American Values Atlas: New Mexican Anomalies

[Haruo]

Keith used the map in his post about religious groups' positions on same-sex marriage. I had not previously run across this resource, and played around happily with it for a bit. I'm sure I'll return to it many times in the future.

For now, I'm just wondering about two oddball statistics out of New Mexico. Why is the rate of Hispanic Protestantism in New Mexico the highest in the land? And, What is the "Other Religion" that is so popular in New Mexico?

[Haruo]

The Hispanic thing is not just a reflection of "Hispanic Christianity"; New Mexico ranks considerably higher in Hispanic Protestantism than it does in Hispanic Catholicism, and other states' rankings are not all that consistent either. I would have actually thought the Hispanic Protestantism rate would be higher in urbanized states.

[KeithE]

[Sandy]

New Mexico does have a larger Baptist population, particularly SBC, per-capita than most states outside the traditional geographic territory where Southern Baptists are predominant. The state convention is older than the others in the far West, and there are many well-established Spanish speaking, and predominantly Hispanic congregations that have been around a long time. The state convention in Texas was providing resources and planting churches in New Mexico, particularly among the Hispanic population, before the turn of the 20th century. So that might be a contributing factor, since, next to Catholics, I believe Baptists are the largest religious group in the state, and the vast majority of those are SBC affiliated.