Five Most Common Accuations Agains Non-western Religions

Religion in Postal service-Earth War Two America
Joanne Beckman Duke University © National Humanities Center

Stained glass windows Trinity Episcopal Church Atchison, Kansas, 1974 Courtesy National Athenaeum (412-DA-14628)

Contrary to what many observers predicted in the 1960s and early on 1970s, organized religion has remained as vibrant and vital a role of American lodge every bit in generations past. New problems and interests take emerged, but faith's office in many Americans' lives remains undiminished. Mayhap the 1 characteristic that distinguishes late-twentieth-century religious life from the balance of America's history, still, is variety. To trace this development, we must look back to the 1960s. As with many aspects of American society, the 1960s proved a turning point for religious life as well.

Upwards until the 1960s, the "Protestant institution" (the seven mainline denominations of Baptists, Congregationalists, Disciples, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Methodists, and Presbyterians) dominated the religious scene, with the occasional Catholic or Jewish phonation heard dimly in the background. References to American religion unremarkably meant Protestant Christianity. Traditional Christianity faced some challenges in the first one-half of the century, particularly from the literary elite of the 1920s, but after the 2nd bully state of war, the populace seemed eager to replenish its spiritual wells. At midcentury, Americans streamed dorsum to church in unprecedented numbers. The infant boom (those built-in between 1946 and 1965) had begun, and parents of the start baby boomers moved into the suburbs and filled the pews, establishing church and family equally the twin pillars of security and respectability. Religious membership, church funding, institutional building, and traditional organized religion and practise all increased in the 1950s. At midcentury, things looked very adept for Christian America.

Over the next decade and a half, however, this peaceful landscape was besieged from many sides. The Civil Rights movement, the "Sexual Revolution," Vietnam, Women's Liberation, and new "culling" religions (e.g., yoga, transcendental meditation, Buddhism, Hinduism) all challenged the traditional church building and its teachings, its leaders and their actions. In the late 1960s and early on 1970s, then, religion itself was not rejected and so much as was institutionalized Christianity. The Church, along with government, big business organisation, and the armed services—those composing "the Institution"—was denounced by the immature adults of the '60s for its materialism, ability ploys, self-involvement, and smug complacency.

The 1960s "revolution" has peradventure been exaggerated over the years. Studies evidence, for example, that while a large vocal minority of mostly middle- and upper-middle-class college students challenged traditional institutions and mores, many of their peers remained as committed to old-time moral and religious values as ever.

Nevertheless, the 1960s did swing wide a door that had never been opened before. A new vista of lifestyle options was introduced into mainstream America. In the religious sphere, this meant that mainline Protestantism or fifty-fifty the tripartite division of Protestant-Catholic-Jew no longer represented all of society's spiritual interests. Americans now had to take into account different kinds of spiritualities and practices, new kinds of leaders and devotees.

In the post-1960s era, the religious scene has become only more than diverse and complex. The list is endless, but allow u.s.a. consider iii examples that illustrate the pluralistic nature of American religion at the shut of the twentieth century:

1. the "boomer" generation of spiritual seekers
2. the growth of non-European, indigenous-religious communities
3. religious rights in the public square.

A Generation of Seekers

Even as diversity has increasingly fragmented American religious life in the last thirty years, religious interest remains as lively as ever. Vitality is seen both in the resurgence of more traditional, conservative expressions of Christianity and in the sustained interest in non-Christian alternatives. Ii groups that take received much attending in contempo years are the Religious Right, on the one hand, and New Historic period seekers on the other. Here nosotros simply notation that alongside a thriving conservative Christian community stands a very different expression of religious vitality. Its main participants are composed of what sociologist Wade Clark Roof calls the new "generation of seekers." These seekers are baby boomers who came of age in the 1960s and 1970s and are now in their thirties, forties, and fifties. Composing a third of the total population, this generation, because of its vitality and sheer size, is shaping contemporary culture in a greatly new fashion.

One chief feature is that of being spiritual seekers. Some boomers take returned to the churches they grew up in, seeking traditional values as they at present heighten their ain children. A larger number, yet, never returned to the tradition of their childhood (predominantly Protestant, Catholic, or Jewish). Sociologists accept estimated that 25 per centum of the boomer generation have returned to church, but a total 42 percent have "dropped out" for good. These dropouts practice not vest to any religious organization and merits no denominational ties. They eschew institutional formality and define themselves as seekers rather than traditionally devout or "religious." They might be open up to "trying church" but are just as willing to sample Eastern religions, New Age spiritualism, or quasi-religious self-help groups of the Recovery Movement. For seekers, spirituality is a means of private expression, self-discovery, inner healing, and personal growth. Religion is valued according to one'south subjective feel. Thus seekers feel free to incorporate elements of different traditions according to their own liking. They store around, compare, and select religious "truths" and experiences with what ane historian calls their "à la carte" spirituality.

