I finished the book American Grace [Amazon] more than 5 years ago, but decided to re-read my saved Kindle highlights as part of a renewed focus on studying and writing about organized religion and religious wisdom.
The book is dense. A ton of information on America’s religious landscape: how it’s evolved in the 20th century, which denominations are growing and shrinking, how religion overlaps and interplays with American politics, education, and culture. And great case studies. The book is more suited to an academic audience, given its heavy use of surveys and scholarly writing style.
Here are 10 things I learned, with supporting book excerpts.
One: America is unique among developed nations today in its strong religiosity
Americans have high rates of religious belonging, behaving, and believing—what social scientists call the three Bs of religiosity. […] The United States ranks far ahead of virtually all other developed nations in terms of all three Bs of religiosity.
The General Social Survey also suggests that the fraction of Americans with a self-described “strong” religious affiliation has held steady at just over one third (35–40 percent) since 1974 […] we begin with the bedrock fact that America is now and always has been an unusually religious country.
America is the birthplace of myriad new faiths, some of which flourish and some of which flounder. Examples abound, but include Pentecostalism, Seventh-day Adventists, the Christian Scientists, and the Mormons. In other cases, new religions were born abroad but found a receptive audience in America, like the Methodists, the Shakers, and even the Unification Church.
Alexis de Tocqueville, the famous French visitor to America four decades later, also thought that democracy in America rested in part on Americans’ unusual religiosity.
sociologist Robert Bellah has described the nation’s civil religion, which stands apart from the beliefs of any particular sect, denomination, or religious tradition. In his words, “the civil religion was able to build up without any bitter struggle with the church powerful symbols of national solidarity and to mobilize deep levels of personal motivation for the attainment of national goals.
Two: Women are more religious than Men…and within organized religion there is a gender ceiling much like in politics and business
Women read scripture, talk about religion, and read religious books more than men. […] No matter the specific yardstick, women exhibit a greater commitment to, involvement with, and belief in religion.
…the difference between religious and secular women is modestly but consistently greater than the difference between religious and secular men.
Women represented a paltry 8 percent of clergy in churches as recently as 2006–2007 (up from 6 percent in 1998), although women represent a third of all students in theological schools.
Three: Religious behavior varies widely by ethnicity, although religious bridging and mixing is on the rise
…who personifies the most religious type of American? An older African American woman who lives in a Southern small town. And the least religious? A younger Asian American man who lives in a large Northeastern city.
…the stronger the ethnic identity, the stronger the religious identity. One notable exception, as suggested by the data on counties, is evangelicals. They rank high on the importance of religion, but low on the importance of their ethnicity. Mormons are also off the line.
Among African Americans, in fact, religion has increasingly become a middle-class affair. Since roughly the mid-1980s, black college graduates have become increasingly likely to attend church.
Though the Mormon population in Utah has formed what is perhaps the strongest conservative voting bloc in the country, most members insist that this phenomenon is not the result of directives from inside the church.
Four: We tend to become more religious as we age
Most people become somewhat more observant religiously as they move through their thirties, marry, have children, and settle down. Then as we retire and approach the end of our lives, we often experience another phase of increased religiosity—“nearer my God to thee,” perhaps.
Five: Evangelism is dead / dying
Since this fact is not widely understood, it is worth reemphasizing—the evangelical boom that began in the 1970s was over by the early 1990s, nearly two decades ago
Six: American Catholicism is undergoing great change
…roughly 60 percent of all Americans today who were raised in America as Catholics are no longer practicing Catholics, half of them having left the church entirely and half remaining nominally Catholic, but rarely, if ever, taking any part in the life of the church.
…by dint of their sheer numbers, Latinos are reshaping the American Catholic Church, with every indication that their impact will only increase in years to come. […] Latinos comprise roughly 15 percent of Catholics age fifty and above. That percentage increases to 34 percent for those ages thirty-five to forty-nine (roughly the overall average), and then rises to 58 percent among Catholics under thirty-five.
Seven: Community and friendships are what keep people in a Church
The fact that friends rank so low suggests that it is more common to become friends with members of their congregation than to be pulled into a congregation because of one’s friends.
Americans may select their congregations primarily because of theology and worship, but the social investment made within that congregation appears to be what keeps them there.
Eight: Church attendance is positively correlated with education and income
Secularization (at least in terms of organized religion) seems to be proceeding more rapidly among less educated Americans.
…over roughly the last thirty years, it is the working class who have become less likely to attend church relative to the upper class.
Among African Americans, in fact, religion has increasingly become a middle-class affair. Since roughly the mid-1980s, black college graduates have become increasingly likely to attend church.
Nine: Religious Americans are more involved in their communities and give back more
…while religiosity has a significant positive effect on secular giving, it has an even greater positive effect on secular volunteering.
…the civic difference between Americans who attend church nearly every week and those who rarely do so is roughly equivalent to two full years of education.
Religious Americans express significantly more trust than secular Americans do in shop clerks, neighbors, co-workers, people of their own ethnicity, people of other ethnicities, and even strangers.
Other things being equal, the difference in happiness between a nonchurchgoer and a weekly churchgoer is slightly larger than the difference between someone who earns $10,000 a year and his demographic twin who earns $100,000 a year.
Ten: America is a place of great religious diversity, tolerance, and bridging
By a wide margin, Americans see the value in religious diversity for its own sake.
The explanation for the fact that so many Americans appear to disregard the theology of their religions rests in the religious bridging within their personal social networks.
America has had sporadic religious riots, but no sustained religious wars.