Mapping the Reformation in America
Where my Protestants at?
Today is Reformation Day, the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther’s nailing of the 95 Theses to the door of the Wittenberg schlosskirche, outlining that most quintessential of Lutheran, and ultimately Christian, beliefs: that the whole life of the Christian is one of repentance. From there, thanks to the printing press, a world-shaking movement took off. The Reformation has been studied exhaustively over the centuries, with modern scholars linking those religious tumults and the rise of Protestantism to rising educational levels in Europe, urbanization, growing statism, the spread of formalized legal norms, entrepreneurship, industrialization, and greater gender equality. On the other hand, the spread of the Reformation has been associated with pogroms and witch trials, higher incidence of suicide, anti-semitism, and, ominously, earlier-reforming German regions proved much more open to Nazism. Most recently, the Reformation has been linked to a shift in resources away from church construction and religious education, towards palaces, militarism, and legal education. And in the long arc of history, many scholars credit the Reformation, and to a great extent Martin Luther himself, with lighting the spark of the Enlightenment.
By the time the settlement of the United States was well underway, the longevity of Protestantism was essentially assured. Many of the early American settlers were religious dissidents calling for reformation: Separatists and Puritans demanding more radical reformation of the Church of England, French Huguenots fleeing the oppressive Catholic regime in France, or the follows of Jan Huss fleeing Bohemia and Moravia.
These groups have left their mark on America and, thanks to the detailed research in the 2010 U.S. Religious Census, we can map out the various strains of the Reformation in America, seeing where each reformation church body holds sway.
There are arguably 6 main Protestant or Reformation church families in the world: Waldensians, Hussites, Lutherans, Anabaptists, Reformed, and Anglicans. The Waldensians were a small proto-Protestant movement in Switzerland and Italy in the 1200s that did not spread very widely, and have no measurable presence in the United States, though they have persisted in Italy, which is why I mention them.
Hussite Churches: Rare and Isolated
The Hussites, today represented by the Moravian and Unity of the Brethren churches, were a movement in today’s Czechia following the teachings of Jan Huss. Huss predated Martin Luther by 100 years, but espoused extremely similar views as the German reformer would eventually promote. So much so that, when insulted as a Hussite heretic, Luther responded, “ Dear doctor, the Hussite opinions are not all wrong,” and over time came to see Huss as a genuine early reformer.
Today, the Hussite church includes over 750,000 adherents, especially in the Caribbean, though, after the nonexistent Waldensians, the Hussites are the next smallest of the reformation churches in America, with their churches counting under 20,000 people in the pews on a typical Sunday morning. As you can see, those churches are located in just a few areas, particularly Houston, central North Carolina, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.
Lutheran Churches: The Solid Midwest
After the Hussites, historically, came Martin Luther. The German firebrand is today seen as the initiator of the reformation, not because nobody else tried before him (the Hussites, the Waldensians, and another group called the Lollards all tried their best), but because Luther benefited from the ferocious protection of a powerful lord (Frederick the Wise, Elector of Saxony), and because he masterfully exploited the new technology of the printing press. Furthermore, Luther was more eager to exploit nationalist or ethnic rhetoric than his Hussite, Waldensian, or Lollard precursors were, making Lutheranism more politically useful than those earlier proto-Protestant movements.
Today, various Lutheran churches have about 2.3 million regular attendees, making us the largest of the reformation church bodies in America. And it shows in these maps, as Lutheran churches exhibit a solid bloc of counties covering the whole upper midwest, with significant populations throughout the lower midwest, Pennsylvania, Texas, the Atlantic South, and some of the West as well. But of all the reformation bodies, Lutherans probably have the most distinctive regional flavor… and probably one of the most distinctive ethno-cultural footprints as well, after Anabaptists.
Reformed Churches: The Dutch and the Scots
Following hot on the heels of Lutheranism came the reforms of Huldrych Zwingli in Switzerland, taking Luther’s push for a more accessible liturgy even further, denying the sacramental nature of communion and baptism. From Zwingli came the “Reformed” churches, today’s Presbyterians and, to some extent, Congregationalists (though I assess only Presbyterian or self-identifying “Reformed” churches). While Zwingli initiated this movement, his successor John Calvin is better-known today, and his theology of deterministic salvation is shared by many protestant churches.
After the Lutheran churches, the Reformed churches are the most numerous in America, with about 1.7 million attendees, though Reformed or Calvinist doctrines are influential denominations with another 5–10 million attendees. Reformed hotspots can be seen in Iowa and western Michigan, where large Dutch Reformed communities immigrated to the United States. Likewise, the Scots-Irish and early-German-immigrant influence in the upland South and Pennsylvania is in evidence. But overall, Reformed churches are fairly diffuse, representing large numbers of Americans, but without any extremely strong regional footprint or single ethnic identity.
