Working with the same script, so to speak, and indeed, sharing many words in common, participants in two Christian faiths, the Catholics of Spanish America and the Baptists of the American South, put together action and artifact to construct two distinct senses of the sacred. The sense that the Spanish American Catholics have is that the sacred lies outside the person of the worshiper, while the Southern Baptists, in contrast, locate the sacred inside that person. In one, the communicant reaches out; in the other, the believer listens within.

To achieve their external sense of the sacred the Spanish Americans approach the sacred as individuals approaching factual objects. Conversely, to achieve their interior sense, the Baptists join together as a group. In addition, the individual in the Spanish American iglesia reaches out for the sacred in the context of a hierarchical structure at whose apex resides the Pope in Rome. The Baptists, in contrast, turn inward to feel the sacred's presence in the context of an egalitarian structure that proclaims the independence of each democratically constituted church.

Methodological note

“Spanish American Catholicism“ here refers to the worship participated in by those Spanish speaking citizens of Latin America whose cultural heritage took shape during Spain's conquest of the New World. Excluded are the forms of Catholicism that include many American Indian or African elements and also excluded are the forms of modern worship that reflect contemporary, intellectual trends, such as liberation theology.