The term American West generally calls forth a kaleidoscope of larger-than-life images: the Grand Canyon, Yosemite and Yellowstone, the California Redwoods, Mt. St. Helens, Chaco Canyon, Mesa Verde, the Oregon coastline, the Great Plains, the Rocky Mountains, Canyon Country, Billy the Kid, Calamity Jane, Wild Bill Hickcock, Buffalo Bill, Santa Fe, Tombstone, Las Vegas, the recent "battle of Seattle," and everybody's choice for the prototypical city of the twenty-first century: Los Angeles.

But there is something missing from this panorama—any mention of religion or spirituality. For most people, religion and the great American West run on separate tracks.

This view needs revising. From the onset, religion has played a central role in shaping the West, and it continues to do so today. In fact, historians who write exclusively about a secular West have left a very important factor out of the equation.

Let's start with the indigenous groups. All the region's Native Americans place their spiritual traditions at the heart of their cultural world-views. From 1598 to 1798, Franciscan friars were the sole ordained clergy in all of New Mexico, and the Franciscan presence still looms large today in California and the Southwest. From the early 1840s to c. 1870, the histories of Utah and the Latter-day Saints were virtually identical, a situation that still holds true in a number of isolated Utah communities. Jewish immigrants to the West encountered far less prejudice than they did in either the East or the South, and Jews served as mayors and/or governors of several turn-of-the-century western locales—including a term as governor of New Mexico's Acoma Pueblo—well before they assumed similar positions in New York or Illinois. The Episcopal Cathedrals in Boise and Laramie, the Boston Avenue Methodist Church in Tulsa, and Trinity Methodist Church in Denver still anchor their respective city centers. While their functions may have shifted over time, these urban churches remain vital to their communities. The list could easily be extended.

All right, you might say, I will concede that the religious theme has often been overlooked in the saga of the American West. But over the last century, what precisely did all those churches do?

Here the answer is multifaceted. In one sense—proclaiming their version of the faith—the church mission has changed little over time. But "proclaiming the faith" in a western context has always transcended mere words. Faced with a raw, basically unstructured society, western churches immediately established both programs and institutions to embody their message. Since western life has changed so drastically over the last century, these programs and institutions have naturally followed suit.

This shift may be clearly seen in three "freeze-frame" vignettes of modern western life: the fin de siecle era, c. 1890-1910; the bleak years of the Great Depression; and the post-1960s "spiritual revolution." While western church commitment to sustaining a proper moral order remained constant during these periods, the techniques varied with the demands of the day.

The Fin de Siecle

Although Catholic and Protestant churches sent missionaries westward before the Civil War—especially to California, the Southwest, and Oregon Territory—it was not until the arrival of the railroad in the late 1860s that clergy and parishioners traveled west in any great numbers. There is an old adage that "the Baptists came on foot, the Methodists in a Conestoga wagon, the Presbyterians rode the train, and the Episcopalians arrived in a Pullman car," but this comment reflects social class far more than it does historical reality. Actually, Protestant clergy from all the mainline denominations arrived in various parts of the West at approximately the same time. Each enjoyed its share of delivering the "first" sermons for the area and founding "First" (Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, etc.) churches.

But if all the prominent Protestant churches went somewhere, no denomination had the resources to go everywhere. Very conscious of their minority status, western clergy soon began to seek out common ground with other ministers. In New Mexico and Utah the Protestants established comity agreements, and many early churches shared buildings and/or pastors. At times they crossed conventional boundaries, as when the Episcopal and Presbyterian churches of Amarillo housed early Jewish services and the Episcopal priest in El Paso loaned money to several Jewish merchants. Their kindness was reciprocated. In Deming, N.M., the lone Jewish retailer paid his share of the lone (Episcopal) clergyman's salary. Such cooperation would not likely have been duplicated east of the Mississippi.

All through the region, the western churches served as a major source of culture and entertainment. Due to the isolated nature of ranching and farming, genuine "frontier" conditions persisted among the rural churches long after they had disappeared from other regions. Because of this "scatteration," as one cleric phrased it, the local church often became a key center of fun and fellowship. With the exception of the railroad, individual travel remained horse and buggy well into the late 1930s. With few movies and only local radio, the men and women of the rural West had to create their own entertainment until well after the World War II era.

The churches lay at the heart of this social world. In 1891, for example, the Presbyterian ladies of Laramie invited the entire town to their "pink tea" supper festival. In 1902, the Phoenix Presbyterian Church boasted only 16 members but it still staged a monthly social event for the entire community. Black churches often celebrated Juneteenth—the end of slavery—in a similar fashion.

