All Religions Are Good in Tzintzuntzan: Evangelicals in Catholic Mexico

Notes

N O T E S Preface: Confronting Interreligious Violence 1. The categories ‘‘mainline,’’ ‘‘evangelical,’’ ‘‘Protestant,’’ and ‘‘Pentecostal’’ are used inconsistently across academic literature, government statistics, and everyday speech. Scholars divide Protestant faiths into mainline and evangelical denominations. The mainline churches, like Methodists and Presbyterians, can trace their lineage directly to the Protestant Reformation in Europe. Their form of worship is more sedate and their internal organization more hierarchical than the evangelical churches that have gained adherents in Latin America since the 1960s. The evangelical churches I discuss have a more recent origin and are often indigenous to Mexico. They include denominations like the Jehovah’s Witnesses, who were founded by Charles Russell in 1872, and Pentecostals, who date from a revival movement in 1906. Because of their particular histories and theologies, some of these evangelical churches are considered para-Protestant. The tenets of evangelicalism—centrality of the conversion experience, literal interpretation of the Bible, and active proselytizing—have grown so popular within all Protestant traditions that it has become difficult to sustain the distinction between mainline and evangelical (Freston 2001). Following the terms that believers themselves use, I will refer to all those non-Catholic Christian churches that engage in proselytizing activity as evangelical. 2. Many of the church’s proselytizing techniques mirror the cult recruitment tactics described by Singer (1995:Chapter 5). She emphasizes that anyone, no matter how educated or self-confident, can be vulnerable to the lures of cult membership at certain times. The evangelical churches diverge in that cult leaders tend to foster veneration of themselves, while evangelical leaders encourage veneration of God. 1. Sharing the Burden of Fiestas across Borders 1. Kemper (1977) analyzes the activities of migrants from Tzintzuntzan in Mexico City. 2. All names, except for those of some of the religious leaders, have been changed for the sake of privacy. 1 7 4 Notes to pages 11–42 3. William Christian’s Local Religion in Sixteenth-Century Spain (1981) describes the religious landscape from which the Spanish evangelizers emerged. 4. Scholars have disagreed on the antecedents of this redistributive system, with some tracing its origins to the colonial era (Carrasco 1961), some to the post-Independence years (Chance and Taylor 1985), and some to the early twentieth century (Rus and Wasserstrom 1980). 5. Posadas, meaning ‘‘lodgings,’’ take place on the nine nights preceding Christmas. Each night a different street in the community hosts a procession in which images of Joseph and Mary are shown to reenact their search for shelter in Bethlehem. After Joseph and Mary find lodging for the night, the commissioners distribute bags of sweets, and children break a piñata. For the history of the event in Tzintzuntzan, see Chapter 8 of Brandes (1988). 6. Not everyone in Tzintzuntzan considers cargueros’ motives so pure. Although the responsibilities associated with each religious post are expensive, the positions also present opportunities for financial gain. Even the cargueros of La Soledad admit that contributions to the church generate a steady income of three thousand to six thousand pesos a month, which belongs solely to the cargueros. One Catholic man recalled the time his neighbor served as carguera of La Soledad. He knew she had to spend all her time at the church, so she could not work. Still, she and her family bought new items for their house. ‘‘She told us God helps them so they don’t lack for anything. But it’s not God. They steal. They don’t give any alms to the priest. They don’t do any projects. When the cargueros finish their duty, people say to them, ‘Where will you take from now?’’’ He is not alone in his cynicism , which many people also direct toward the many municipal officials who purchase new cars after their terms end. 7. Similar patterns are evident for migrants from many parts of Michoacán. During fiesta time, communities like Cherán would swell with men dressed in Chicago Bulls jackets who pinned twenty-dollar bills on the image of the patron saint (Martínez 2001). The ethnographic film Oaxacalifornia (Ziff and Stevens 1994) follows a Mexican family from Fresno, California, to its natal community in southern Mexico, where the parents have agreed to sponsor a fiesta. 2. Drinking and the Divine in Chiapas and Tzintzuntzan 1. The original museum label reads: ‘‘A partir de la década de 1960, se han promovido nuevas creencias religiosas e iglesias distintas, opuestas al viejo sistema de cargos, las...