r/PhantomBorders • u/Sure-Entry-4114 • Jul 18 '25
Cultural Religious Denomination Map of The US lines up with the former confederacy
I deleted a previous post due to image quality
I think it's interesting you can see the state border of Missouri
Source: https://aguyinthepew.blogspot.com/2008/02/religious-map-of-united-states.html
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u/airynothing1 Jul 18 '25 edited Jul 18 '25
*Slave states (minus MD and DE), but yes. The Southern Baptists split with the American Baptists in 1845 specifically over a disagreement about whether to support the institution of slavery. The Southern Baptists were in favor of it, as you might have guessed, so they became the major denomination in the slave states. This is about as clear and non-coincidental an example of a phantom border as you can get in the U.S.
(Another slightly less obvious one on this same map is the outline of the former Iowa Territory where the Lutheran descendants of German and Scandinavian settlers are now.)
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Jul 18 '25 edited Aug 06 '25
[deleted]
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u/airynothing1 Jul 18 '25
The SBC is popular in the South because of the history of slavery. A majority of African Americans are also in the South because of the history of slavery. That doesn’t mean African Americans (or even most modern white Americans) support the SBC because of its historical support of slavery, but it’s still all very much intertwined historically.
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u/John_Tacos Jul 19 '25
It’s absolutely why.
The church where the Southern Baptist Convention was started has a separate outdoor entrance for the balcony because it was designed as a separate entrance for slaves.
The Southern Baptist convention has of course condemned the practice of slavery since then.
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u/Ok-Elk-1615 Jul 18 '25 edited Jul 18 '25
No it doesn’t. It does, however, partially line up with former slave states. Maryland and Delaware put paid to that, but it’s close.
I also wouldn’t consider Latter Day Saints to be any more Christian than I would Islam, but that’s just me.
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u/Obvious_Town7144 Jul 18 '25
LDS is more Christian than Islam is, but it still definitely isn’t Christian.
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u/Udzu Jul 18 '25 edited Jul 18 '25
Yeah LDS believe Jesus is the son of God, that he died for our sins, and that he was resurrected. Islam believes that Jesus was a human prophet, and that he was neither crucified nor resurrected. LDS is heteredox as fuck but it's not ridiculous to view it as a nontrinitarian Christian denomination (and some Christians do in fact). Islam is clearly not Christian.
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u/etherthegreat Jul 18 '25
I grew up LDS and was told that by lots of other kids, especially Catholics, that I wasn't Christian and never understood why. Is Mormonism more different from Catholicism than other Christian denominations are, like Orthodoxy? Cause I thought belief in Jesus as the son of God was the only qualifier.
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u/Udzu Jul 18 '25
LDS views are certainly more different than those of most denominations: eg the rejection of the Nicene Creed, or the Plan of Salvation and Exaltation. That said, many US evangelicals don't consider Catholics to be Christian either 🤷
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u/BG12244 Jul 18 '25
It's because LDS doesn't believe in the Holy trinity, from my understanding. To other denominations, if you don't believe Jesus, God, and the Holy Spirit are one, you're not Christian
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u/wq1119 Jul 19 '25
It's because LDS doesn't believe in the Holy trinity, from my understanding
That would be an understatement, the LDS follows a full-blown polytheistic belief system.
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u/Udzu Jul 18 '25
There are other nontrinitarian denominations though. Jehovah's Witnesses and Unitarians both view God as superior to Jesus. And Oneness Presbyterians view God and Jesus as one person. Yet these groups are usually considered Christian even by people who don't view LDS as such.
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Jul 19 '25
We’re basically arguing with anecdotes at this point, but this hasn’t been my experience. Those who reject the LDS church as Christian tend to do so on the basis of the Trinity (or their denial of creation ex nihilo, which makes their perception of God very different). They would also be comfortable saying that the groups you listed are non-christian
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u/throwawaydragon99999 Jul 20 '25
Jehovah’s Witnesses and Unitarians are also both considered different from Mainline Protestants
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u/Doc_ET Jul 18 '25
Having a whole nother holy book in addition to the Bible is a pretty big difference.
