Like the majority of American cities, Louisville is dominated by the presence of Christian churches. Visitors often remark on the number of churches they will pass in a given neighborhood, and many wonder at the variety of styles that define Louisville’s houses of worship. Redbrick structures of Gothic proportions, shining megachurches, steeples rising over sanctuaries that seem to have been plucked from the New England countryside, limestone masterpieces that resemble baroque opera houses more than churches, Mission-style roofs with walls of glazed brick—these are some of the images conjured up by the mention of Louisville churches. It seems almost as if influences from all corners of the globe have shaped the spiritual landscape in this city, at least architecturally speaking. Louisville is, however, a Christian town.
Although a number of synagogues—and even a Hindu temple—dot the community, a drive through town reveals a variety of houses of worship dedicated to the city’s two main religious groups: Roman Catholics and Southern Baptists. In 1781 the Baptists had their first church in Kentucky, in Bardstown, and Squire Boone, the brother of Daniel Boone, reportedly traveled to Louisville to spread the news soon thereafter. The city’s first Baptist church—the Baptist Church of the Beargrass—was founded in 1784 by Reverend John Whitaker; since then, it has been the dominant faith in the Derby City. A year later Roman Catholics, branching out from Maryland, established the first parish in Bardstown in what was considered “the West” back then, gradually making their way to Louisville. Influxes of Catholic immigrants from Ireland and Germany in the mid-1800s would solidify the presence of Catholicism in Kentucky’s largest city.
During its early years, Louisville was considered a rough-and-tumble town where, as one Episcopalian minister supposedly said in 1820, “much caprice and indifference toward religion prevailed.” A number of brothels catered to the needs of itinerant frontiersmen and workers in the city’s burgeoning industries, many of which would include a dedication to vices such as drinking, smoking, and gambling. Given the prevalence of whiskey distilling, tobacco farming, and horse racing in Kentucky’s history, it’s hardly surprising that many came to see its largest metropolitan center as “America’s Original Sin City.” Long before Las Vegas, long before other naughty towns that developed a reputation for gratifying vices, there was Louisville.
Men of the cloth were needed to civilize the rowdy, morally lax river town. Louisville Presbyterians welcomed their first minister in 1800, and it would be a Presbyterian who officiated at the funeral of city founder George Rogers Clark in 1818. In 1988 the Presbyterian Church USA made their headquarters here in a huge renovated building on the waterfront. Asa Shinn, a roaming Methodist preacher, arrived in 1806 and took on the added challenge of converting Native Americans in the area. Methodists were largely successful in this endeavor, and also attracted large numbers of African Americans. Methodists, like Presbyterians, still constitute a sizable part of the population.
Their Protestant comrades, the Lutherans, didn’t arrive to establish a church until after the Civil War, and it is one of the less-visible denominations in Louisville today. During the years leading up to the Civil War, the congregations of local churches reflected the political divisiveness that overwhelmed the nation. Many churches split along southern or northern lines, and this is when groups like the Southern Baptists were born.
This is also the period when Protestants and Catholics alike began erecting large-scale buildings that would reflect the region’s ethnic heritage, as well as a desire to monumentalize their faiths. The neo-Gothic Cathedral of the Assumption was built downtown on Fifth Street in 1852, and with its towering spire, it was said to be the tallest cathedral in the country at that time. St. John’s Evangelical Church (1867) at 637 East Market Street and St. Martin of Tours (1853) at 639 South Shelby Street have detailed interiors that are the product of German woodcarvers and artisans.
Not long thereafter, institutions dedicated to the education of religious men began to appear in Louisville as well. In 1877, a massive structure with Flemish spires and gables went up on Broadway to accommodate the faculty and student body of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. The school, one of the largest of its kind in the world, would later move to its current location at 2825 Lexington Road. Students graduate from this seminary with degrees in theology, Christian education, social work, and church music, but in recent years some students have been disappointed to see a distinct swing to the right in the seminary’s leanings.
Some twenty years later, the Presbyterians would also use Broadway for the location of an impressive seminary building, one that still stands today as part of Jefferson Community College. They, like the Southern Baptists, moved to Lexington Road in search of more space. By the time the Presbyterian Theological Seminary was built, a number of synagogues could be found in downtown Louisville as well. Jews had already become a permanent fixture on the city’s religious scene by the 1880s, when Eastern Europeans began arriving on the banks of the Ohio. It was said that at one time, Yiddish was heard more frequently than English on Preston Street, a main thoroughfare for Jewish commerce, and “going out Preston way” became local jargon for dying because of the Jewish cemetery located at the end of the street. There were also so many people of the Jewish faith in Butchertown that for a while, it was known as “Jerusalem.” Today, the Jewish community consists of nearly 10,000 people served by five synagogues. Jewish immigrants founded Jewish Hospital, which was once the center of the city’s Jewish district; today, it’s considered one of the nation’s best heart and lung treatment centers. In recent years non-Judeo-Christian religions have begun leaving their mark on Louisville. Kentucky’s only Hindu temple opened in suburban Louisville in 1999, and has several hundred members and two full-time priests. There are an estimated 10,000 Muslims practicing in Louisville at the moment, with a total of six local mosques.
Modern Louisville is often seen as a model for interfaith cooperation among U.S. cities, and membership in the Kentuckiana Interfaith Community includes churches, synagogues, the Board of Rabbis, the Catholic Archdiocese, the African Methodist Episcopalian Church, Presbyterian Church USA, the Indiana-Kentucky Synod/Evangelical Church, and others. It remains nonetheless a predominantly Protestant community, and far from its days as a religiously indifferent and capricious town, Louisville has incorporated Christianity into the social and political life of its residents. African-American pastors in the West End drum up rallies whenever there’s a case of perceived police brutality, and Catholic schools have come to be known for the quality education they provide. Southeast Christian Church, a megachurch in the East End known as “Six Flags over Jesus” to many locals, boasts weekly attendance of 18,000 members and has facilities that rival those of local universities. Having established two satellite churches in the Louisville Metro area, it is Kentucky’s largest church—and the sixth largest in the nation—and its conservative brand of Protestantism always plays a significant role in local elections.
Given its sometimes turbulent past regarding religion—on “Bloody Monday,” August 6, 1855, at least 22 Irish and German immigrants were killed in anti-Catholic riots in downtown areas—Louisville has come a long way as far as tolerance is concerned. Despite its location in the Bible Belt, Louisville is a place where people keep largely to themselves where religion is concerned.