Books on angels, fascination with reincarnation and the afterlife, New Age music, the selling of crystals, popular Eastern garb, and best-selling recovery titles bear witness to how widespread and "mainstream" seeker spirituality has become in our society. Seeker self-discovery is far removed from conservative Christianity'due south traditional piety, only both point to the array of religious options now readily available and thoroughly respectable in late-twentieth-century America.

Ethnic-Religious Communities

Along with the new "seeker" spirituality, another sign of the dismantling of a monolithic "Protestant America" is the increasing celebration of religious particularity through the championing of ethnic identity, the politics of multiculturalism, and the growing communities of "new immigrants" from Latin America and Asia (those who moved to the Us since clearing restrictions were lifted in the landmark Immigration Act of 1965).

In the 1960s, the Ceremonious Rights Movement provided a context for celebrating non-Anglo ethnicity for the first time. Past the mid-1970s an ethnic revival celebrating the roots of African Americans, Mexican Americans, Native Americans, American Jews, and Asian Americans spawned. Of a sudden non-Anglo, non-Protestant Americans were valorizing their ain ethnicity, religions, and histories. In the 1980s, a politicized version of ethnic celebration emerged in the ideals of "multiculturalism," a philosophy of multiethnicity that sees America composed of a wonderfully diverse group of communities ineradicable in their indigenous character. Replacing the already one-time notion of America as the melting pot nation, or a denizens leap together by a set of universalistic values (e.g., democracy, equality, justice), multiculturalism argues for the dazzler of multifariousness, the essentialist nature of indigenous identity, and thus the necessity for cultural pluralism. We should encourage ethnic communities to celebrate their ain histories, cultural distinctives, and religious traditions (Afrocentrism and bilingual education, for case, are 2 key policies of the multicultural agenda).

With the number of immigrants from Latin America and Asia only growing in the 1990s, the issue of religious diversity or cultural pluralism looms larger than e'er. Spanish speakers, for example, will presently outnumber English language speakers in the state of California. Southeast Asians are making their home on both coasts and in the heartland likewise (Laotians and the Hmong have established thriving communities in wintry Wisconsin and Minnesota).

A wholly new religious space is being carved out in the American landscape—a space that has lilliputian to practise with the traditional ethnic carve up between blackness and white or the religious partitioning of Protestant, Cosmic, and Jew. This religious site is unlike, besides, from the New Age seekers and spiritual shoppers of the boomer generation. Americans are going to be exposed to multiple indigenous and "Two-Thirds" world religions every bit never before. While certain portions of the intellectual elite have been fascinated with the world'southward "great religions" (Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam) since the mid-nineteenth century, these traditions have never penetrated Principal Street America. By the terminate of this century, however, Americans will increasingly run across Buddhist neighbors, Muslim colleagues, and Hindu businessmen. These "strange" religions volition no longer be simply descriptions in school textbooks or exotic movie subjects. Indeed, advocates of cultural pluralism hope that the new religions will go as much a office of the American Way every bit historically Protestant orthodoxy.

Not but will new ethnic religions dot the landscape, but multiethnic religious traditions volition emerge likewise. Indeed a broad survey conducted by the Constitute for the Report of American Religion reports that some 375 ethnic or multiethnic religious groups accept already formed in the United States in the last three decades. Sociologists of religion believe the numbers will only increase in the coming years. Roman Cosmic Mexican, Anglo, and Vietnamese Americans, for example, are beginning to celebrate a common Mass together in some parts of the country. Muslims of dissimilar sects are sharing mosque space in major cities. African Americans wearing kufi hats are singing Southern Baptist hymns in Chicago churches (with portraits of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Nelson Mandela gracing the walls). In sum, these immature, thriving, and growing immigrant communities are introducing a whole new kind of religious pluralism into late-twentieth-century America. The real impact of immigrant communities remains to be seen, just religion in America promises to be more complex and diverse in the coming years than ever.

Organized religion in the Public Square

Another area in which the variety of contemporary American religion manifests itself is in the escalating battles fought in the courts over religious practice in the public square. Most legal battles over faith center around interpretations of the First Amendment's religion clause: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free practise thereof." The bug commonly raised, thus, concern questions about the "separation of church and state" (specially as violated by traditionally privileged Protestantism) and the free exercise of religion (peculiarly as sought by minority traditions). Litigation and disputes over the First Amendment take increased dramatically since the 1970s and continue unabated today.

