What America Stands For: The Religious Aspect

Abstract

In contemporary America institutional religion — the great religious bodies, Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish — grows with a vigor equalled only in the early decades of the nineteenth century. In the last two decades church membership has increased at a ratio twice that of the rapidly accelerating population. Nearly every American affirms that he is a Protestant, Catholic, or Jew while three out of every five are actually members of one of the more than two hundred denominations which dot the religious landscape. In a period marked by economic depression, global war, and efforts to contain Communist totalitarianism, Americans look to religion as a major defense of democracy and the “American way of life.”