Kjirstin Patterick

Dr. Cristina Rosetti

Religious Diversity

April 5, 2021

My Religious Landscape Worksheets

Gathering Data: Record your findings in % and cite your sources

Location: Utah, Herriman Utah, Texas and the U.S.

Why this location: I choose to do the city of which I live in Herriman, as well as Utah. For the
other state I decided to choose Texas because there are lots of different religions and churches the
closer you get to the south.

What I expect to find: The majority of religion in Utah to be Christian as well as form the Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints because their head quarters are based out of Utah. I expect to
find a lot more religions in Texas as well as the whole U.S.

How I am going to approach this project (methods, tools, responsibilities etc.):

For this project I am going to research by looking at google to see what websites will help me.
As well as google maps to see if that will help me.

My Findings for the Neighborhood: Herriman, Utah

Christianity:

Catholic: 3/40 which is 7.5%

Protestant: 1/40 which is 2.5%%%%%%

 Orthodox: 0%

Other Christian (identify): The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints- 36/40 which
is 90%

Islam: 0%

Hindu: 0%

Buddhism: 0%

Judaism: 0%

Other Non-Christian: 0%

What surprised you about this religious landscape?

It surprised me that there wasn’t a lot of other religions like Buddhism or Hinduism. But it kinda
makes sense because a there are a lot of other religions churches, masques, and worship centers
closer to Salt Lake City.

What seemed ordinary about this religious landscape?

The thing to me that seems the most ordinary about this religious landscape is how many
religions round me are christian especially from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
because there are so many churches.

My Findings for Utah

Christianity: 73%

Catholic: 5%
 Protestant: 13%

Orthodox: 1%

Other Christian (identify): The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: 55%,
Evangelicals: 7%

Islam: 1%

Hindu: 1%

Buddhism: 1%

Judaism: 1%

Other Non-Christian: 1%

What surprised you about this religious landscape?

The thing that seemed to surprise me the most about these percentages is the fact that there are
very little religions besides Christianity in Utah. I guess I thought that the percentages of other
religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism would be higher. I used to live in the deep south of
Louisiana for a few years and noticed that all the people in the south really love Jesus and are
mainly Christian. But it’s interesting that people in Utah, since the majority are Christian don’t
express their religion like they do in Louisiana.

What seemed ordinary about this religious landscape?

The thing that seemed pretty ordinary was the fact that Christianity was about over half of the
religious percentage in Utah. I thought for sure with other religions and the diversity in Utah it
would be lower so the other percentage of different religions could be higher.
My Findings for Texas

Christianity:

Catholic: 21.1%

Protestant: 8.1%

Orthodox: 0.1%

Other Christian (identify): The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: 1%, Southern
baptist: 16.88%, Church of Christ: 1.81%, Assembly of God: 1.1%

Islam: 0.55%

Hindu: 2%

Buddhism: 0%

Judaism: 1%

Other Non-Christian: Non- denominational Christian: 6.15%

What surprised you about this religious landscape?

The thing that is surprising compared to my research above from Utah is the fact that there are
very little to no other religions besides christian. Like the fact that Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism
and Judaism is basically 2% or less.

What seemed ordinary about this religious landscape?

The thing that seemed the most ordinary to me was how many Christian denominations there are
because Texas is closer to the Bible belt which is more a majority, more christian.
My Findings for the U.S.

Christianity: 70.6%

Catholic: 20.8%

Protestant: 46.5%

Orthodox: 1%

Other Christian (identify): The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: 1.6%,
Jehovah’s Witnesses: 0.8%,

Islam: 1%

Hindu: 0.7%

Buddhism: 0.7%

Judaism: 1.9%

Other Non-Christian: 1.8%

What surprised you about this religious landscape?

The think that surprised me form this landscape of the United States is that there are 6% of
people that are none Christian which was a surprisingly higher number than I expected.

What seemed ordinary about this religious landscape?

The thing that seemed ordinary to me and stood out the most was that the majority of Christians
are Protestant. Because I feel like you do not hear or see of that often.
Sources:

https://www.yellowpages.com/herriman-ut/catholic-churches

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_religious_populations

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Utah

https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-religious-demographics-of-texas.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Texas

https://texasalmanac.com/topics/religion/religious-affiliation-
texas#:~:text=According%20to%20the%202010%20U.S.,national%20average%20is%2048.8%2
0percent.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_the_United_States

Once you complete the worksheet, answer the following prompts in 200 words each:

1. Religious diversity and pluralism is about more than just "seeing" diversity. How much of
the diversity you witnessed is visible in community participation. What does your
community (local and state), do to encourage diversity and interfaith acuity? What are some
examples?

I totally believe with the statement above that “religious diversity and pluralism is more than just
“seeing” diversity.” I think that because a lot of religious diversity is all around us and sometime
we can’t really see it or tell. It become almost blind to our eyes. But diversity can become visible
as well really look around and see those religions in our community that are different then the
religion we are used too participating in. Growing up my family and I would always support
other religions as well as those who were another faith then us. We would support their food
drives, blood drives or anything else to support them. We would go to catholic churches for the
Christmas Eve celebration for years in a row until covid happened. And I’ve been to many other
churches that I am not a part of to be able to learn and experience what others believe in. I am
grateful for those experiences I have had to be able to really diverse myself into other religions. I
would say a lot of people in the community do diverse themselves in religions even though a lot
of Herriman is 0-1% and others like Christianity are a lot higher. But it shows that we get to
choose for ourselves and not all be in one religion. I would say that my community and state
support and encourage diversity by following the first amendment, which is the freedom of
religion. Because like I said the majority is Christian but not all of one Christian denomination.
My state also allows religions to hold big events such as the color festival in Salam Utah and
General Conference for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and big events at local
Masques and Cathedrals.

2. How do you think Utah is embracing religious diversity? Do we embrace diversity? Do we

ignore it? Could we do more? If so, what could we do?

I think Utah is for the majority doing a good job at embracing religious diversity. There are a lot
of different religions here for the most part. Even though the facts and percentages that I found
are about 1% on some religions such as Orthodox, Islam, and Hinduism. So I would say we do
embrace religious diversity well with a lot of different religions, and a majority of christian
realigns but still more than one is in Utah. I would say we do not necessarily ignore diversity
because people can choose for themselves what religion they would like to be a part of or what
they believe in. But I would say that we could probably do more to embrace diversity in Utah. It
is funny to me that even though the head quarters for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints is in Utah most people automatically think that everyone is a part of that religion. But I
think we need to do a better job at accepting others religions and beliefs. Because out of
percentages from my landscape project up above show us that the majority of Utah is
Christianity at 77%. That means the other 23% are other religions which seems small compared
to 77%. But is large compared to other states or the U.S. as a whole.

3. What do you predict the future of religion in America will look like? What about Utah?

I predict the future of region in America to have lots of different religions. Because I feel like
more and more now days, lots of people are creating their own churches. You see new churches
every where pop up. And I feel like it is way more than how many churches used to be around,
even like five years ago. I think it is because a lot of people have a lot of different views and
opinions that they are invested to let people know, and a lot of people follow others now days. So
when one wants to start a new religion or church they tend to bring lots of friends and then the
idea can spread. I feel like in Utah there a lots of religions the closer you get to downtown. There
are a few catholic churches as well as masques, and then the head quarters to the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints. But the majority of the world is Christian. So I think America in the
future will become more Christian as well as Utah, even though the majority of Utah is already
Christian. I think in the future it will be greater than it is now.