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Sunday, September 19, 1999
Religion found room to grow in New Mexico
By Paul Logan
Journal Staff Writer
The deeply rooted pueblo culture and plenty of elbowroom helped New Mexico embrace a rich religious diversity during the latter part of the millennium.
Indians had practiced their religious ceremonies and beliefs long before Spanish Franciscans came four centuries ago to claim souls for the Catholic Church. Several hundred years later, other mainline denominations followed and, more recently, New Age and alternative religions.
Still, Catholicism was the dominant cultural force through much of the 20th century, according to Ferenc Szasz, a University of New Mexico history professor.
"But it was a relatively mild cultural dominance in that under the Catholic umbrella, there was still room for everybody," he said.
The state's vastness, coupled with a small, scattered population, gave Protestant and other religions the chance to grow, Szasz said.
As the spiritual community expanded, it resembled a mosaic, according to one historian. Symbolized by a piece of colored glass, each faith found its place in New Mexico's mortar, creating a religious picture and presence unseen elsewhere in the West.
Preaching tolerance
The northern Rio Grande Valley, spiritual center of this faith diversity, is considered one of the West's more tolerant religious areas.
This accepting attitude arises from pueblo cultures, according to Steve Fox, assistant director of the New Mexico Endowment for the Humanities.
Fox said he credits the pueblos "because their basic stance has always been to acknowledge spiritual power from other sources. And because they had to fight so hard to keep their own religious traditions."
Due to the pueblos' tenacity, he said, Catholic and Protestant churches were prevented from taking the extreme position of "stamping the pueblo people out."
Instead, Fox said, churches had to acknowledge that pueblos had "beauty and power and that incredible variety of things that you see and hear at pueblo dances ... a constant reminder there are many ways to the divine."
In the late 1960s, alternative spiritual communities began forming in the state. He said some New Mexicans thought these communities were the result of a sudden influx of rootless, deluded and highly educated people.
"But it really was an extension of what was going on beginning in the 1890s when the artists started coming here," Fox said. "And it wasn't just artists. . . It was people interested in Hispanic and Indian cultures because they seemed to be alternatives to the conformity of the American melting pot."
Along the way, he said, some of the so-called alternative religions turned out to be local manifestations of the world religions of Buddhism, Hinduism and Sikhism.
Asian religions become more democratic on American soil. Also, there's less trust in authority here, so that "gurus" are not able to be the law unto themselves, Fox said.
For example, women are rising to the level of teacher and leader in various Buddhist centers. In Asia and most other places where Buddhism is practiced, such happenings are far less likely, he said.
Meditation instructors from these groups have taught their skills to Catholics and Protestants in the past decade. This is an example of how the faith mosaic has become more connected, Fox said.
Only in New Mexico can a person see a Tibetan Buddhist religious building almost surrounded by a Shalom trailer park, as on Airport Road in Santa Fe, he said.
"It's not like, say, the Tower of Babel or block after block of different storefront churches you might find in L.A. or Chicago," Fox said. "But it's almost like for a lot of people it seems to be more like a sacred precinct with room for different groups to have retreat centers, mountain meditation centers."
Building society
Early in this century, churches provided some necessary services to the public because the state was too poor to supply them, Szasz said.
Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian and Catholic churches set up health-care operations for patients with tuberculosis, he said. The latter two persevered, becoming St. Joseph and Presbyterian hospitals.
Churches also furnished much of the "social infrastructure" during the past 100 years, he said, including schools and orphanages.
Szasz said those religious-based outreach programs, especially educational and medical assistance, were "essential to the fabric of life."
"Westerners are practical," he said. "When churches contribute to the common good, they're given their respect."
At one point, the Presbyterian Church funded more than 50 one-teacher schools in northern New Mexico and southern Colorado. Although tensions existed because the area also had many Catholic schools, the two faiths co-existed because there was plenty of work for teachers, he said.
As public schools opened and roads and bus transportation improved, Presbyterian schools were phased out. Only the Menaul School in Albuquerque remains. Meanwhile, Catholic schools were consolidated, he said.
In the 1940s, Catholic religious orders taught in some public schools. But, Szasz said the Baptist church challenged the setup in the courts and won, based on the separation of church and state.
During this period following World War II, Baptist memberships began to rise. The church jumped past other denominations to become the state's largest Protestant group, Szasz said.
Baptists moved to New Mexico, especially along the Texas border, he said, and the church also staged some "aggressive evangelical campaigns," including in Glorieta, where there is a major retreat center near Santa Fe.
However, some of the mainline churches have lost members in recent decades. Meanwhile, nondenominational churches, such as Calvary Chapel and Church of The Rock, have enjoyed rapid growth, said Dick Etulain, a UNM history professor and director of the Center for the American West.
"They're all evangelical kinds of groups. ..." Etulain said. "They're mostly Billy Graham-like, not being tied to a particular denomination."
He said the Salvation Army is one of the most successful religious groups to combine an emphasis on personal religious faith and an emphasis on what used to be called the social gospel -- outreaching to people with socioeconomic needs.
Church of the future
What awaits the state's religious community in the next millennium?
Etulain said major changes usually come as the result of a dramatic event or trend, such as World War II this century.
If the state attracts more giant industries, similar to Intel, or another major war occurs, the resulting economic changes would have an effect on religious groups, he said. "If not, we'll build on trends that are probably already occurring."
Since most people of Asian alternative religions converted as adults, Fox said there's a question as to whether members' children will follow in their footsteps.
"If the alternative groups survive the doubts of the second generation, the ecumenical atmosphere of the northern Rio Grande Valley will be maintained and even get a little more open," he said, "because all the religious groups realize that any religion is better than no religion."
Szasz said mainstream society seems to be becoming increasingly secular, prompting churches to find a common bond with one another.
If churches are "the outsiders" in the next century, they also will emphasize common themes more than they have in the past, he said.
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