I might note that this hierarchy is not as rigid as it used to be in much of the South. It still holds in much of Virginia (not Northern VA or the Hampton Roads area) where the old social hierarchy based on "FFV"s (first families of Virginia) still holds to some extent. The FFVs are still Episcopalian. I think you'll find something like this still in South Carolina as well, where the old Tory Tidewater crowd still puffs itself up.
In New England it is of course the Congregationalists (and in some locales the Unitarians) who play the role that the Episcopalians do in much of the South, as the descendents of the original ruling Puritans.
I also think that today the old origins of being Calvinist or non-Calvinist have become relatively unimportant. As I noted, the Presbyterians and Congregationalists and United Church of Christ are all Calvinist in origin, whereas the others are not. But clearly today such divisions as "mainline Protestant" versus "fundamentalist" (or "evanglelical" or a host of other such designations) is much more important. The mainliners, which would include the Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Lutherans, and Methodists, but probably not the Southern Baptists, tend to be more politically moderate and also somewhat more upper middle class, with, again in some of the South the old hierarchy within these still holding.
But in some areas (Texas) the Southern Baptists are now doing very well economically, at least some of them, even if their theology and politics are of another breed. Barkley Rosser -----Original Message----- From: Rkmickey at aol.com <Rkmickey at aol.com> To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Date: Tuesday, September 28, 1999 10:27 PM Subject: Re: death list
>
>J. Barkley Rosser, Jr, wrote:
>
>
> > The traditional class hierarchy of churches
>>in the US South is Episcopalians (Church of England),
>>Presbyterians (Scots), Methodists (Low Church of
>>England), and then the Baptists.
>
>One description of this hierarchy goes:
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>A Methodist is a Baptist who wears shoes.
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>A Presbyterian is a Methodist who went to college.
>
>An Episcopalian is a Presbyterian who lives on his investments.
>
>K. Mickey
>