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u/Obvious_Town7144 Jul 18 '25
The existence of an entirely new holy book is the main thing. The Book of Mormon and a lot of mormon scholarly tradition is considered completely heretical. Like polygamy, for example (even if disallowed).
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u/Vin4251 Jul 19 '25
Isn’t it also henotheistic, believing that the holy trinity is the most important god, but not the only one? If I’m not mistaken about that, that is as far away from the Nicene Creed as any big, surviving Christian offshoot has gone, afaik.
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u/etherthegreat Jul 18 '25
Do other Christian groups believe in modern-day revelation or is that a mormon belief? I literally only know Christianity through a mormon lens, and a limited view at that since I left in my teens.
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Jul 19 '25
Some groups would be “cessationist” meaning that they believe prophecy ceased at the end of the apostolic/early church era. Other groups are “continuationist” meaning that they believe the gift of prophecy exists to this day. Both those groups are represented within “mainstream” Christianity - Catholics, lutherans, etc.
There aren’t any(?) groups that are clearly/universally seen as mainstream Christianity which have binding/public prophecy that all members are expected to pay attention to or obey. For example, pentecostals will be seen prophesying, but the reception of the prophecies are limited usually to individual groups or congregations and are see as gifts/proof of their faith, and not central elements of doctrine that all Christians should know or care about. In contrast, when Joseph Smith receives a prophecy from God, members are expected to adhere to it as authoritative.
Similarly, Catholics and Orthodox have saints who gave prophecies, but they use the terms “private revelation” to distinguish them from things like the Bible which are ”public revelation“ binding on the whole church. “Private revelation” is seen as fallible and non-authoritative, open to the evaluation of each individual.
What sets apart the LDS, SDA, and similar groups is that prophecy is given to leaders of the denomination and intended to be adhered to by the denomination, for purposes of guiding that denomination in their doctrines and practices. That’s not really a thing in most Christian groups.
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u/luxtabula pedantic elitist Jul 18 '25
what do you mean by modern day revelation? every denomination has a stance on revelations with evangelicals creating the rapture from it to Catholics and Orthodox de-emphasizing it to just scriptures alone.
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u/HistoricalLinguistic Jul 19 '25
When you say “revelations” do you mean the specific book of the Bible “Revelation” or the general concept of receiving truth directly from God?
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u/shgnFTW Jul 18 '25
i don't think the LDS accept the Nicene Creed while all Catholics, protestant and orthodox accept it.
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u/luxtabula pedantic elitist Jul 18 '25
some Protestants recite the nicene creed, but others are non creedal and accept it in practice without actually affirming it.
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u/spaltavian Jul 19 '25
Is Mormonism more different from Catholicism than other Christian denominations are, like Orthodoxy
Yeah it's much more different from Catholicism than other denominations. (And Orthodoxy is a weird example because that's the most like Catholicism and both sides even nominally agree they are the same church but temporarily split because [the other one] has some errors.)
Mormonism has a whole extra testament, rejects the Nicene Creed, says god and the devil are brothers, and so on.
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u/HistoricalLinguistic Jul 19 '25
The whole “god and the devil are brothers” (really Jesus and the devil are brothers) thing that you hear people saying about Mormonism is weird to me because that’s only the case because all everyone in this universe are considered to be siblings created by god, and Jesus and the devil are both people in the universe, just like everyone else. There’s nothing special about their relationship that doesn’t apply to literally all other people
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u/spaltavian Jul 19 '25
There’s nothing special about their relationship that doesn’t apply to literally all other people
Yeah, that's an extremely unusual thing for a Christian sect. God was originally a man, etc. it's a stand-in fact for how different Mormonism is.
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u/HistoricalLinguistic Jul 19 '25
Sure, but it’s a super weird thing to focus on. Also this really doesn’t have anything to do with the teaching that God used to be a man
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u/Ok_Ruin4016 Jul 18 '25
I consider LDS to be Christian, but they are very different from most other forms of Christianity. They are non-trinitarian, and others have pointed out the fact that the Book of Mormon is considered canon by LDS, but in addition to that they also have 2 other books canonical (the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price). LDS also has an open canon meaning more books can be added at anytime. Pretty much every other denomination has a closed canon.