Historically, the courts accept been loathe to dominion on disputes within religious groups, questions concerning what constitutes "religion," and the legitimacy of personal religious practices. Concerning the gratis practice of religion, notwithstanding, the courts accept intervened when traditional welfare questions or "common expert" policies are involved. Nether "traditional welfare," for instance, Jehovah's Witnesses take been ordered to grant blood transfusions for their children, Christian Scientific discipline parents have been convicted for refusing medical care for their children, and the marriages of child brides accept been prohibited despite being customary exercise amongst certain Hindu sects. The courts, and then, volition rule against sure religious practices when they believe a child'southward welfare is in serious jeopardy. "Common good" policies take led the Supreme Courtroom to rule against the sacramental utilise of peyote by Oregon Indians. Protecting antidrug laws is considered admittedly necessary (i.east., banning certain drugs no matter what their usage) for the larger "common proficient" of the nation.

Aside from welfare and mutual skillful policies, however, the post-1960s courts tend to support the broad practise of religious liberty. Since the 1970s, religious groups that have been traditionally marginalized have especially received a conscientious hearing. Landmark cases supporting practices inside the Amish customs (their children do non accept to attend high schoolhouse), the Hare Krishnas (the correct to proselytize), and the Santeria religion (animal killings for ritual cede are immune) evidence to the tendency towards a liberal reading of the complimentary exercise clause. In 1993 Congress passed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act to require "strict scrutiny" of any land or federal police that conflicts with the complimentary exercise of faith. The Supreme Court struck down this act in 1997 (in a example involving city zoning laws and a church's renovation plans), asserting that Congress had overstepped its authorization and that the act violated the separation of powers in the federal government. Since then several states take passed or introduced bills for state religious freedom restoration laws.

The second set up of battles in the courts centers around the religious establishment clause. Since the 1960s "no establishment of religion" has been interpreted by many as requiring a strict "separation of church and state." The separation of church and state argument has been levied against traditional Christianity in detail. The focus of the battles has been in the public schools, especially, where the courts have sought to dismantle any practices of conventional religion. Both Bible reading and prayer that are directed by the school accept been banned from public schools since the early 1960s. Despite ongoing efforts to appeal these laws (and most recently to supplant prayer time with a "moment of silence"), the courts have not changed their stance. Legislation to include creationism aslope teachings on evolution in the schools has been continually struck downwardly. In 1992, clergy prayers were abolished at high schoolhouse graduations (although student prayers are allowed).

Some Christians have argued that such rulings practice non protect confronting the establishment of a country religion only actually promote the faith of secular humanism. The Courts maintain, however, that a neutral zone can be created in the schools and do non see secular humanism equally a religious belief. Simply as the cultural trend towards supporting religious pluralism has led to a broad costless exercise of religion for marginalized groups, so the courts have also taken a mostly strict stance over the no institution clause to ensure traditional Christianity does not take a privileged role once again in the public square.

Guiding Educatee Discussion

The overall goal of this lesson is to expose students to the increasingly diverse and pluralistic nature of religious life in late-twentieth-century America. Hither are some topics to consider for discussion.

1. Organized religion remains a very important attribute in American life today, but it has taken on new shapes and unlike forms. Two popular expressions of religious vitality in postal service–Earth War II America are bourgeois Christianity (once again, run into essay on the Christian Right elsewhere on this Spider web site) and spiritual "seekers." What kinds of factors (historical, personal, familial) draw some towards traditional religious practice and others to different and alternative ones? Is organized religion a thing primarily of belief (believing sure things about a transcendent being), practice (doing certain activities, following certain rules), or experience (feeling certain emotions, having a spiritual see)? What would a bourgeois Christian say? What would a spiritual seeker say?
2. With the ongoing expansion of non-European, non-Protestant immigrant communities across the United States, students volition increasingly come across (if they haven't already) those of a unlike skin colour, homeland, history, language, and religion. What different religious traditions have the students encountered so far? How do they think nearly religious differences? Why do we often scoff at or feel (if nosotros're honest) frightened and isolated by those who believe differently from ourselves? What is the best way to learn about unlike religious traditions? How does one respect another'southward faith while believing one'due south own tradition is the correct one?

   Students volition begin to see how entwined faith is with other essential "identity" traits. Religion oftentimes goes manus in hand with ane's ethnicity, nationality, and family unit history. For many, organized religion is not a matter of pick only one assigned past nascency. Being Jewish, for example, involves both ethnic and religious identity. Tin a Jew cull to get "not Jewish"? If one does not follow the tenets of Judaism, does ane remain a Jew?

