cover image Religion and Public Life in the Mountain West: Sacred Landscapes in Transition

Religion and Public Life in the Mountain West: Sacred Landscapes in Transition

. Altamira Press, $23.95 (166pp) ISBN 978-0-7591-0627-7

This book, the second in a series of nine reports on religion in various regions of the United States, explores contemporary religious life in Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Idaho, Colorado, Montana and Wyoming. Although the region still features a spread-out population (22 people per square mile, compared to the national average of 80), it has the fastest-growing population of the nation. While Shipps and Silk concede that it is difficult to think of these seven states as a cohesive unit, they identify three religious traditions that dominate the area: Roman Catholicism, established by Spanish missionaries in the southwest in the 17th century; Mormonism, which dominates Utah and Idaho; and pluralism, the catch-all category which describes the more diverse states of Colorado, Wyoming and Montana, with their mix of evangelical Christians, New Agers, Catholics and ""nones"" (those who claim no affiliation). The authors of the various essays pay special attention to the ways in which religion has influenced public life in the Mountain West through politics, philanthropy and education.