The Changing World Religion Map Stanley D. Brunn Editor The Changing World Religion Map Sacred Places, Identities, Practices and Politics Donna A. Gilbreath Assistant Editor Editor Stanley D. Brunn Department of Geography University of Kentucky Lexington , KY , USA Assistant Editor Donna A. Gilbreath UK Markey Cancer Center Research Communications Offi ce Lexington , KY , USA ISBN 978-94-017-9375-9 ISBN 978-94-017-9376-6 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-94-017-9376-6 Library of Congress Control Number: 2014960060 Springer Dordrecht Heidelberg New York London © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifi cally the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfi lms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specifi c statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. Printed on acid-free paper Springer Science+Business Media B.V. Dordrecht is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com) Preface: A Cont inuing Journey Religion has always been a part of my life. I am a Presbyterian PK (preacher’s kid). From my father I inherited not only an interest in the histories and geographies of religions, not just Christianity, but also a strong sense of social justice, a thread that has been part of my personal and professional (teaching, research, service) life. My mother was raised as a Quaker and from her I also learned much about social justice, peace and reconciliation and being a part of an effective voice calling for ends to war, social discrimination of various types, and other injustices that seem to be a continual part of daily life on the planet. My father had churches mostly in the rural Upper Middle West. These were open country and small town congregations in Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Missouri. The mem- bers of these congregations were Germans, Czech, Scandinavians (Norwegians, and Swedes), and English. Perhaps or probably because of these experiences, I had friendships with many young people who comprised the mosaic of the rural Middle West. Our family moved frequently when I was living at home, primarily because my father’s views on social issues were often not popular with the rural farming communities. (He lost his church in northwest Missouri in 1953 because he sup- ported the Supreme Court’s decision on desegregation of schools. By the time I graduated from high school in a small town in southeastern Illinois, I had attended schools in a half-dozen states; these include one-room school house experiences as well as those in small towns. During my childhood days my interests in religion were, of course, important in the views I had about many subjects about those of different faiths and many places on the planet. I was born in a Catholic hospital, which I always attribute to the beginning of my ecumenical experiences. The schools I attended mixes of Catholics and Protestants; I had few experiences with Native Americans, Jews and African, and Asian Americans before entering college. But that background changed, as I will explain below. My father was always interested in missionaries and foreign missions and once I considered training for a missionary work. What fascinated me most about missionaries were that they were living in distant lands, places that I just longed to know about; an atlas was always my favorite childhood book, next to a dictionary. I was always glad when missionaries visited our churches and stayed in v vi Preface: A Continuing Journey our homes. The fascination extended to my corresponding with missionaries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. I was curious what kind of work they did. I also found them a source for stamps, a hobby that I have pursued since primary school. Also I collected the call letters of radio stations, some which were missionary sta- tions, especially in Latin America. (Some of these radio stations are still broadcasting.) When I enrolled as an undergraduate student at Eastern Illinois University, a small regional university in east central Illinois, I immediately requested roommates from different countries. I very much wanted to make friends with students from outside the United States and learn about their culture. During my 3 years at EIU, I had roommates from Jordan, Samoa, Costa Rica, Ethiopia, and South Korea; these were very formative years in helping me understand cross-cultural, and especially, religious diversity. On refl ection, I think that most of the Sunday services I attended were mostly Presbyterian and Methodist, not Catholic, Lutheran, or Baptist. When I entered the University of Wisconsin, Madison, for the M.A. degree, I was again exposed to some different views about religion. The Madison church that fascinated me the most was the Unitarian church, a building designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. I remember how different the services and sermons were from Protestant churches, but intellectually I felt at home. My father was not exactly pleased I found the Unitarian church a good worship experience. The UW-Madison experience also introduced me to the study of geography and religion. This was brought home espe- cially in conversations with my longtime and good friend, Dan Gade, but also a cultural geography course I audited with Fred Simoons, whose new book on reli- gion and food prejudices just appeared and I found fascinating. Also I had conversa- tions with John Alexander, who eventually left the department to continue in his own ministry with the Inter Varsity Christian Fellowship. A seminar on Cultural Plant Geography co-taught with Fred Simoons, Jonathan Sauer, and Clarence Olmstead provided some opportunities to explore cultural and historical dimensions of religion, which were the major fi elds where geographers could study religion. The geographers I knew who were writing about religion were Pierre Deffontaines, Eric Issac, and Xavier de Phanol. That narrow focus, has, of course, changed in the past several decades, as I will discuss below. The move to Ohio State University for my doctoral work did not have the strong religious threads that had emerged before. I attended a variety of Protestant churches, especially Presbyterian, Congregational, and Methodist. I took no formal courses in geography that dealt with religion, although I was very interested when Wilbur Zelinsky’s lengthy article on church membership patterns appeared in the Annals of the Association of American Geographers in 1961. I felt then that this was, and would be, a landmark study in American human geography, as the many maps of denominational membership patterns plus extensive references would form the basis for future scholars interested in religion questions, apart from historical and cultural foci which were the norm at that time. My fi rst article on religion was on religious town names; I wrote it when I was at Ohio State with another longtime friend, Jim Wheeler, who had little interest in religion. I can still remember using my knowledge of biblical place names and going through a Rand McNally atlas Preface: A Continuing Journey vii with Jim identifying these town names. This study appeared in Names , which cultural geographers acknowledge is one of the premier journals concerned with names and naming processes. Even though my dissertation on changes in the central place functions in small towns in northwest Ohio and southeast Ohio (Appalachia) did not look specifi cally at churches, I did tabulate the number and variety during extensive fi eldwork in both areas. My fi rst teaching job was at the University of Florida in fall 1966. I decided once I graduated from OSU that I wanted to live in a different part of the United States where I could learn about different regional cultures and politics. I was discouraged by some former teachers about teaching in Florida, especially about the region’s segregation history, recent civil rights struggles in the South and also the John Birch Society (which was also active in Columbus when I lived there). The 3 years (1966– 1969) in Gainesville were also very rewarding years. These were also very forma- tive years in developing my interests in the social geography, a new fi eld that was just beginning to be studied in the mid-1960s. Included in the forefront of this emerging fi eld of social geographers were Anne Buttimer, Paul Claval, Yi-Fu Tuan, Dick Morrill, Richard Peet, Bill Bunge, Wilbur Zelinsky, David Harvey, and David Smith, all who were challenging geographers to study the social geographies of race, employment, school and housing discrimination, but also poverty, environ- mental injustice, inequities in federal and state programs promoting human welfare, the privileges of whiteness and the minorities’ participation in the voting/political process. Living in northern Florida in the late 1960s or “Wallace years” could not help but alert one to the role that religion was playing in rural and urban areas in the South. Gainesville had distinct racial landscapes.