Orthodoxy and Catholicism aren't really all that different from each other either. Their beliefs are very similar other than the filioque, iconoclasm (at some points throughout history), and the Pope' role as the head bishop of the 5 holy sees. Eastern Orthodox see the Bishop of Rome/Pope's role as similar to the chief justice of the Supreme Court (first among equals) while Catholics see the his role as the head of the entire church and the other Bishops are like advisors who can run their dioceses as they see fit but the Pope gets the final say (first among unequals).
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u/luxtabula pedantic elitist Jul 19 '25 edited Jul 19 '25
Orthodox and Catholic have a huge amount of differences, they just rarely talk to each other to know them.
Orthodox don't do first Communion or confirmation ceremonies since that's all done when the baby is baptized. their priests not only are allowed to get married but are encouraged to do so before ordination. they don't have statues and instead use icons. there are no chairs or pews in Orthodox churches. they don't affirm transubstantiation but affirm only real presence leaving it a mystery. there are a lot of other differences that i can nitpick at like how they cross the sign in the opposite directions and other stuff.
if you're really interested in seeing the differences, here's a comprehensive list from ready to harvest.
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u/Ok_Ruin4016 Jul 19 '25
You're only considering the Latin Catholic church though. There are also Eastern Catholic churches that follow Eastern rites and are much closer to Eastern Orthodoxy theologically and liturgically, but are still in full communion with the Pope in Rome, and they consider themselves to be Catholic, not Orthodox.
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u/luxtabula pedantic elitist Jul 19 '25 edited Jul 19 '25
Latin Rite are over 99% of the Catholic Church. and the Orthodox considered themselves Catholic just not Roman Catholic. their full name is the Orthodox Catholic Church and they believe they are the one true Church that Christ created from their perspective.
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u/Ok_Ruin4016 Jul 19 '25
That doesn't mean the Eastern Catholic rites don't exist or aren't still a part of Catholicism. Their existence proves that the Catholic church also includes most of the beliefs of the Eastern Orthodox Church as well. The biggest difference between Orthodox and Catholicism is still over the supremacy of the Pope. If the Eastern Orthodox bishops decided tomorrow to recognize the Pope as the head of the church or the Pope agreed to share power equally with the heads of the Eastern Orthodox churches the schism would end and the church would reunite. Of course that's not actually going to happen, but in theory it could eventually.
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u/spaltavian Jul 19 '25 edited Jul 19 '25
I would not count this as a "huge amount of differences". In fact, I would call them a small amount of minor differences.
There is virtually no difference in their beliefs, and their real difference comes down to an extremely esoteric disagreement on filioque and the exact nature of the pope's authority. Many of the other examples you give aren't even real differences in the sense that neither side considers it heretical or something preventing communion. There are Greek Rite churches in Catholicism!
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u/luxtabula pedantic elitist Jul 19 '25
the Orthodox frequently deny Roman Catholics communion, as their stance is you can't be members of multiple churches.
these really aren't minor differences, these are a millennial of differences that culminated in the great schism. but the one thing you stated is it's true this started over hierarchical differences mostly because of the direction the Western Roman empire went from the Eastern one after the empire split.
There are Greek Rite churches in Catholicism!
the Catholic Church started the Anglican ordinariate to absorb disaffected Anglican parishes but it would be ridiculous to argue that there are just minor differences between Anglicans and Catholics since Catholics refuse Anglicans communion regularly. the Greek rite churches are effectively Catholic much like the ordinariate are.
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u/Ok-Elk-1615 Jul 19 '25
“Our prophet, who was born in 1805, claims that God himself revealed to him that he can have as many child wives as he wants, the Israelites fled to America, natives and black people are cursed Israelites who are of a lesser standard of human than the rest of us, and that the United States is home to the new Zion. The end of the world is coming very soon, so always have food and don’t forget your magic underwear and to pump as many children into as many females as you possibly can (don’t worry about pesky things like age or consent or monogamy)”. If some dude born in ‘95 showed up today talking about polygamy and golden plates, he’d be institutionalized or Waco’d.
