Religion and Community

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Religion and Community

• 27.11.2003

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Readings

• Brandes, S. H. 1988. Power and Persuasion
  Fiestas and Social Control in Rural Mexico.
• Rappaport, R. 2002. Enactments of Meaning. In
  Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity.

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Discussion topics

• Community and religious fragmentation in
  Mexico/Oaxaca/Sierra Juarez
• Video Fiesta of Santiago in Juxtlahuaca

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Religion as a unifying factor

• Robertson Smith
• The Religion of the Semites (1889)
• sacrifice
• communication between the god and his worshipers
  by joint participation in eating sacramental meal
  
• An expression of unity and solidarity, binding
  clan members to each other and to their god.
• Durkheim
• The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (1912)
• ritual events
• generate a heightened emotional state
  delirium or collective effervescence
• The function of rituals
• to strengthen the bonds attaching the believer to
  god
• to strengthen the bonds attaching the individual
  to social group
• God society itself
• Religion celebration of the society itself

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Religion as a distinguishing factor

• Legitimizer of power, authority, hierarchy
• hinduism and the caste system
• Multiple religious identities
• Huntington The Clash of Civilizations
• Conflicts between
• States gt Ideologies gt Cultures/Civilizations

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Fragmentation of the religious field

• Latin America
• Stoll (1990) Is Latin America Turning
  Protestant?
• Mexico
• Taming of the shrewd
• Oaxaca
• Missionaries paradise
• Sierra Juarez
• Low intensity war
• Zapotec communities
• Fragmentation of the religious field (Bourdieu)

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Periodization of theProtestantization of Latin
America

• Martin (1990)
• 1) Puritan
• 2) Methodist
• 3) Pentecostal
• Stoll (1993)
• 1) European immigrant churches
• 2) U.S. mainline denominations
• 3) Fundamentalist faith missions
• 4) Pentecostal churches
• Escobar (1994)
• 1) transplanted Protestantism (European
  migrants in the 19th century)
• 2)missionary Protestantism (e.g. Methodists,
  Presbyterians and Baptists, faith missions)
• 3) Pentecostal Protestantism.

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Factors favouring Protestantism in Mexico

• Rise of Protestantism weakening of the Catholic
  Church
• Liberalism of the 19th century
• 1857 Constitution
• Mexican Revolution
• 1917 Constitution
• Post-revolutionary governments and policies
• Socialist education escuelas rurales
• Summer Institute of Linguistics

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Early years of independence

• Mexican Acta Constitutiva de la Federación
  (1824)
• The religion of the Mexican nation is and will
  always be Catholic, Apostolic, Roman. The nation
  protects it with clever and just laws and
  prohibits the exercise of any other

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Liberalism of the 19th century

• Benito Juárez
• I would like Protestantism to approach the
  Indian. This would mexicanize him because the
  Indian needs a religion that obliges him to read
  and not to spend his savings on candles for the
  saints.
• the happiness and prosperity of the Mexican
  nation depend on the development of
  Protestantism.
• Constitution of 1857
• Reform Laws

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Catholicism, Protestantism and the Mexican soul

• Manuel Gamio (1916)
• The transition from Indian paganism to
  Catholicism found no obstacles because both
  faiths, from the indigenous point of view, were
  analogous which favoured religious fusion.
  Paganism and Protestantism, however, were in
  their essence and form different and
  dissymbolical. It is thus logical that
  Mexican Indians voluntarily accept the Catholic
  creed, assimilating it in their own manner, and
  reject Protestantism because it appears to them
  as abstract, exotic, iconoclastic,
  incomprehensible.
• Esquivel Obregón (1946)
• the Hispano-American soul is non-adaptable to
  Protestantism, the Protestant propaganda here,
  unlike in the United States, only leads to an
  increasing number of atheists who have no other
  moral guidelines but their own material
  instincts.

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Mexican Revolution (1910-20)

• Protestant active participation
• Eg. Moises Saenz
• Accused by Catholics

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Post-revolutionary governments and policies

• Plutarco Elías Calles
• I have prepared the terrain and broken the
  ground, you, the Protestants, would have to sow.
• Socialist education in escuelas rurales
• I do not believe in God. I will not practice any
  religious cult and will dedicate myself to
  uprooting this malign fanatic influence from our
  community.

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Two trends in Protestantization

• 1) Pentecostalization of the process
• historical Protestants vs neo-Protestants
• 2) Marginalization of the process
• social or geographical periphery
• borderline states
• rural areas, suburbs (Mexico City)
• lower classes indigenous communities
• 1990 - 4.8 (total) 10.4 (indigenous)

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of Protestants in Mexico (1997)

• 1) Chiapas 24.12
• 2) Campeche 19.48
• 3) Tabasco 19.29
• 4) Quintana Roo 18.24
• 5) Yucatan 12.76
• 6) Veracruz 12.27
• ...
• 12) Oaxaca 8.72
• ...
• 30) Guanajuato 2.60
• 31) Queretaro 2.23
• 32) Zacatecas 1.76

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Oaxaca

• missionaries paradise / SIL
• 1970-1990
• total population of Oaxaca increased 50,
• the number of Catholics increased 15.4
• The number of Protestants increased 531.
• 570 municipalities
• in 1950
• 339 - no Protestants
• 91 - 1-2 Protestants
• in 1990
• 17 no Protestants

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Communities of the Sierra Juarez

• Social implications of religious fragmentation
• New of identities
• Changes in the meaning of community
• Changes in usos y costumbres
• Religious conflicts

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New identities

• Religious fragmentation of collective identities
• A conversation between Nemesio (conservative
  Catholic), Luis (charismatic Catholic), and
  Ruben (Baptist)
• Ruben We have four groups here there are
  conservatives like him there (pointing at
  Nemesio)
• Nemesio (protesting) Well, we are all
  Catholics.
• Ruben Well, I dont know about that. There is
  another group that is a bit different (pointing
  at Luis).
• Nemesio and Luis (together) There are many
  movements within the Catholic Church.
• Luis But in the end we are the same Catholics.
• Nemesio There are different movements, like
  before there were Jesuits, Fransiscans, and so
  on. This is what happens with the sects, they now
  also split into various groups.
• Ruben Luis Catholicism is a bit like the
  religion of the Pentecostals who are noisier. The
  fourth group, the Baptists, to whom I belong, are
  also a bit like the Pentecostals.
• Religous framgentation of space

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Changes in the meaning of community

• Formation of a new kind of community
• Imagined communities (Anderson)
• Family model
• Hermanos, hermanas
• Community loses its sacred meaning

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Saint names (all 172 communities of the Sierra
Juárez)
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51 municipal centres of the Sierra Juárez
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Changes in usos y costumbres

• Fiesta patronal
• Communal fiesta gt Catholic fiesta
• Cargo system
• Religous cargos
• Political cargos (Jehovahs Witnesses)
• Economic collaboration
• Tequio (Adventists etc.)

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Religious conflicts

• Low intensity war
• Mutual criticism -gt Expulsions -gt Homicide
• Historical vs Neo-Protestants
• The case of San Juan Yaee

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Fiesta of Santiago in Juxtlahuaca

• Santiago Juxtlahuaca, Oaxaca
• July, 2000
• Mixtecs, triquis
• Mayordomo/mayordomia
• Toritos
• Calenda