I recently read an interesting book that confirmed, in part, something I have thought for quite some time. The U.S. is divided into cultural groups that largely reflect the origins of the peoples who settled various regions of this country. It is difficult to say whether the religious beliefs of the particular groups affected their culture and therefore their politics, or whether culture influenced religious beliefs and politics.
I am inclined to believe the former, but leaving out some of the groups and many of the details, the author asserted that the East Coast is largely still Puritan to the extent is not still admixed with some aspects of Dutch culture. That culture spread westward into the Great Lakes country, then leapt to the West Coast. Contrary to popular belief, Puritanism wasn’t so much about personal moral principles as it was about construction of a “moral” society. The great religious movements in the U.S. all had their origins there; Mormonism, the Great Awakening, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Adventists, Shakers, and others.
The Appalachians were largely settled by Scots-Irish immigrants, many of whom came from extreme poverty in the British Isles and had a simplified “personal salvation” brand of protestantism that, in its teachings, is not all that protestant. The people tended to follow the hill country from the Appalachians through the uplands of the upper south, through the Smokies, the Ozarks, Ouachitas and into the Texas Hill Country. They lived simple lives…
The Deep South is basically English and Anglican except for Louisiana, the southern part of which is French and Catholic.
The upper Midwest is Teutonic in ethnic origin and in its ways. I could go on, but won’t.
…
Where does Catholicism fit in all of this? Well, it’s varied because Catholics came here from quite varied places. In some places, it’s Teutonic, in some it’s “social reform” Puritan, in some it’s “personal relationship with Jesus” fundamental. In some, it’s Jansenistic-influenced Irish. In some, it’s “confess it, forget it, let’s drink wine” Italian. But always, it has that “personal salvation” emphasis…
Do I think (with Flannery O’Connor) that the next source of converts in the U.S. is among Southern Fundamentalists? I very much do. Do I think like her that Southern Fundamentalism is more akin to Catholicism than it is to Protestantism? Living in a sea of them as I do, I absolutely believe that.