Anabaptist Churches: Pockets of the Midwest
As Luther and Zwingli challenged the authority of Rome, many other reformers began to do so as well, many of them in less organized or contained a fashion. The so-called “Radical Reformation” was led by charismatic preachers, communitarian bodies, peasant mobs, and a scattering of more extreme theologians. What these groups had in common was their insistence on adult or “upright” baptism; or, from the Latin, anabaptism. These Anabaptist churches were suppressed by the Lutheran, Reformed, and Catholic churches alike, but tight-knit, communitarian bodies of Anabaptists survived in many places. Today, Mennonite, Amish, and Brethren churches, alongside the Hutterian and Bruderhoft sects, preserve the “plain,” communitarian Anabaptist traditions.
Anabaptist churches and communities today claim nearly 500,000 church attendees in America, and as befits their communitarian emphasis, we tend to see either comparatively high attendance rates for Anabaptists, or basically nothing at all. Anabaptist churches roughly track German and Swiss immigrant patterns, as befits a church that was mostly composed of Germans and Swiss people fleeing Lutheran, Reformed, and Catholic persecution. Notably, the Anabaptist churches condemned slavery as early as 1688, which also helps explain their absence in the American south.
Anglican Churches: The Old Dominion
Finally, in England, the old spark of Lollardy (a reform movement lead by John Wycliffe in the 1200s) re-ignited in the English Reformation, led by the political ambitions of Henry VIII. The Church of England has given birth to many of America’s denominations from Methodism to Baptists to Congregationalists, as it was defined by political need for separation more than by a specific doctrinal body. Even today, Anglican and Episcopal churches have a huge amount of variation in liturgy and doctrine, even as they are organizationally affiliated.
While historically important in the United States (most of our early Presidents were Anglican), these churches are far less numerous than Lutheran or Reformed churches, with under 800,000 parishioners on an average Sunday. Anglican churches are most prominent along the Atlantic Coast, in the longest-settled parts of the United States, and particularly in Virginia, where several Anglican presidents like George Washington, James Monroe, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison all hailed from. There’s also an inexplicable Anglican presence in the mountain west, but those are largely low-population counties.
The Reformation Churches in America
When you add it all up, we can see the geographic footprint of the Reformation throughout the United States. We can most directly trace the culture, and especially religion, of Americans back to the strident preaching of a loud-mouthed German friar in the midwest and great plains, Pennsylvania, upland south, and central Texas. Meanwhile, the deep south, Appalachia, New England, and the west are more influenced by Roman Catholicism, post-Reformation Christian movements like the Great Awakening or Pentecostalism, non-Christian religions, or irreligion.
A casual look at that map loosely correlates with many things: Northern European ancestry, President Trump’s electoral gains vs. Mitt Romney, areas with more stable family environments and more economic mobility, the Farm Belt, the Rust Belt, and others. Doubtless many readers can think of something else that maps well onto a map of the reformation in America.
But today, the reformation churches are in decline. The high-water-mark of the reformation in America came around 1960. Never before then and never since have so many Americans been card-carrying children of the reformation. Nor is the decline unique to one denomination or group: Anabaptists, Lutherans, Anglicans, Hussites, and Reformed churches have all experienced this rise and fall. And while historically the more liberal or “mainline” wings showed a much more aggressive ascent and a much more precipitously decline, while more conservative or “evangelical” denominations continued to grow, in recent years this decline has impacted even those formerly-resilient groups.
As we take a moment today to reflect on this 500th year of the church’s ongoing reforms, some may find this information troubling, others not. But the political and demographic scale and strength of the church has always ebbed and flowed in every country; indeed, by the 19th century, the churches of the reformation were so corrupt and devoid of spiritual teaching that a new wave of latter-day reformers, from radicals like the Great Awakening preachers to “conservative reformers” like Kierkegaard, rose up to continue the work Martin Luther kicked off in Wittenberg and at Worms. Today, the reformation continues, and who knows what latter-day reformers may be waiting in the wings, to pounce?
If you’re in the DC area and would like to check out a church that believes in the continuing work of reformation, I can highly recommend my own church, Immanuel Evangelical-Lutheran Church-Alexandria. Don’t be fooled by the name; we’re not in the Evangelical Lutheran Church, but the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. Confusing, right? Anyways. Contemplative evening prayer services are held at 7 PM on Wednesdays, while Divine Service, complete with rousing organ and chanted psalms, is 10 AM on Sundays. We also have Friday noontime Divine Service. And we have a wonderful classical Christian school, and I hear the Manager of Operations is a smokin’ hot lady! You should enroll all your children at our school. I promise the teachers are much nicer, more normal and well-adjusted people than I am.
Check out my Podcast about the history of American migration.
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I’m a native of Wilmore, Kentucky, a graduate of Transylvania University, and also the George Washington University’s Elliott School. My real job is as an economist at USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service, where I analyze and forecast cotton market conditions. I’m married to a kickass Kentucky woman named Ruth.
My posts are not endorsed by and do not in any way represent the opinions of the United States government or any branch, department, agency, or division of it. My writing represents exclusively my own opinions. I did not receive any financial support or remuneration from any party for this research.
