Various observers, including President Clinton, have described America as one of the most religious societies in the world. This article provides a brief tour d' horizon of contemporary religious America in its remarkable variety and vitality. It is designed to help readers understand how many religions can flourish side by side, how they shape individual lives and shape the national character.

Pre-Columbian America, like most indigenous societies, had rich and diverse religious cultures; elements of which remain. But Europeans coming to the New World brought their own religions with them. Indeed, it was for the freedom to practice these beliefs that many people came to the New World. These communities flourished, and the resulting religious variety helped give rise to a highly unique and important contribution to world religions -- the most fundamental commitment to religious pluralism and freedom in the world.

The effects of the Protestant Reformation (1517) were quickly felt throughout Europe, and as the movement gathered momentum, increasing numbers of religious non-conformists frequently became religious refugees. These groups often were able to find temporary asylum by moving to a different European country. But eventually, many dissenters concluded that the New World offered the best hope for long-term survival and freedom to realize their religious objectives.

America became a haven for many different strongly motivated religious communities. For some, the very strength of their religious beliefs restricted their tolerance for those who did not share their theological views. People were pushed out of these groups or left on their own to pursue their own personal religious expression. Thus, the continuing desire to define personal religious practices produced new domestic groups even while fresh religious refugees from Europe appeared on America's shores.

But the original religious leaders often were succeeded by others who were less single-minded. Communities developed, with their multiple strands of interaction, and religious sects began to learn to live together. Gradually, a pattern of basic religious tolerance began to emerge in the colonies.

Religious differences still existed, however, and they were often reflected by region. Early Virginia was largely identified with the new Church of England, and later with Baptists and Methodists. Maryland was founded as a Catholic haven. Pennsylvania and New York had substantial numbers of Lutherans, other minor German Protestant groups, and members of the Society of Friends or Quakers. New England was the home of various Puritan groups. In the north, in what would become Maine, Vermont and Quebec, French Catholics exercised substantial influence. As different as these groups were, though, they all derived from a Judeo- Christian cultural and historical background.

American territorial gains in the nineteenth century added Spanish and French lands and peoples. Between the Napoleonic wars and World War I, waves of immigration brought English, Scots and Irish, Italians and Greeks, Germans and Poles and Swedes and Russians. Immigration to the U.S. changed the mix of religious groups, but America's overall heritage remained primarily European, and primarily Judeo-Christian.

The 125-year period following the birth of the new American nation was a time of many individual and national struggles, as the nation and its citizens confronted myriad social issues. During this time, the critical role of the United States Supreme Court in interpreting and defining the application of the U.S. Constitution was born. The issues which occupied the court were not primarily those of religion. They involved the balance between the three branches of the national government and between the national government and the governments of the states.

The religious protections incorporated in the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights depended on government and society for their application. There were clear cases of breakdowns. The failure of European Americans to understand and recognize the unique role and importance of Native American religious practices, so much a part of their culture, and so closely linked to nature, is a notable example. Another more conventionally acknowledged situation concerns the Mormons. Religious intolerance expressed in physical and political attacks drove them out of the northeastern and midwestern states before they found refuge in the frontier state of Utah.

By the midpoint of the twentieth century, however, the United States, for the most part, was a successful example of a society acting with general tolerance towards a wide array of primarily Christian sects. (President Clinton provides a picture of this sense of religious homogeneity in the description of his own young experiences provided in the speech which opens this journal.)

But while most Americans saw themselves as religiously tolerant, there were troubling reminders of religious prejudice. The Holocaust forced many Americans to think about the treatment of Jews, even in the United States. Catholic John F. Kennedy's candidacy for president in 1960 raised other questions about the extent of religious tolerance in the country. At about the same time, cases before the Supreme Court forced a renewed recognition that personal religious freedom of conscience also implied freedom to be non-religious. Application of this guarantee had implications not just for individuals but for U.S. society as a whole.

The wars of empire in Europe did much to shape the religious landscape of nineteenth and early twentieth century America. Subsequent immigration did not have a similar effect until the mid-1960s, when immigration reform removed restrictions which long had given preference to Europeans. New groups of immigrants from Asia and Latin America brought their cultural and religious values to the U.S., significantly fueling the growth of Islam and having an important impact on American Catholicism.