These western festivities took on a variety of forms. The Presbyterian women of Kadoka, South Dakota, sold dinners to the public on both Circus Day and Election Day. Their counterparts in Oklahoma City provided meals at the state fair. In Amarillo, the First Presbyterian Church staged a full-costumed production of the Mikado. In the early 1920s in Rawlins, Wyoming, Presbyterian Rev. James Fraser, described as a "regular fellow," donned boxing gloves and fought with the rector of the Episcopal church as entertainment for the Rawlins Lion's Club.

The church festivals, cake sales, Christmas celebrations, and potluck suppers—often serving such exotic foods as oysters or ice cream—offered "proper" entertainment, raised money, and provided needed fellowship. "Everyone had a good time and the church fund was swelled somewhat," reads a typical account.

On another level, the various denominations also created the West's first social institutions. When one thinks about it, the churches were really the only organizations that had the finances and personnel to do so. Thus, many early western schools, hospitals, orphanages, and the like had some religious link.

Western hospitals reflected this theme to perfection. It is no exaggeration to say that, excluding the U.S. Army facilities, virtually every regional hospital was founded by some religious group. The church-run hospitals in rural or mining areas functioned on a modest scale, and eventually most of them disappeared. The religious organizations in the larger cities, however, had both a stronger financial base and a critical mass of people. In these cities many church-founded institutions remain active. Presbyterian and St. Joseph's (Catholic) dominate central New Mexico health care today, as do St. Luke's (Episcopal) and St. Alphonsus (Catholic) in Boise. Amarillo, Denver, and countless other cities still rely heavily on similar church-founded institutions.

Finally, the various denominations vied with one another to establish western denominational colleges and theological schools to train the next generation of leadership. Church leaders insisted on this because they felt that eastern clergy seldom did well in a western setting. Thus, the Congregationalists established Colorado College in Colorado Springs, the Methodists Iliff in Denver and the Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. The Disciples of Christ established the Berkeley Bible Seminary in California and the Brite Divinity School in Abilene. The Episcopalians established the Church Divinity School of the Pacific in Berkeley, and the Baptists numerous Texas seminaries. Presbyterians founded the San Francisco Theological Seminary in 1891, which later moved to Marin County to become one of the key institutions of the region. In 1915, the Pacific Theological Seminary in Berkeley (Congregational) became interdenominational and changed its name to the Pacific School of Religion. The Catholics also established numerous western seminaries, scattered from Seattle to San Diego.

This western rivalry proved so intense that many denominations overextended their resources. The interior West not only contains "ghost towns," it is also littered with numerous "ghost colleges." Who has heard of Della Plain Male and Female Institute (Texas), Gooding College (Idaho), Sedalia University (Kansas), Presbyterian College of the Southwest (Colorado), Montezuma Baptist College (New Mexico), or Goodnight Baptist College (Texas)? These are just a few of the denominational schools that died along the way for lack of funds and coreligionists. In the first 50 years of Oklahoma history, the Presbyterians lost four schools and the Methodists, eight of nine. Like Rev. D. J. Pierce, who dreamed of building a great Baptist University in the midst of Yellowstone Park, most of these denominational dreams quietly fell by the wayside.

Only in the Southern Great Plains did the Protestant schools establish any kind of cultural hegemony. Oklahoma Baptist University, University of Tulsa, Southern Methodist, Texas Christian University, Trinity University, and Abilene Christian University all contributed to this atmosphere. The Episcopal black colleges, Wiley in Marshall and Texas College in Tyler, deserve mention here as well.

From the 1890s to the World War I era, the forces of organized religion in the West created the institutional infrastructure for their regions. This was especially true in the areas of health care and education. During this period, clerics from all faiths were viewed as civic leaders. They drew upon common social concerns and a shared Judeo-Christian scriptural rhetoric to introduce their programs of civil betterment.

The Great Depression

As historian Martin Marty has observed, during the Great Depression of the 1930s, church problems boiled down to one word: finances.1 Ministerial salaries plummeted and western churches, as institutions, suffered terribly. A member of the First Christian Church of Carlsbad, N.M., for example, could not afford to pay his annual pledge of 25 cents.

