Mississippi has 120 PCA congregation and Louisiana just 17
Mississippi used to be part of Georgia. Louisiana used to be part of France.
That's rich!
Bingo. The French Catholic influence is huge.
But not really in North Louisiana, which has basically always been Protestant. The French colonies tended to be very sparsely populated compared to English ones. The only area that had a significant population was New Orleans. The Acadians then migrated to parts of South Louisiana, but that didn't impact most of Central Louisiana, much less the North. To some degree, until the 60's, they were sort of second class citizens who were barred from speaking their language in schools, etc, which is one reason why fewer and fewer people can really speak it today.
I don't know what the percentages were in LA compared to MS, etc, but as settlement moved West, there tended to be fewer Presbyterians and Episcopalians and more Baptists and Methodists due to the latter having less formal educational requirements (if any) at the time. There aren't many PCA congregations in Arkansas either. There aren't dates listed for all of the Arkansas churches, but the PCA Historical Center only lists one that predates 1974.
Another guess I have is that the churches were less doctrinally sound on average by the mid-20th Century compared to other states on average. I don't know about the rest of the state, but that probably explains things in New Orleans, which had a fairly sizeable Presbytery at one time, with the notable Southern Presbyterian leader Benjamin Morgan Palmer being pastor of First Presbyterian for many years. A lot of those congregations have either shut down or else are down to a few dozen people at this point, which is typical of many current and former PCUSA congregations throughout the country.
Race and the Civil Rights struggle may have also been a factor. Louisiana was certainly segregated like the rest of the South. Indeed, Plessy vs. Ferguson was a case that originated in New Orleans. Prior to that, we were one of the last 3 states from which federal troops were withdrawn following the Civil War. But with the exception of the likes of Leander Perez there wasn't quite the level of Massive Resistance here that you had in several other states. I don't know that the Confederate battle flag flew in any kind of official capacity in LA following Brown vs the Board of Education. The most staunch segregationist candidates for Governor failed to be elected. It seems that at the lay level at least, the prospect of the PCUS forcing the churches to integrate and admit blacks into membership may have played at least much of a role in leaving for the PCA as theological liberalism did. It appears that secessionist (from the PCUS) fervor burned a bit hotter in states like MS, AL, and SC.
These are just the educated guesses of a man who wasn't there at the time. Perhaps someone who has more intimate knowledge could weigh in. Given the subject matter, this is the kind of thread that is likely come up in Google searches for some time to come.
Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk
