Churches as Organizational Resources

Abstract

Employing a historical dataset on Detroit in the 1950s, this article uses geographic models to show the political impact of churches and religious populations on presidential voting. Multilevel models separate the relative impact of individual denomination, the effect of congregants in neighborhoods, and the importance of the physical presence of a church. Existing studies of geography and religion examine a few denominations; here a full set of religious denominations is compared on support for Democratic Party voting and “social movement-like” voting for the Progressive Party. Mainline Protestant churches are associated with support for a conservative social agenda. The presence of synagogues and Catholic churches in neighborhoods is positively related to progressive electoral outcomes. Black Protestant churches are positively related to Democratic Party voting but did not alter the Progressive Party vote. The effect of denomination on political behavior and the geographic extent of a church’s influence on surrounding urban communities are shown to be spatially segregated and to depend on the class structure of neighborhoods.