| Subject: US Pres/Vice Pres Religious Affiliation |
Author:
bm
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Date Posted: 23:43:57 01/26/08 Sat
In reply to:
bm
's message, "One Vote for Obama!" on 19:19:10 01/19/08 Sat
Who will be the 44th US President? The top Democratic and Republican candidates belongs to different Protestant denominations, namely: Barack Obama of the United Church of Christ; Hillary Clinton and John Edwards of the Methodist Church; John McCain and Mike Huckabee of the Baptist Church, and Mitt Romney of the Latter Day Saints (Mormon Church, if elected, he will be the first Mormon president of the US). Of all the 43 US presidents 42 are Protestants and 1 Catholic. All 46 Vice Presidents are Protestants.
The current President George Bush and VP Richard Cheney are Methodist.
# President Religion
1 George Washington Episcopalian
2 John Adams Congregationalist
3 Thomas Jefferson Episcopalian; Unitarian
4 James Madison Episcopalian
5 James Monroe Episcopalian
6 John Quincy Adams Unitarian; Congregationalsit
7 Andrew Jackson Presbyterian
8 Martin Van Buren Dutch Reformed; Congregationalist
9 William H.Harrison Episcopalian
10 John Tyler Episcopalian
11 James Knox Polk Presbyterian; Methodist
12 Zachary Taylor Episcopalian
13 Millard Fillmore Unitarian (former Methodist)
14 Franklin Pierce Episcopalian
15 James Buchanan Presbyterian
16 Abraham Lincoln raised Baptist; Deist; Unitarian
17 Andrew Johnson Methodist
18 Ulysses S Grant Presbyterian; Methodist
19 Rutherford B. Hayes Presbyterian; Methodist
20 James A. Garfield Disciples of Christ
21 Chester A. Arthur Episcopalian
22 Grover Cleveland Presbyterian
23 Benjamin Harrison Presbyterian
24 Grover Cleveland Presbyterian
25 William McKinley Methodist
26 Theodore Roosevelt Dutch Reformed; Congregationalist
27 William Howard Taft Unitarian; raised Baptist
28 Woodrow Wilson Presbyterian
29 Warren G. Harding Baptist
30 Calvin Coolidge Congregationalist
31 Herbert Hoover Methodist; Quaker
32 Franklin D.Roosevelt Episcopalian
33 Harry S. Truman Southern Baptist
34 Dwight D. Eisenhower River Brethren; Jehovah's Witnesses; Presbyterian
35 John F. Kennedy Roman Catholic
36 Lyndon B. Johnson Disciples of Christ
37 Richard M. Nixon Quaker; Baptist
38 Gerald Ford Episcopalian
39 Jimmy Carter Baptist (former Southern Baptist)
40 Ronald Reagan Disciples of Christ; Presbyterian
41 George H. W. Bush Episcopalian
42 William J.Clinton Southern Baptist
43 George W. Bush Methodist (former Episcopalian)
44 ????????????? ??????
Religious Affiliation of
US Vice Presidents
Presbyterian 12 26.1%
Episcopalian 10 21.7%
Dutch Reformed 4 7.1%
Congregationalist 4 7.1%
Methodist 4 7.1%
Baptist 4 7.1%
Unitarian 3 6.5%
Lutheran 1 2.2%
Disciples of Christ 1 2.2%
Quaker 1 2.2%
Protestants
(denom. unknown) 8 17.4%
TOTAL 46 100%
Keep in mind that in the table above, the % of the U.S. population for religious groups are current figures. Religious groups have had much different proportions at various time in U.S. history.
One of the most over-represented religious groups among U.S. presidents is Unitarianism. Despite merging with Universalism in the 1960s, the combined proportion of Unitarian Universalists in the U.S. population is just 0.2% of the population (one in every 500 Americans). Yet there have been 4 Unitarian presidents.
Another over-represented religious group among U.S. presidents is Dutch Reformed, by virtue of having two U.S. presidents, yet having only a small number of people left in the country who identify themselves as Reformed. The contemporary heir to the Dutch Reformed churches is the "Reformed Church in America," which has about 300,000 members in the U.S. and Canada. (Alternatively, one might count only a single president as Dutch Reformed, if Theodore Roosevelt is counted as an Episcopalian -- sources differ on this subject. Even just one Dutch Reformed president would constitute statistical over-representation.)
After that, Disciples of Christ, Episcopalians, and Quakers have also had representation in the White House far outstripping their proportion of the U.S. population.
On the other end of the scale, the most under-represented religious group is Catholicism, which has had only one U.S. president (John F. Kennedy), despite making up 25% of the current U.S. population. Also under-represented are Baptists, whose proportion of the U.S. population (18%) is twice their proportion of U.S. presidents (9.5%).
Major religious groups in the U.S. which have never had a U.S. president include: Lutherans (about 5% of the U.S. population); Jews (about 2% of the U.S. population); Latter-day Saints (2%); Pentecostals (about 1.8 %); Muslims (approx. 1 to 1.5%); Eastern Orthodox (approx. 0.5%); and Churches of Christ (1%).
Major Sources: Kane, Joseph Nathan. Facts About the Presidents (Fourth Edition). New York: The H. W. Wilson Co. (1981), pg. 360; DeGregorio, William A. The Complete Book of U.S. Presidents (Second Edition). New York: Dembner Books (1989)
Article
Dallas Morning News: Bush, fellow Methodists don't all see eye to eye - includes references to Adherents.com presidential statistics.
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