Simultaneously, welfare demands grew exponentially. In Las Vegas, Nevada, Congregational minister Albert C. Melton, who managed a grocery store to support his family, delivered wholesale groceries to the needy as his church became a relief station to the tent-and-cardboard town that arose north of the city. "Only pastor Reynolds knows how many hundreds the church helped with food, clothes, and a word of faith," observed the official historian of the Las Vegas First Methodist Church, which introduced a similar relief program during that decade.2 Church contributions to this realm of "hidden charity" during Depression times can only be approximated, but they should never be underestimated.

On the other hand, the collapse of the economy made the churches more important as local gathering places. Depression-era church women staged numerous rummage sales, silver teas, town picnics and food sales to raise funds. At times they reached for the exotic. The Catholic women of Milagra, New Mexico, not only sold enchiladas, tamales, and cakes to raise money for a new church, they also held street dances and staged relay races. First Methodist of Carlsbad organized the region's first Rattlesnake Derby, complete with wagering. Handlers released the snakes inside a fenced-in area and the first snake to pass under a numbered wicket meant a prize for the person who held that wicket number.

Economic woes also permanently shifted the regional religious landscape, for the poverty of the interior West sent thousands of people to the Pacific Coast in search of greener pastures. Naturally, they took their faiths with them. Nowhere is this theme better highlighted than by the great out-migration of the Pentecostals.

The nation's Pentecostal subculture was birthed in Los Angeles and matured in Missouri, Kansas, and Oklahoma during the 1920s. Its center shifted back to the Pacific Coast with the migrants during the Great Depression and the World War II boom era. It has found fertile soil in Los Angeles, the San Joaquin Valley, and in the agricultural areas of eastern Washington.

John Steinbeck's classic novel, The Grapes of Wrath (1939), provides the best fictional account of this migration from Oklahoma to California. Steinbeck's book is replete with religious allusions. The title, the names Rose of Sharon and Jim Casey (JC), plus the final scene of sacrifice all reflect this larger, biblical perspective. Still, the author's treatment of the migrants' faith is cynical. The only good preacher in the book is one who left the pastorate. Steinbeck looks to New Deal government actions for the secular, rather than religious, salvation of his characters.

In Rising in the West, Dan Morgan of the Washington Post has traced the travels of an actual family migration from 1930s Oklahoma to California. Unlike the fictional Joads, the real-life Tathams first joined the Pentecostal Church in California, rather than a labor union. Although not without difficulties, many individuals in this extended family have prospered; some have become quite wealthy.3 Morgan concludes that their traditional faith played no small role in this transformation.

Historian James N. Gregory's broader study of Dust Bowl migration to California arrives at similar conclusions.4 Rural evangelical Protestantism, in a number of overlapping forms—Southern Baptist, Southern Methodist, Church of Christ, Disciples of Christ, Church of the Nazarene, and several versions of Pentecostalism—accompanied the Oklahoma and Arkansas migrants on their journeys westward. Upon arrival, many migrants found the established West Coast Baptist and Methodist churches too "brainy" and far less tolerant of their worship "style." Sometimes the migrants switched denominations, but often they ended up taking the locals with them.

The Pentecostal subculture drew on enthusiastic gospel singing and vigorous use of musical instruments. It relied less on "theological logic" than on an oral tradition to spread its message. During the early years of the movement, Pentecostal ministers did not write many books or magazine articles. Rather, they relied on proverbs, jokes, personal testimonies, musical lyrics, and a wide variety of miracle stories, many of which involved spiritual healing. Given this situation, it is no accident that they were among the first to utilize radio, and, three decades later, television. Both forms of electronic media provided ideal means to spread their message. In so doing they created a distinctive Pentecostal style of worship, one that would steadily expand into other groups.5 It is highly likely that the vigorous contemporary evangelical world of Southern California can trace its roots to this migration of the 1930s.6

The Post-Sixties

Any discussion of religion in the West since the 1960s has to be couched in "maybes," for the picture has yet to come into sharp focus.

Contemporary western churches often find themselves occupying a distinct minority position. Still, while federal, state, and local governments have assumed most educational, welfare, and medical responsibilities, there remains room for extensive church involvement in the social order. Indeed, western churches continue to provide an incredible number of local services. Church basements house an endless variety of meetings, from Boy Scouts to Parents Without Partners to Take Off Pounds Sensibly to Survivors of Suicide. Lutherans and Catholics still maintain parochial schools, and several denominations have begun day-care centers. In southwestern cities, church basements often serve as the "overflow" locations when the civic homeless shelters fill to capacity. Rev. Cecil Williams of the Glide Memorial Methodist Church in San Francisco not only provides traditional social services to his primarily African-American clientele, he offers classes in computer programming, drug and alcohol counseling, and anger management as well. They all form a part of what he terms a "theology of healing."