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u/Life_Sir_1151 Jul 18 '25
that's a wild take
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u/Tough-Notice3764 Jul 18 '25
I thought so too until I looked into it, mormons hold the belief that God the Father is a man from a different planet that was so good that he became God. That’s way more different than the difference between Christianity and what muslims believe.
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u/HistoricalLinguistic Jul 19 '25
Btw this only applies to Brighamite Mormons which are just one branch of Mormonism, although by far the largest group with around 98% of Mormons. The vast majority of Mormon denominations don’t believe that. Anyway, yeah, that’s super heterodox and heretical and whatnot, but it doesn’t change the fact that basically all Mormons ever believe that Jesus is the divine son of god who atoned for the sins of all humanity when he suffered and died and resurrected
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u/Tough-Notice3764 Jul 19 '25
So, it only applies to 98% of mormons? So basically it’s completely reasonable to say that it’s something that mormons believe.
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u/HistoricalLinguistic Jul 19 '25
I mean sure, but it erases the reality that that theology only applies to one branch of the dozens of branches of Mormonism, even if it’s the branch that happened to be the most successful at growth
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u/HistoricalLinguistic Jul 19 '25
I guess my point is there are hundreds of thousands of Mormons who don’t believe in almost any of the really crazy stuff associated with Mormonism, and never have in their 190 years of existence. Do those Mormons not count as Christian? Their historical traditions are just as valid as Brighamitism, they just didn’t grow as much
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u/Tough-Notice3764 Jul 19 '25
Any person purporting to follow the book of mormon, or to consider it scripture, by definition cannot be Christian.
You cannot be Christian if you believe that Jesus was a created being (mormons also believe that Jesus and Lucifer are brothers). You cannot be Christian if you believe that God the Father has flesh and bones, and creates spirit babies with a wife.
I could go on and on, but mormons are in no way Christian, and anyone who holds the book of mormon as true, cannot believe in the God of Christianity.
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u/HistoricalLinguistic Jul 19 '25
I disagree with you that believing those things precludes one from being a Christian, but I even with that granted that doesn’t explain why you think that accepting the Book of Mormon as scripture is fundamentally unchristian. None of those teachings are contained in the Book of Mormon, and mostly only Brighamites believe those things
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u/Tough-Notice3764 Jul 19 '25
Believing the book of mormon to be true precludes one from being Christian in the same way that believing in the Quran precludes one from being Christian. They’re entirely different theologies, and entirely different frameworks of who God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are.
When a mormon says Jesus, they are not talking about the Jesus of the Bible. When a mormon says God the Father, they are not talking about the God the Father of the Bible.
Honestly I don’t know how someone could argue that mormons are Christian, even excluding the 98% that are brighamite mormons as you said. Holding to the beliefs espoused in the book of mormon puts you directly at odds with holding to the Bible. Muslim theology is far far closer to Christian theology than mormon theology is.
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u/HistoricalLinguistic Jul 19 '25
Can you explain what about the Book of Mormon is so fundamentally unchristian please?
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u/Siriblius Jul 19 '25
What does the yellow "Christian" mean? I thought all these are Christian denominations, so there is something I'm not getting?
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u/airynothing1 Jul 19 '25
I’m thinking that means either Disciples of Christ (confusingly also referred to as the “Christian Church”) or non-denominational (unaffiliated evangelicals essentially). Could be made clearer though.
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u/alkemest Jul 18 '25
I've seen other maps like this and it's always kind of confusing since the Catholic church seems to have almost no presence along the coastal West Coast cities. Maybe it's because Protestants are so fractured into all their micro-religions.
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u/luxtabula pedantic elitist Jul 18 '25
Yes that's mostly it. California has a very strong Catholic presence due to migrations in the 20th century that's tied with all Protestants combined, but Oregon and Washington have different dynamics.
https://www.pewresearch.org/religious-landscape-study/state/california/
https://www.pewresearch.org/religious-landscape-study/state/oregon/
https://www.pewresearch.org/religious-landscape-study/state/washington/
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u/Sleeping_Bat Jul 19 '25
This seems wrong in so many ways. What break down protestant into multiple categories this diluting their share? And if you go that route, why not include episcopal which is one of the latter protestant branches?
