The Schlicken Empire

The Elson Gallery

Cuius Regio, Eius Religio – this Latin saying applies to Europe, and to the principle that ended religious warfare: “Whose region (it is), whose religion (shall predominate)”. But it sprang to mind when seeing this map of the US, showing the leading church bodies per county. The map demonstrates the important link between region and religion, or to put it more precisely: where you live is a predictive factor as to where you worship.

The map highlights 8 major Christian denominations, showing where they represent a plurality (and in counties marked with a + at least 50%) of the relevant counties’ population. This shows that there are quite a few remarkably contiguous religious blocks in the US

The most notable of those contiguous areas is that of the Baptists, a term that is quite rightly almost synonymous with Southern Baptist (a bit like how Orthodox in Europe equals Eastern Orthodox; as “western orthodoxy” is referred to as Catholicism). Baptists are the biggest congregations in nigh on all counties of nine states (Oklahoma, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee), and are a major presence in West Virginia (where Methodists dominate the northeast), Virginia (where the selfsame Methodists have a foothold in the border area with West Virginia) and Missouri (the area around St Louis being majoritarily Catholic). Florida, Louisiana and Texas are split between a Catholic South and a Baptist North – to a large part due to the large, traditionally Catholic communities of Latinos in southern Texas and Florida and of Cajuns (French-Americans) in Louisiana.

Another block, but not nearly as neatly contiguous, is the Lutheran one, present in the northern Midwest and West, best represented in Minnesota, North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa and Wisconsin. Lutheran here often is synonymous with German-American or more broadly speaking Northern European – again, Lutheran conjures up certain geographical, not to say climatological images; a form of worship designed to survive the grimmest of winters. It would be very hard to rhyme a Latin culture with the Lutheran religion.

I don’t know is there’s a similar link thinkable in the Methodist case. The Methodist areas are also much smaller and much more disparate: in West Virginia (as mentioned) and adjacently in areas of Pennsylvania, Virginia and Ohio. There’s a sprinkling of Methodist-dominated counties in Maryland, Delaware, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska and Kansas. Strangely, most Methodist-dominated counties lie between two parallels of longitude determined by the northern border of Nebraska and Pennsylvania and the southern border of Kansas and Virginia.

The Mormons dominate every county in their state of Utah, and have proceeded from there to become numerically superior in some counties of adjacent states, such as Arizona, Colorado, Idaho and Nevada – they are the biggest congregation in the county that holds Las Vegas.

Most of the other counties have Catholics as the most numerous congregation, leading to a somewhat misleading map. Catholicism very often is the biggest denomination by default, owing to the fact that their institutional unity boosts ‘market share’ but at the same time masks differences between different wings of the Roman church that are as great as between denominations of Protestantism that have separated over theological differences.

On the other side of the bums on pews versus quality of purpose spectrum are the Mennonites (among whom the Amish are the strictest of the strict), dominating in very few counties, but where they do, often in two or three adjacent counties (as in northern Indiana, central Ohio and central Kansas).

Quite puzzling finally is the denomination labeling itself as Christian, dominating in central Illinois and Indiana. I thought they all were. Christian, that is…

Article Source: Strangemaps
Image Source: bp1

City of Santa Fé, in New Mexico, USA. A mystery of over 130 years and attracting around 250 thousand visitors every year. Point of attention : Loretto Chapel

What makes this chapel different from all others is that the subject of the supposed miracle that took place in it is a Staircase.

A chapel was constructed somewhere in hte 19th century. When it was ready, the nuns found that there was no staircase built to take them to the top level. They spent 9 days praying to St. Joseph, who was a carpenter. On the last day, a stranger knocked at their door and said that he was a carpenter who could help them build the staircase.

He constructed the staircase, all by himself, which was considered to be the pride of carpentery. None knew how the staircase could stand by itself as it did not have a central support. Then the carpenter, who did not use a single nail or glue to construct this staircase, disappeared without even waiting for his payment.

There was a rumour in the city of Santa Fé, that the carpenter was St. Joseph himself …sent by Jesus Christ to attend to the nuns’ problem. Since then, the staircase was known to be called “miraculous” and turned out to be the site for pilgrimage.

There are 3 mysteries in this case, says the spokesman of the chapel : the 1st mystery is that, until today, the identity of this man is not known.

The second mystery – all the architects, engineers and scientists say that they cannot understand how this staircase can balance without any central support.

And the 3rd mystery – from where did the wood come? They have checked and found out that the type of wood used to build the staircase does not exist in the entire region

There is another detail that has just increased the belief in the supposed miracle : The staircase has 33 steps, the age of Jesus Christ. M. G a llo

Author unknown

More on this pretty urban legend…
The Mysterious Staircase at Loretto Chapel

[Source: piffe.com]

Sometimes things aren’t as easy as they seem. Parting the Red Sea, Turning water into whine, or raising someone from the dead are all done within god’s Laws. Crazy Stuff.

This comic made me stop and think about how great miracles really are.