Thus, even if the churches have become "outsiders," they are the most important "outsiders" that any western community can have. From social concerns to spiritual consolation, organized religion in the West is alive and well on numerous fronts.

This local involvement often astounds eastern visitors. For example, when the Alfred R. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City was bombed in April 1995, the Oklahoma churches and synagogues provided the most prominent civic response. The Oklahoma Conference of Churches coordinated the formation of the Oklahoma City Disaster Interfaith Response office, involving leaders from the Christian, Jewish, Islamic and Baha'i faiths. Visiting reporters marveled at the role played by the churches of the region.

Finally, the American West continues to reflect a religious pluralism that is seemingly without boundaries. Consider Los Angeles, home to the nation's largest Hindu shrine and the largest Zoroasterian worship center. The city has five Islamic centers and more than 80 mosques. Catholic priests of the Diocese of Los Angeles offer mass in 42 different languages, while the Jewish population of Los Angeles (roughly 800,000) is second only to New York.7 Los Angeles also abounds with every imaginable form of mainline and evangelical Protestantism. Calvary Chapel in nearby Costa Mesa boasts a membership of 12,000. Regional Vineyard Fellowship churches, with their myriad lay-run programs, draw equal numbers. Sociologist Donald E. Miller has suggested that these West Coast megachurches are filling the region's "ecstasy/hope deficit" and may well be the "new paradigm" churches for the twenty-first century.8

In such a panoramic world, religion in Los Angeles has emerged as almost another "consumer item." As sociologist J. Gordon Melton has observed, "Los Angeles is the only place in the world that you can find all forms of Buddhism. Not even Asian countries have all forms of Buddhism."9 Historian Eldon G. Ernst has noted that California never produced any religious "mainstream." From the onset, all organized bodies have been "minority" faiths. Thus, California has changed our whole understanding of what it means to be "religious."10 It is relatively easy to say what it means to be religious in (say) Provo, Utah, Amarillo, Texas, or Mosquero, New Mexico, but what does it mean to be "religious" in Los Angeles?

Although historians' crystal balls are seldom clearer than any others, I would like to suggest that Los Angeles may be leading the way for organized religion not only in the American West but throughout the nation. If this is the case, the various bodies of organized faith will follow the same pattern: they will become cohesive units that will continue to serve the individual needs of their congregations, but they will increasingly find themselves in tension with, if not in actual opposition to, the predominantly secular society around them.

Ferenc M. Szasz is Professor of History at the University of New Mexico. This essay is drawn largely from his Religion in the Modern American West, forthcoming this Fall from the University of Arizona Press.

Footnotes:

1. Martin E. Marty, Modern American Religion, Vol. 2: The Noise of Conflict, 1919-1941 (Univ. of Chicago Press, 1991), pp. 253-55.

2. Fred Wilson, "Historical Sketch: First Methodist Church of Las Vegas, 1905-1955." Installment 21. Copy, Las Vegas Historical Collections, Las Vegas, Nev.

3. Dan Morgan, Rising in the West: The True Story of an "Okie" Family in Search of the American Dream (Vintage, 1992).

4. James N. Gregory, American Exodus: The Dust Bowl Migration and Okie Culture in California (Oxford Univ. Press, 1989).

5. For a good summary, see Grant Wacker, "Pentecostalism," in Encyclopedia of American Religious Experience, Vol. 2 (Scribner's, 1988), pp. 933-45, and John Thomas Nichol, The Pentecostals (Logos International, 1966).

6. Donald E. Miller, "The Reinvented Church: Styles and Strategies," Christian Century, December 22-29, 1999, pp. 1250-53.

7. Barbara Weightman, "Changing Religious Landscapes in Los Angeles," Journal of Cultural Geography, Vol. 14 (Fall/Winter, 1993), pp. 1-15.

8. Donald E. Miller, Reinventing American Protestantism: Christianity in the New Millennium (Univ. of California Press, 1997).

9. J. Gordon Melton, as cited in Gustav Niebuhr, "Land of Religious Freedom Has Universe of Spirituality," New York Times, March 30, 1997.

10. Eldon G. Ernst, "Religion in California," Pacific Theological Review, Vol. 19 (Winter, 1986), pp. 43-5.

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