   How tin the The states be ane, unified nation when so many different indigenous and religious communities alive hither? What does it mean to be American? Does America need one religion, one language, one political tradition? Who decides what values, beliefs, and practices are truly "American"?

3. The most common, contemporary interpretation of the First Amendment's prohibition of the establishment of any state religion is that of a "separation of church and land." Only this was not the chief business organization of those who adopted the initial amendment. The Offset Congress of the The states (led by James Madison) was not concerned with the separation of church and state so much equally the domination of one particular tradition over all others. They did not desire a state-established church. Is it possible to separate one's faith from ane's public life? If so, how does the regime enforce the separation? If faith is an essential part of 1'south identity (like ethnicity, nationality), so how does one non bring faith into the public arena? The courts have implicitly acknowledged the difficulty of accented separation of church and land for they have often opted, instead, to grant equal rights and protection to a multiplicity of religions rather than try and split all religious elements from public life. What are the dangers of separating one's religion from public life? What are the dangers of non separating church and state?

Historians Debate

Those teaching and writing religious history are increasingly bookkeeping for the cultural shifts of the past 3 decades. The declining membership of mainstream denominations, the rise of bourgeois (fundamentalists, evangelicals, charismatics, Pentecostals) and alternating religions (seekers, New Agers, Eastern religions), and the growing number of "new immigrants" all testify to a profoundly different religious landscape from that of 50 years ago. Considering of these changes, historians similar Thomas Tweed, Catherine Albanese, Joel Martin, and Peter Williams argue for a new type of narrative for American religious history. The introduction to Thomas Tweed's recently published Narrating U.S. Religious History (1997) provides an especially useful discussion on the changes the study of religious history is undergoing in the academy.

The nigh widely read and popular historical surveys in the past focused overwhelmingly on mainline Protestantism. Sydney Ahlstrom's A Religious History of the American People (1972), considered the masterpiece of religious history, certainly acknowledges religious diversity, only tells the story principally in terms of New England Puritans. Historians who still believe religious history must be taught with Protestants taking center stage agree with George Marsden's statement that the story of American religion, "if it is to hang together . . . must focus on . . . mainstream Protestants who were for a long time the insiders with disproportional influence in shaping American culture."

Truthful, the Protestant establishment has influenced much of American civilization and dominated religion in public life from the 1600s to the 1960s and beyond, only those who favor telling the stories of the marginalized and minority religious groups argue that the Protestant tale remains nevertheless but one story among many. Information technology is an of import story, but it has been told and retold at the expense of other stories. Other voices, motifs, and plots deserve a hearing, and all the more and then since pluralism has been gradually replacing Protestant domination since the 1960s. Asian religions, new religious movements, popular religion, cultural religion, and adult female's identify in religion, all require attention after decades, fifty-fifty centuries, of focus solely on the white, male, European, Protestant (and primarily intellectual) religious tradition.

Historians hold that diversity characterizes a bang-up bargain of late-twentieth-century American religious life, only how much attention should exist given and where to brainstorm speaking of the diversity remain contested problems. Does i write and teach, equally has traditionally been the case, about American religious history starting time primarily with the English Reformation and the Puritan migration to New England? (See Winthrop Hudson and John Corrigan's popular survey Religion in America [1992] or Edwin Gaustad'south A Religious History of America [1990].) Later on all, much of America'due south formation as a nation is the story of Protestant pioneering and ascendancy. Or does 1 follow Catherine Albanese (America: Religions and Faith [1992] and Mary Farrell Bednarowski (American Organized religion: A Cultural Perspective [1984], who look at Catholics, Jews, Native Americans, and other religious groups before turning to the Protestant tradition? Albanese and Bednarowski believe they are making upwardly for lost time on behalf of religious traditions heretofore disregarded and marginalized. Every bit always, the teaching of history involves choices. These choices not but reverberate personal values and priorities, simply also the power historians have to grant pride of place to whomsoever they will in their rendition of religious life in America.

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Joanne C. Beckman is a Ph.D. candidate in American religious history at Duke Academy. She is currently working on her dissertation, Refashioning Eros: The Role of Romantic Love in Evangelical Courtship and Marriage Literature.� Her areas of interest include the history of Christianity, ethnicity and religion, women and organized religion, American religious history of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, historiography, and evangelical scholarship. She has written articles on sabbatarianism, evangelicalism, Methodism, Billy Graham, and H. L. Mencken.

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