Present day religious affiliation in the U.S.

After more than 200 years as a nation, religion in America is a complex picture. Elsewhere in this journal, George Gallup, Jr., examines American religious values, practices, and their implications. This journal's bibliography cites an on-going study called the Harvard Project on Pluralism, under the direction of Diana L. Eck, which takes a similarly broad look over an extended period. For the convenience of the reader not familiar with religious America, here are some basic facts and numbers:

163 million Americans (63%) identify themselves as affiliated with a specific religious denomination.


Roman Catholics are the single largest denomination with some 60 million adherents.


Members of American Protestant churches total some 94 million persons, spread across some 220 particular denominations. The Universal Almanac for 1997 groups the denominations into 26 major families with memberships of 100,000 or more, but also notes that there are thousands of self-identified independent groups of believers.


There are more than 300,000 local congregations in the U.S.


There are more than 530,000 total clergy.


The U.S. has some 3.8 million religiously identified or affiliated Jews (an additional 2 million define themselves as primarily culturally or ethnically Jewish).


There are an estimated 3.5 - 3.8 million Muslims; Islam is the most rapidly growing religion in the U.S.


In any given week, more Americans will attend religious events than professional sporting events.


In terms of personal religious identification, the most rapidly growing group in the U.S. is atheists / agnostics (currently about 8 million).

This religious community can be viewed in a variety of other useful ways. Protestant churches are often divided between "mainline" and "Evangelical" denominations. Evangelical churches are those whose current practices include an active and conscious drive to attract new members, in both the United States and outside the country. Evangelical churches are often less hierarchical, more "fundamental" in terms of a literal interpretation of the Scriptures, and more inclined toward a "personal" relationship with God. Mainline churches are more traditional, are less focused on soliciting new members, may have a more "defined" body of religious leaders, and in general comprise a diminishing percentage of overall Protestant adherents. Even the Roman Catholic Church has begun to develop something of a mainline/Evangelical division.

There are important racial differences. For example, the world of Methodists of color is largely represented by the African Methodist Episcopal Churches, while white Methodists are largely found in the United Methodist Church. There is a similar important difference among African- American (National Baptist Convention, USA; American Baptist Churches in the USA; Progressive National Baptist Convention) and the largely white Southern Baptist Convention. While not deriving from the same historical experience, there are important separate immigrant Christian communities (the number of independent Korean and Central American evangelical Christian churches in the region around Washington, D.C., is noticed by even the most casual observer).

Judaism continues to be a religion of substantial importance in the U.S., with persons of Jewish faith and culture making extensive and wide ranging contributions in all walks of American life. More Jews live in the United States than in any other country, including Israel. There are three major branches of Judaism in this country: Orthodox, Reform and Conservative.

Islam in the U.S. comes from two distinct traditions. African Americans, seeking an alternative to their "slave" identities, seized on the fact that many of the original slaves would likely have been Muslim. An evolving "Black Muslim" community existed in the late nineteenth century, but only came into its own at mid-twentieth century. Muslims from Lebanon and Syria were present in America at the turn of the century, but it was the revision of the immigration laws in the mi-1960s which permitted the entry of substantial numbers of educated Muslims from Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, and the Middle East. It is this group of immigrants which has largely defined the second American Islamic tradition. (For further information, see the conversation on Islam in America.)

In the speech at the beginning of this journal, President Clinton talks of a sense, on the part of some Americans, that public expressions of religion in the seventies and eighties had been viewed with disfavor. More recently, many religious Americans have consciously become more overtly expressive of their faith. There is currently a burgeoning world of religious rock music; religious bookstores are an increasing phenomenon; and religious radio broadcasters can be heard in every major and minor American market.

In fact, radio and television broadcasting have become a major element of contemporary American religion. Major network broadcasters are increasingly likely to have programs with a visible religious content. The explosion of cable and direct broadcast television outlets (many Americans can select from more than 100 television channels) means that even "minor" or non- traditional denominations or faiths have been able to establish their electronic presence.

Some years ago, a major U.S. national news magazine headlined an issue with the question "Is God Dead?" Most American observers would say confidently that today in America the answer is clearly no.