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Arizona growth poses religious challenge

PHOENIX — Arizona is set to experience religious growing pains after waves of new residents have made it more religiously diverse than ever.

But the subtle shift in demographics does not necessarily mean Arizonans will practice more religious tolerance, an expert says. If anything, they’ll have to work harder at building a consensus with these new worshipers.

“Religious diversity does not translate into religious tolerance,” says Reverend Jan Flaaten, executive director of the Arizona Ecumenical Council, which brings together Christian denominations and keeps dialogues going with Jewish, Muslim and other faith communities.

“I suspect that the first time a mosque erects a minaret, there will be a neighborhood cry to take it down,” he said. “The only way to work on these issues is to have constructive dialogue between the religious groups, including the young in our schools and all the members of our various congregations.”

The irony is that people who practice an organized religion are moving into a region where being a loyal religious follower appears to be frowned upon.

The percentage of Arizonans who identify themselves as being affiliated with a particular religious tradition held steady at about 40 percent to 45 percent for at least three decades – far lower than the United States as a whole.

About 63 percent of people in the U.S. identify themselves with a religious tradition, according to the Association of Religious Data Archives. That figure falls to about 50 percent in the West as a whole and 45 percent in Arizona. Arizona ranks 41st out of the 50 states in people who identify with a religious tradition, according to ARDA data.

Further evidence of less enthusiasm for religion in the West comes from a Gallup Poll released this past July. In the West, 59 percent of the respondents professed a belief in God, compared with 80 percent in the East, 83 percent in the Midwest and 86 percent in the South. Those who say they believe in a higher power of some sort equal 29 percent in the West, 14 percent in the East, 11 percent in the Midwest and 10 percent in the South. Those who reject belief in God altogether total 10 percent in the West, 6 percent in the East, 5 percent in the Midwest and 3 percent in the South.

“There are several possible reasons for reduced interest in religion in Arizona and the West,” says Stephen Merino, an ARDA research associate who grew up in Colorado. “As the West was being settled, there was no rich religious culture similar to the cultures that came from Europe to the American Northeast and South, so the tradition wasn’t in place. Second, originally the West was settled predominantly by men, who tend to be less concerned than women about establishing and keeping religious traditions. Also, there is that staunch individualism of the West. People often prefer to be left alone instead of affiliating.”

But loyal followers of several religions are moving into Arizona neighborhoods.

Major religious demographic data is collected every 10 years by the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies and distributed by ARDA. In 2000, that data showed Arizona’s population was 5.1 million.

By 2006 – the last year for which an estimate was available on the U.S. Census Bureau Web site – the state’s population was estimated to have grown by 1 million people.

Flaaten says the state’s religious profile will have changed even more when the next set of data is presented in 2010 by ARDA. He says some of the new trends will include:

• A greater presence of both Jews and Muslims in the state. Both populations present challenges in developing solid demographic data, Flaaten says, and he believes official counts from 2000 of about 80,000 Jews in the state and 12,000 Muslims could have been low. He says that there has been a strong Jewish tradition in Arizona for decades, so don’t be surprised if there are more than 120,000 Jews and 75,000 Muslims in Arizona in 2010. Part of this growth, he said, is attributable to the general migration of people to the state. Also, he believes better methods will be in place for counting these populations in 2010, so the numbers will naturally increase.
• An expansion of Catholicism. Roman Catholics will continue to make up the largest religious population in the state. Arizona adherents grew from about 485,000 in 1980 to nearly 975,000 in 2000 and should easily exceed 1 million by 2010. The church, which also is the single largest religious body in the U.S., will benefit from the migration of Catholics from other states and particularly from Latin American countries south of the U.S. border, of which many are predominantly Catholic.
• Steady growth of the Mormon faith. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, which grew in the state from about 140,000 in 1980 to more than 250,000 by 2000, also will show an increase. This should be attributable primarily to growth in individual LDS families, not by converts.
• A steady decline of Southern Baptists. The Southern Baptist Convention, whose Arizona members numbered nearly 140,000 in 2000 after reaching about 163,000 in 1990, will probably continue to decline in the state. Watch for the rift in social issues to grow, Flaaten says. “This church body is part of the larger group of evangelical Christians, and this group generally is divided on whether Christians should pursue a broader role in society that includes a social justice agenda. Evangelicals, for example, are firmly united in their anti-abortion convictions, but there is an increasing variety of opinions about how to address the whole of life for children once they’re born. Should the church be active in advocating mandatory health care benefits? Should it be fighting for better education systems? Or should it focus on its primary job of preaching the Gospel? As these and other issues develop, they sometimes split churches. This is happening in the SBC, and because it’s not a denomination but rather just an association of congregations, it’s easy for individual congregations to break off and become independent or affiliate with some other group. As a result, membership is declining.”
• A large expansion of Pentecostalism. The Assemblies of God, a Pentecostal church body, nearly quadrupled from about 20,000 to about 80,000 between 1980 and 2000, and Flaaten expects growth to continue. “Many people don’t realize it, but after Roman Catholicism, Pentecostalism is the second-largest expression of Christianity in the world,” he said. “It’s especially significant in Latin America. Arizona is attracting a number of people from that area, and the Assemblies of God should benefit from that. Many people want a religion that engages both their mind and their emotions, and this church body will see an increase because of that hunger within people.”
• A plateau and decline in the number of Protestants here. Flaaten expects most denominations within mainline Protestantism to show a decrease in 2010, with the exception of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. “The ELCA has been growing, not because of conversions and outreach efforts, but simply because so many people are moving to Arizona from heavily Lutheran states like Minnesota,” said Flaaten, who is himself a member of the ELCA. “For most of the other mainline denominations, the figures probably will hold steady or decline.”

These trends will eventually force Arizonans to become more religiously aware.

“Unless we talk about and to people of other faiths, we will always be suspicious and perhaps fearful,” Flaaten says. “This isn’t difficult, but many of our faith community teachings have an ‘absolute truth’ quality about them, which limits the truth of other believers in God. So we have that obstacle to overcome, but it is possible to create curricula that help us all in the dialogue.”

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>>Email the editor at aklaw@zoniereport.com.