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States & Territories

Indiana

Midwest

New Harmony, on the Wabash River, was built first by the German Pietist Harmony Society under George Rapp beginning in 1814 and sold in 1825 to the Welsh industrialist Robert Owen, who turned it into a secular utopian experiment, making the same small town home to two of the country's most ambitious communal religious and social projects within a decade. Richmond, in eastern Indiana, became a center of American Quakerism, home to Earlham College, a Quaker foundation. The state also saw a large Ku Klux Klan revival in the 1920s that drew heavily on Protestant nativist rhetoric.

Facts
Religion
Leading Religious Affiliation
Evangelical Protestant 2
Indiana: Evangelical Protestant is 32% of adults. Margin of error plus or minus 5.0 points. Source: https://www.pewresearch.org/religious-landscape-study/state/indiana/
Geography
Census Region
Midwest 1
Law and State
Establishment Status
No Establishment 1
Indiana has had no established church since its admission as a state in 1816.
Identity
Jurisdiction Status
U.S. state 1
Origins
Origin of the Name
Coined to mean land of the Indians, marking the territory's status as land opened to American settlement from Native nations. 1
Learn More
A Celibate Vow That Emptied the Society by 1905

George Rapp's Harmony Society, a German Pietist communal sect that held all property in common, built New Harmony on the Wabash River beginning in 1814 to await what its members believed was an imminent Second Coming. Two years into the settlement the Society formally adopted celibacy, a commitment members had begun observing informally even earlier, and that decision quietly determined the community's long term fate more than anything Rapp preached about the millennium. Rapp sold New Harmony to the Welsh industrialist Robert Owen in 1825 and led the Society back to Pennsylvania, where they built Economy, but a celibate religious community has no next generation of its own, and by the early twentieth century Economy's membership had dwindled to a handful of aging believers. The Harmony Society formally dissolved in 1905, on the exact hundredth anniversary of its founding, its remaining assets distributed among its last members rather than any religious body inheriting them.

New Harmony itself changed character entirely once Owen took it over, becoming a secular utopian social experiment rather than a religious one, so the same small Indiana town hosted two of the country's most ambitious communal projects within a single decade under two completely different founding logics. Richmond's Quaker community, centered on Earlham College, and a large 1920s Ku Klux Klan revival drawing on Protestant nativist rhetoric round out a state where Evangelical Protestant identification runs to thirty two percent of adults per Pew's 2023-24 study.

Connections

Associated With

Christian Brotherhood Hour, Broadcast Work

This source names Indiana directly: "Park Place Church of God in Anderson, Indiana."

Source Christian Brotherhood Hour Archives (Church of God Ministries)
Christian Brotherhood Hour Archives (Church of God Ministries), Sources

This source names Indiana directly: "The Church of God (Anderson, Indiana)'s own ministry site, confirming the Christian Brotherhood Hour and its successor Christians Broadcasting Hope as the denomination's continuing radio ministry."

Source Christian Brotherhood Hour Archives (Church of God Ministries)
Farther Along, Musical Works

This source names Indiana directly: "by the Church of God (Anderson, Indiana)'s own Gospel Trumpet Company press and there credited only as "Arr."

Source Farther Along (song) (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors
Farther Along (song) (Wikipedia), Sources

This source names Indiana directly: "Gospel Trumpet Company of Anderson, Indiana, crediting the song only as "Arr."

Source Farther Along (song) (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors
George Brandon, Santeria from Africa to the New World: The Dead Sell Memories, Sources

This source names Indiana directly: "academic monograph published in Indiana University Press's Blacks in the Diaspora series, and it remains a standard scholarly account of how specific orisha came to be identified with specific..."

Source George Brandon, Santeria from Africa to the New World: The Dead Sell MemoriesGeorge Brandon
Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod, Denominations

This source names Indiana directly: "congregations across Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, New York, Ohio and Wisconsin signed a constitution founding the German Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio and Other States."

Source About The LCMS (LCMS.org)
Mennonite Central Committee, Organizations

This source names Indiana directly: "Street Mennonite Church in Elkhart, Indiana, to bring famine relief to Mennonites in southern Russia, present-day Ukraine."

Source Mennonite Central Committee (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors
Mennonite Central Committee (Wikipedia), Sources

This source names Indiana directly: "Street Mennonite Church in Elkhart, Indiana on 27 to 28 July 1920 to form a provisional committee to bring famine relief to Mennonites in southern Russia (present-day Ukraine), holding its first..."

Source Mennonite Central Committee (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors
The Euro-Asia Division Ends Soviet-Era Isolation For Adventism, Spread Events

This source names Indiana directly: "World Congress held that year in Indianapolis, Indiana, and elected Mikhail P."

Source Mikhail P. Kulakov (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors
The Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod, Organizes in Chicago, Spread Events

This source names Indiana directly: "fourteen congregations from Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Michigan, New York and Ohio met in Chicago and signed a constitution founding the German Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio and..."

Source About The LCMS (LCMS.org)
The Root Causes of Sudan's Civil Wars (Johnson), Sources

This source names Indiana directly: "Wars, published by James Currey and Indiana University Press in 2003."

Source The Root Causes of Sudan's Civil Wars (Johnson)Douglas H. Johnson
Who Are Ismaili Muslims and How Do Their Beliefs Relate to the Aga Khan's Work? (The Conversation, Siddiqui, 2025), Sources

This source names Indiana directly: "Professor of Philanthropic Studies at Indiana University, published 2025-02-17, on Ismaili Muslim beliefs and the Aga Khan's work, stating an estimated 15 million Nizari Ismaili Muslims live in 35..."

Source Who Are Ismaili Muslims and How Do Their Beliefs Relate to the Aga Khan's Work? (The Conversation, Siddiqui, 2025)Shariq Siddiqui

Regions Where This Is Principal

Evangelicalism, Denominations

Plurality religious identification among the state's adults per the source's survey.

Source Pew Research Center: 2023-24 Religious Landscape StudyPew Research Center

Spread Events Here

The World Pentecostal Assemblies of God Fellowship Forms in Indianapolis, Spread Events
Source History of WAGF (World AG Fellowship)
Sources
1. Encyclopaedia Britannica (online academic reference)
Encyclopaedia Britannica editors, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 2024View the Source
2. Pew Research Center: 2023-24 Religious Landscape Study
Pew Research Center, Pew Research Center, 2025View the Source
A Religious History of the American People
Sydney E. Ahlstrom, Yale University Press, 1972View the Source
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