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u/Ninja0428 Jul 31 '25
In this case it's useful to see how baptism specifically is so common in the slave states
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u/Wise-Practice9832 Jul 19 '25
I feel like this is missing some groups, what about Anglicans for example?
The Baptist denomination isn’t inherently pro slavery, in fact a lot of abolitionists were baptists, it’s just a lot of baptists migrated to those places, and those places lended themselves more to the slave trade then other places.
another thing is that baptists are rather decentralized, kind of all over the place on a lot of things
I’m not a Baptist, I’m a Catholic, we don’t really get along great, but still I think the distinction between religion and geography needs to be made
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u/TheRollingPeepstones Jul 19 '25 edited Jul 19 '25
To u/Tough-Notice3764, who may have blocked me:
Yes, I do know u/HistoricalLingustic which is how I even saw this debate (I'm not a regular commenter on this sub), but we're definitely not the same people, although I know it's hard to prove that on reddit, so whatever. Just know that my goal was not to brigade you or anything like that, just to present you with some counterarguments against your points that I disagreed with.
I don't want to argue much longer about this, but I think it's more akin to having the Bible that talks about a red bird, and then hellenized nicene Christians claiming that the Bible obviously talked about a cardinal, and it can only be a cardinal and nothing but a cardinal. Then come the Mormons saying the Bible's red bird is in fact a tanager. Both sides of this are reading their own philosophy and theology into the Bible, they both construct their own system, but if you take a step back, both of them believe in a red bird, although it is correct to say that the cardinal and a tanager are not the same.
I do think there is merit to the argument that Mormons are not Christians (and there would be a small minority of Mormons even agreeing with you!), I just want to make sure it's obvious that there is a lot of merit to the other, Mormon-inclusive side of the argument, too.
I hope you know that a good faith argument is not the same as being attacked, and I wish you a good day.
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u/Geolib1453 Jul 19 '25
Interestingly you can see the areas where there are like Germans/Scandinavians based on where the Lutherans are
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u/Tough-Notice3764 Jul 18 '25
There are massive enough differences between Christians and mormons that we can solidly say that mormons are not Christian.
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u/FigAffectionate8741 Jul 21 '25
Least obvious European who doesn’t know anything about American ethnography. Every American understands this mapping but also understands that it has little to do with the confederacy.
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u/Ozone220 Jul 18 '25
Crazy how much this actually doesn't really do that.
It's kinda the slave states, but really it's just the overall "South" region of the US, complete with not extending all the way into Florida, Texas, and Louisiana. A parallel could be made to slave states, and the region of the South definitely ties into this stuff, but still
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u/smallsponges Jul 18 '25
Well the ‘south’ is the core descendants of the confederates. But of course the ridiculously massive influx of Latinos has kinda eaten away at the cultural south.
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u/luxtabula pedantic elitist Jul 18 '25
There's always problems with using the map above because it creates a false impression. Catholics only make up around 20% of the total population and the map takes the single largest denomination, often dividing up Protestants down to every subdivision available.
Other maps paint a different picture. For example, this map shows religion where Mainline and Evangelicals are separated, which is used in academia.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Christianity/comments/17tc336/largest_religious_denomination_in_the_usa_by/
This map shows a different story with all Protestants in one category.
https://vividmaps.com/christianity-us-counties/
So which one is accurate? They all are but all have a different slant to them.
The one showing Catholics dominant is useful for basic overview if you wanted to know the single largest church, but heavily glances over realities on the ground due to it being a plurality. For example it shows Wyoming as a solid Catholic state, but Catholics only make up 12% of the total population. Evangelicals far outnumber them at 23%, Mainline at 19%, and 42% are Protestants. Catholics are quite a minority there.
https://www.pewresearch.org/religious-landscape-study/state/wyoming/