Visit the Bibliography page for print and online resources available for the study of Contemporary Religion in America. Visit the Schedule page for the schedule of lectures and the deadlines for writing assignments. Your writing assignments are fully explained at the schedule page.
These pages are designed to assist my students and any other students interested in the subject of Contemporary Religion in America. The course explores and analyzes the events, trends, and ideas that have brought us to the contemporary expression of American religious life. This is a complex and intriguing subject which we can approach from several angles. We consider what is religious about America. Religious ideas and practices display themselves and camouflage themselves in many different ways in America. We consider what is American about religion. Our culture has made significant contributions to the development of religious life. America has been a great laboratory conducting an unusual experiment in religious liberty and pluralism and has provided a launching pad for fascinating new religious movements. Religious pluralism in social, political, and economic realms is a special, precious contribution that the American tradition has contributed to the history of religion in the world. Maintaining this contribution demands from us an ungrudging acceptance and celebration of human dignity, uniqueness, individuality, equality, toleration, and cooperation.
A study of Contemporary Religion in America should assist students in their intellectual, professional, and social development in the following areas.
For the Fall Semester, 2002, the first textbook for the course is Robert Wuthnow, The Restructuring of American Religion: Society and Faith Since World War II, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988. This work is highly informative and thought-provoking. Prof. Wuthnow has sifted through a lot of survey data and sociological interpretation; his sensitive and skillful analysis of this material is impressive. It is not a college textbook that loses its value after the semester is over. For a brilliant analysis of religious developments before World War II, see Herberg just below.
The second textbook is a classic older work that made a great contribution to the analysis of American religious development, Will Herberg, Protestant--Catholic--Jew: An Essay in American Religious Sociology. Revised edition. Garden City: Anchor Books, 1960. Reprint 1983. This is an excellent, thought-provoking book packed with information and bibliography. Herberg brilliantly interprets the role of religious identity among the many thousands of immigrants who came in large waves to America and gradually assimilated to the American way of life usually over the course of three generations. I highly recommend this book.
Philosopher Max Scheler said that, "The attempt to construct a picture of humanity apart from religion, the most central and potent of human capacities, is like the attempt to frame a standard idea of the human body after previously cutting off the head." See Scheler, On the Eternal in Man, 174 (quoting in agreement Rudolf Otto). A skewed view of America results from filtering out the religious influences in our culture.
We cannot understand America without a careful study of the expressed religious ideals, goals, concepts, and practices of Americans. In fact, the vast majority of Americans indicate that they believe in a supernatural realm and believe that it is important or even very important to them.
This religiousness of America has been constantly remembered and reinforced by many presidents on the solemn occasion of their inaugurations. Look through the presidential inaugural addresses to see the emphasis put upon religion by various presidents. Notice that their remarks about religion invoke a generic deity which could be Jewish, Christian, or Muslim.
Our religiousness as Americans also finds expression in an early American creedal statement capturing one of our most fundamental commitments as Americans. It was placed within the Great Seal of the United States and reads in Latin e pluribus unum, "from many, one." This motto represents a dynamic situation requiring constant balancing and readjustment of forces of unity and diversity.
The role of religion in the construction and maintenance of an underlying cultural unity depends on inter-religious relations. Consider my reflections on these relationships based upon the analysis of Jacob Neusner, World Religions, p. 7, about the four ways that members of one religious group may view those of another. These four categories are initially descriptive, but can be taken prescriptively.
These different types of reactions to diversity display a certain dynamism as people change perspectives over time and simultaneously treat members of the various circles to which they belong in different ways. Pluralism and empathetic interest easily go together since both involve a willingness and eagerness to communicate, pluralism emphasizing the receiving aspect and empathetic interest the giving aspect of communication.
Ronald J. Alsop (ed.), The Wall Street Journal Almanac 1999. New York: Ballantine Books, 1999.
Barry A. Kosmin and Seymour P. Lachman, One Nation Under God: Religion in Contemporary American Society. New York: Harmony Books, 1993.
Martin E. Marty, "Revising the Map of American Religion," Americans and Religions in the Twenty-First Century. Edited by Wade Clark Roof. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, vol. 558. Thousand Oaks: Sage Periodicals Press, July, 1998. Pp. 13-27.
William Lee Miller, "Religion and the Constitution," Religion and the Common Good: A Bicentennial Forum. Macon: Mercer University Press, 1988. Pp. 1-22.
Jacob Neusner (ed.), World Religions in America: An Introduction. Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1994.
Max Scheler, On the Eternal in Man. Translated by Bernard Noble. London: SCM Press, Ltd., 1960.
You can find a few hints about writing style and a list of common writing errors to avoid at my help page on Good Composition. Visit the page for Print and Online Resources about Contemporary Religion in America. Visit the Schedule page for the schedule of lectures and the deadlines for writing assignments. Your writing assignments are fully explained at the schedule page.
Return to the Lecture Hall. Thanks for the visit! This page was edited on 29 August 2002. Email is welcomed by John R. Mitchell, Part-time Instructor in Religion. © 2000-2002 Erasmus Compositor, P.O. Box 25958, Baltimore, MD 21224. For an introduction to life at the center of the world forty centuries ago, visit an old Sumerian scribe at the Nippur Quay. You can also visit Villa Julie College.