Religious Landscapes

By: Charles Fuller, Bonnie Larsen, and Lauren McCormick

 Objectives
For our group, the main objective of this project was to understand the variety of
religion in our community and determine the overall religious diversity in America.
We hoped to:
 Gain an awareness of the diversity of our community and compare it to other
communities; specifically Central Salt Lake, Utah vs. New Jersey
 Gain knowledge and understanding of some of our religious communities
 How we are handling this diversity and where we are headed
 A conclusion on what religion in America will look like
 Analyze our personal biases and assumptions about our religious landscapes
 Develop an awareness of and interest in generative religious pluralism
 Location: Central Salt Lake
(Taylorsville, Kearns, West
Valley, Murray, and West
Jordan)
Geographic Why: Close to the Taylorsville
SLCC Campus and is a central
al Analysis location for our group and the
valley.
Expectations: We expected to
find some minority religions
here but mostly Latter-Day
Saints.
Churches In The Hood of Central Salt Lake (3-mile radius)

SLCC
 Demographic Research: Our
Religious # of
Neighborhood Landscape buildings in
3-5-mile
Unsurprising: radius
LDS 24
 There is somewhat of a religious diversity here, Protestant 15
but most religious buildings are downtown. The
LDS dominance is ordinary and was expected. Evangelical 6
Christian
Catholic 5
Surprising:
Orthodox 1
Sikh/Muslim 1
 We expected a little more diversity of the
Jewish 0
smaller religions, but there was many forms of
Christianity in our community than expected Hindu 0
(Baptist, Lutheran, Episcopal, Evangelical,
Buddhism 0
Methodist, Pentecostal, Presbyterian, Non-
denominational Christian, Catholic, and
Orthodox)
 Demographic Comparison: Our Neighborhood vs.
Utah
 Christianity appears to Unaffiliated
be a higher percentage
Hindu
in our local community
than overall Utah Buddhist

 There wasn’t much Muslim

diversity of Hindu,
Jewish
Buddhist, Muslim, or
Jew churches in our Orthodox
local community and
Mormon
Utah
 About 45% of our Catholic

community is LDS Protestant

while there is 55% in
overall Utah Evangelical Christian

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60%

Local Community Utah
 Demographic Comparison: Utah vs. New Jersey
 LDS in Utah is approximately 55% Unaffiliated

while New Jersey is hardly over Hindu

1%
Buddhist
 The number of Catholics seems
Muslim
to be the highest percentage
consisting New Jersey with Jewish

protestants being the second Orthodox

most
Mormon
 New Jersey is more diverse than
Catholic
Utah since Jew, Muslim, and
Hindu churches seem to be a bit Protestant
more common
Evangelical Christian
 Christianity is more dominate in
Christian
New Jersey
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80%

New Jersey Utah

 Demographic Comparison: Utah vs.
Nation
• The nation consists of only Unafilliated
about 2% Mormon, with 55%
Hindu
LDS consisting in Utah
Buddhist
• A good majority of the overall Muslim
nation is some form of
Christian Jewish

Orthodox
• Altogether, U.S. doesn’t rank
Mormon
very much higher than Utah
when it comes to diversity in Catholic
religion. However, the
Protestant
percentage of Jews is a bit
higher when compared to the Evangelical Christian

entire Nation rather than just Christian

Utah
0.00% 10.00% 20.00% 30.00% 40.00% 50.00% 60.00% 70.00% 80.00%

Nation Utah
 Conclusion
With America being about 70% Christian and 20% Unaffiliated that only leaves
approximately 10% in other religions. Although there is an internal diversity of
Christian denominations. The U.S. is classified as “moderate” in terms of
diversity in religion.
Advantages:
• It gives a sense of unity
• Less conflicts due to disagreements and differences from opposing religions.

Disadvantages
• People will tend to be less open-minded to other cultures and religions
• It becomes the norm to only be exposed to a few religions
• Increases the tendency of social injustices and inequalities
  As a group, we visited two places
Explore & of worship – A Christian religion
and a non-Christian religion. While

Discover at these churches we observed

and researched their practices.
The First Unitarian Church
Christian Church Visit:
The First Unitarian
Church
 The Unitarian Church was
built upon Christian
Values
 Very helpful to the Black
and LGBTQ+
Communities
 Liberal
 Shared stories of
protesting
 Honor religious
denominations that
made Utah their home.
 In 1921 the Church was
celebrating its 30th year
in Utah, when the “This Is
the Place” Monument
was established.
The Sikh Temple
Non-Christian Church
Visit: The Sikh Temple
 We visited the Sikh
Temple
 The Sikh Temple isn’t on
the demographic map
 We only saw people of
color at the temple.
 They put the “Holy
Book” to bed every night
and wake it up every
morning.
 The Holy Book is
considered a prophet
which was written by the
previous prophets.
 Discoveries
 We expected to find a higher ratio of LDS saints in our area and wanted to
see the differences between the majority and minority. Its exactly what we
expected to find a higher ratio in our area and our state.
 We Discovered a lot about our religious landscape and the beliefs and
practices they partake in. It was surprising to see how the Sikh Treat the
“Holy Book” like it’s alive and has a soul. They have about a 20 min ritual
where they put the book to sleep in its own bed. They repeat this in the
morning wake the book up at 5:30 am.
 Moving Forward
 The statistics will probably stay the same. Considering social media and
technology advancements and the beliefs of the Millennials as the new
generation grows older, we might see a decrease in religious practices.
 People are more focused on spirituality and don’t have much time for a
religious service. Focusing on their own spirituality is more important than
travelling to a congregation.
 Works Cited
 https://www.statista.com/statistics/221454/share-of-religious-americans-by-s
tate/

 https://www.google.com/maps/search/church+around+me+within+a+5+mil
e+radius+salt+lake+communty+college/@40.6746755,-111.9475339,13z
 https://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/state/utah/
 https://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/
 https://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/state/new-jersey/