texas.” > > Louisiana is still more Catholic, but as noted upthread it’s not as strongly so as you might expect from Mardi Gras and other cultural depictions. Northern Louisiana, Monroe and Alexandria, is a lot more traditionally southern. As Justin Wilson said of a small town called Bunkie, right in the middle of the state “the Dixon and Mason line runs right through Bunkie” to Cajuns. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/southerners-and-the-baptist-religion/844552.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/southerners-and-the-baptist-religion/844552.md?page=3)