Massachusetts
Massachusetts | |
RELATED TOPICS | |
SERMONS, ESSAYS AND OPINIONS |
|
CONTENTS |
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. Its major city is Boston. It was initially founded by Puritans but today Protestants make up less than one-third of the state's population. Around half the population is Roman Catholic because of immigration from Ireland, Quebec, Italy, Portugal, and Puerto Rico. In recent years there has been a strong advocacy of gay marriage in this state.
History
Geography
Peoples
Economy
Politics
Religion
Given that Massachusetts was founded and settled by Puritans in the 17th century there has historically been a large Protestant population, especially of the Congregational and United Church of Christ churches. Both of these denominations.
Today Protestants make up less than a quarter of the population and Roman Catholicism predominate because of immigration from Ireland, Italy and other countries with strong ties to Roman Catholicism. There are over 3 million Roman Catholics living in Massachusetts.
There is also a large Jewish population which came to the area in the early twentienth century, and now almost 300,000 Jews live in Massachusetts.
A number of religious off-shoots from Christianity have roots in Massachusetts. These include Christian Science, whose founder made Boston the world headquarters for the religion. The world headquarters of the Unitarian-Universalist Church is also located in Boston.
The religious affiliations of the people of Massachusetts, according to a 2001 survey, are shown in the table below[1]
- Christian – 69%
- Catholic – 44%
- Protestant – 22%
- Baptist – 4%
- Congregational/United Church of Christ – 3%
- Episcopal – 3%
- Methodist – 2%
- Pentecostal – 2%
- Other Protestant or general Protestant – 8%
- Jewish – 2%
- Other Religions – 6%
- Non-Religious – 16%
- Refused to answer – 7%
References
- ↑ "American Religious Identification Survey". Exhibit 15. The Graduate Center, City University of New York. Website: www.gc.cuny.edu/faculty/research_briefs/aris/key_findings.htm
This article is a stub. You can help WikiChristian by expanding it. For help please read the WikiChristian Tutorial and our writing guide.
Quotes
Links
Return to Christianity -> Places -> Americas -> USA
Note to users: The wiki is currently operating in safe mode. Editing is limited to users with certain privileges in order to deal with spam. You can create a new user account, and confirm your email ID in order to obtain ability to edit pages. Learn how to be an editor or sysop at WikiChristian.
- Sister projects: WikiMD.com Wellness Encyclopedia & Directory
- Sponsors: WikiChristian is supported by W8MD's medical weight loss and sleep centers.