Sacred but Not Religious: Finding Religion in the West and the West in Religion

Prevailing narratives of the history of the American West and of American religious history typically marginalize or even exclude the existence and role of religion. The result is a persistent myth of the irreligious West (with caveats for Mormon Utah and Catholicism in the Southwest). When religion does appear in these historical narratives, it typically follows an East to West direction. But this produces a myopia more reflective of the historical beholder than descriptive of the experiences of people who lived in the American West. For example, the story of American religious pluralism often begins with the 1893 World's Parliament of Religion in Chicago. However, these diverse religious traditions were not new to many Westerners, who interacted with a variety of Eastern and Native religious practitioners. Paying attention to the practices and patterns of migration into and throughout the American West reveals a very different story of religious pluralism than the one most often told from an East Coast perspective. At the same time, the unfamiliar geographic, religious, and racial terrain of the West forced many Americans to negotiate new understandings of their religion and of the relationship between their religious and national identities. Equally important is a reconsideration of the definitions of religion that undergird narratives of an irreligious West. Attention to the practices of both native and immigrant Westerners broadens our understanding of what constitutes religion and the religious. Focusing on constructions of the sacred and on rituals and practices in individual lives, rather than measuring the density of religious buildings and presence of clergy, reveals new dimensions of religiosity in a region often depicted as less religious than the rest of the nation.