Twentieth-Century Texas: A Social and Cultural History

Pagodas amid the Steeples: The Changing Religious Landscape

135 DRAMATIC CHANGE CHARACTERIZED TWENTIETHCENTURY Texas, no less so in religion than in any other aspect of the state’s culture. In 1906 Protestants, mainly Baptists, representing 33 percent of the churchgoing public, and Methodists, 27 percent, along with the Disciples at 7 percent, Presbyterians, 5 percent , and Lutherans, Episcopalians, and others constituting another 3 percent, dominated the landscape. Catholics, while a sizeable 25 percent, were nonetheless an island in a Protestant ocean. By century ’s end Catholics had overtaken Southern Baptists to become the state’s largest religious group, and members of several non-Christian faiths—Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and others—had established themselves in major urban centers. Church steeples, admittedly still dominant, now shared the urban skyline with pagodas, mosques, mandirs, gurdwaras, and synagogues. Texas had become pluralistic, and Texans in general had become decidedly more religious in tone if not in practice. Matching the religiosity of the American populace in general, polls since the 1980s showed that while only about 44 percent of Texans claimed to attend worship services weekly, 70 percent regarded religion as very important, 54 percent reportedly had had a “born again” experience, and 82 percent would applaud Pagodas amid the Steeples The Changing Religious Landscape John W. Storey ★ 20centtxtext.indd 135 20centtxtext.indd 135 1/18/08 1:45:35 PM 1/18/08 1:45:35 PM 136 TWENTIETH-CENTURY TEXAS a child entering the clergy. And Texans acknowledging formal religious affiliation had risen steadily from about 40 percent in 1916 to 56.2 percent in 1970, remaining fairly constant thereafter for the remainder of the century. 1 Immigration and changing demographics account for much that happened in twentieth-century religion. Texas experienced astounding population growth from 1900 to 2000, increasing from 3,000,000 to almost 21,000,000. And, significantly, as the percentage of African Americans steadily declined, that of Hispanics, primarily Mexicans, steadily rose. From 30 percent in 1860, African Americans constituted only 11.6 percent in 2000, and projections for the early twenty-first century pointed toward less than 10 percent . Simultaneously, the percentage of Mexicans rose sharply, from a little less than 6 percent in 1910 to 32 percent in 2000, making Mexican Americans the largest minority in the state. Whereas early in the century most Mexican Americans resided in south Texas along the Rio Grande, with San Antonio the principal center, by 1980 they could be found in every county in the state, with heavy concentrations in San Antonio, Dallas, Fort Worth, and Houston— especially Houston, which by the early twenty-first century had eclipsed San Antonio as the most Hispanic city in Texas. By 2005 a combination of Mexican Americans and other minorities made Texas, along with California, New Mexico, and Hawaii, a state in which minorities had become the majority. It was estimated that by 2030 Hispanics alone would be the majority.2 Considering that Mexican Americans were as likely to be Roman Catholics as African Americans Baptists, the religious impact of this population shift was enormous, as attested to by the current status of Catholicism. Certain statistics point toward unparalleled advancement for Catholicism in twentieth-century Texas. From approximately 150,000 members in 1880, the church numbered some 750,000 by 1930. Most of these newcomers were Mexicans displaced by the violence and anticlericalism of the Mexican Revolu20centtxtext .indd 136 20centtxtext.indd 136 1/18/08 1:45:35 PM 1/18/08 1:45:35 PM PAGODAS AMID THE STEEPLES 137 tion of 1910. By 1960 the Catholic population was some 1,800,000, and by 1990 it totaled 3,575,728, making Catholics the most numerous group in the state. In 2000 there were 4,368,969 Catholics , 849,510 more than the nearest rival, Southern Baptists.3 Such growth compelled major diocesan restructuring. Until 1926, when the Diocese of San Antonio became the state’s first archdiocese, the five dioceses of Texas belonged either to the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, New Mexico, or the Archdiocese of New Orleans . The Diocese of El Paso remained in the province of Santa Fe for some years to come, but the others—Galveston, Corpus Christi, and Dallas, as well as the newly fashioned Diocese of Amarillo— became part of the new province of San Antonio. Other dioceses followed—Austin, 1947; Galveston-Houston, 1959; Brownsville and Beaumont, 1965; Fort Worth, 1969; Victoria, 1982; Lubbock, 1983, and Tyler, 1987. In late 2005 the Diocese...