American Religion: Will it Heal or Divide the Nation?

Abstract

During the first two-thirds of the twentieth century, most American sociologists ignored religion. All this changed in the late 1970s with the cultural and political (though per haps not numeric) rise of conservative Amer ican religion. As religion reappeared on the radar screens of American sociologists, two somewhat contradictory lines of inquiry emerged, one wary and one hopeful. The wary perspective sees religion, espe cially certain types of religion, and differ ences between religious groups, as a re emerging source of conflict and potential vi olence in America. Will newly strident and more demanding religious groups increasing ly come into conflict with the nation's demo cratic ideals, especially if some of these groups find government the people less compelling than doing God's will as they un derstand it? Framing the issues somewhat dif ferently, Hunter (1991) argues that America is experiencing a new culture war between orthodox and progressive factions with peo ple on both sides motivated by strong reli gious, or at least moral, convictions. Divi sions between religious groups have long been a source of conflict in America, espe cially conflicts between Protestants, Catho lics, and Jews, but as Herberg (1960) notes, these groups seemed to have reached a de tente in the late 1950s. Since then, however, the religious landscape has changed. Large numbers of Muslims, Hindus, and other non Christian immigrants have come to America, many from non-Western nations. For a brief time following 9/11, some Americans wor ried that a few of these new immigrants might be religious fundamentalists of the type that carried out the attacks. Although these concerns seem to have subsided some what, Americans' suspicions and general lack of knowledge about the new immigrants' be liefs and values could be a recipe for misun derstanding and violence. A second, more hopeful, strand in recent sociological thinking about American religion emerged in the last part of the twentieth cen tury. This line of thought goes back at least Congregations in America, by Mark Chaves. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004. 291 pp. $29.95 cloth. ISBN: 0674012844.