Religion in America: Putnam

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Religion in AmericaPutnam Campbell

• The most importance fact about religion in
  America is that we are nowand have been since
  the Foundinga relatively pious and observant
  people.
• (Sociology 156)

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Strong Continuity

• The most importance fact about religion in
  America is that we are nowand have been since
  the Foundinga relatively pious and observant
  people.
• 1948 73 Americans believe in the afterlife
• 2006 70
• 1937 73 Americans belong to a church or
  synagogue
• 1999 73
• 35-40 report having a strong religious
  affiliation since 1974
• American religions, compared to religions in
  many other countries, have shown a remarkable
  ability to adapt to changing circumstances.
  (70-71)

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Social Change

• Social change embodied in generational change is
  slow and gradual, because at any given time the
  population includes people from many different
  generations, and thus society-wide figures
  represent a kind of moving average. (72)
• Period effects that simultaneously affect people
  of all ages produce social change measurable over
  a few years
• Large generational differences produce social
  change measurable over a few decades
• Small generational differences produce social
  change measurable only over many decades
• Pure life cycle effects produce no social change
  at all (74)

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Social Change

• In round numbers, each decade in an individuals
  life adds one more week of church attendance to
  his or her annual average. Conversely, people
  born in each successive decade have attended
  church about one week fewer per year than people
  born a decade earlier.
• People born in the 1950s and now in their
  fifties, for example, attend church about one
  week fewer per year than people born in the 1940s
  when they were in their fifties.
• If secularization is in fact occurring in
  America, at this rate it will take a couple of
  centuries to reduce American religious observance
  to current European levels. (75-76)
• Generationally based declines in religious
  observance sped up in the 1960s, stabilized from
  the 1970s to the 1990s, and then accelerated
  again with the advent of the generation that
  reached adulthood in the 2000s (79)

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• Fig. 3.1

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Backdrop the 1950s

• Post-WWII, church attendance spikes, mostly
  mainline Protestants
• 1950 31 attend church weekly, 1957 51 (all
  time high)
• College-educated male veterans famiies
• Shared values
• Judeo-Christian label emerges at this time
• No partisan divide
• Social pressure, civic duty
• 1957 69 say that religion is increasing its
  influence on American life

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• Fig. 3.5

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The Shock of the Long Sixties

• Long Sixties a lot of the things we call the
  Sixties took place in the 1970s
• Massive onslaught against existing institutions
• Government
• Sex
• 1970 80 of those who reached adulthood in the
  60s say premarital sex only sometimes or not
  at all wrong, 80 of elder generations
• Subsequent generations more conservative on
  political, social, religious matter, but dont
  revert to tradition on sex
• Our class 27 (21) say immoral, 73 (57) say not
• Religion
• Drugs
• Question Authority
• Emphasis on individual desires (91-94)

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Christianity in the 60s

• Vatican II 1962-1965
• Latin Mass replaced by vernacular
• Confession all but disappears
• Papal recognition of other religions legitimacy
• Change in attire
• Increased role for the laity
• Number of individuals identifying as Catholic,
  but attendance at Mass, especially among young,
  drops precipitously.
• Catholics alone account for much of the decline
  in church attendance during the long 60s
• Non-churchgoing mainline Protestants drop the
  label
• Attendance levels remain stable among those who
  still identify
• Evangelicals begin to mobilize
• Campus Crusade for Christ 109 employees in 1960,
  6,500 by mid-70s (96-97)

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The Nones

• Spiritual but not religious
• Seekers
• Personalism
• Multiple truths
• New religions
• Unification Church, Transcendental Meditation,
  Church of Satan, Children of God, Hare Krishna
  movement, Jesus Freaks, increased interest in
  Buddhism, Wicca
• Sheilaism
• I believe in God. I am not a fanatic. I cant
  remember the last time that I went to church. My
  faith has carried me a long way. Its Sheilaism.
  Just my own little voice . . . My own Sheilaism
  . . . is just try to love yourself and be gentle
  with yourself. You know, I guess, take care of
  each other. (93)

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• Fig. 4.2

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The First Aftershock

• Just as in politics, many Americans of all ages
  were deeply troubled by the moral and religious
  developments of the Sixties.
• For the next two decades, these
  peopleconservative in both religion and
  politicsswelled the ranks both of evangelical
  Protestant denominations and of the rapidly
  growing evangelical megachurches that disavowed
  denominations and termed themselves simply
  Christian. (103)
• Notice institutional crisis penetrates even the
  conservative reaction. Does not strengthen the
  mainline denominations.

13

• Fig. 4.4

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The First Aftershock

• The Sixties were an age of turmoil that many
  Americans found deeply repugnant to their
  fundamental moral and religious views.
• In 2006, ¾ evangelicals agree that there are
  absolutely clear guidelines as to what is good
  and what is evil
• The evangelical stance was perfectly suited to
  Americans deeply alienated from the culture of
  the Sixties. Some of these people had
  evangelical roots and thus were inclined (unlike
  their counterparts in other tradtions) to renew
  their religious involvement, while others were
  drawn into evangelical circles for the first
  time.
• In 2006, after a quarter century of rising
  national prominence and power, more than 2/3 of
  evangelicals said that they felt their values
  were seriously or moderately threatened in
  America today, a sense of embattlement greater
  than any other major religious tradition.
  (113-114)

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The First Aftershock

• The first aftershock was caused by many things,
  to be sure, but a central theme was concern over
  collapsing sexual morality. (117)
• Religiosity and conservative politics became
  increasingly aligned, and abortion and gay rights
  became emblematic of the emergent culture wars.
• To many religious Americans, this alignment of
  religion and politics represented a long-sought
  consummation, an appropriate retort to the
  excesses of the Sixties. Many other Americans
  were not so sure. (120)

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(No Transcript)
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The Second Aftershock

• By 1990, according to one survey, many young
  Americans came to view religion . . . as
  judgmental, homophobic, hypocritical, and too
  political. (121)
• Nones, which had steadily accounted for 5-7 of
  the population until 1990
• Not necessarily atheist

18

• Fig. 4.11

19

• Fig 4.13

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Who are the Nones?

• Except for being disproportionately young, not
  much different from national population
• More likely men, whites, and non-Southerners
• Mostly not atheists or agnostics.
• Disproportionately raised in nonreligious
  households (but 16 of Americans in 2007 were
  nones, but only 7 from nonreligious backgrounds)
• Because the rise of the nones was so abrupt,
  unlikely due to historical process of
  secularization
• Heavily drawn from the center and left of the
  political spectrum
• Change of opinion on homosexuality almost exactly
  simultaneous with rise of nones (128-127)

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The Nones

• While no strong claims made about causation, The
  dramatic contrast between a young generation
  increasingly liberal on certain moral and
  lifestyle issues (though still potentially open
  to religious feelings and ideals) and an older
  generation of religious leaders who seemed to
  them consumed by the political fight against gay
  marriage was one important source of the second
  aftershock.
• This group of young people came of age when
  religion was identified with the Religious
  Right and the fight against homosexuality and
  gay marriage, exactly the issues on which this
  group was most tolerant (130)

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The Nones

• The new nones reported that they became
  unaffiliated, at least in part, because they
  think of religious people as hypocritical,
  judgmental, or insincere.
• Many also because they think that religious
  organizations focus too much on rules and not
  enough on spirituality.
• Growing gap between evangelicals and the rest of
  America on sexual morality (131)

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Fluidity Continuity

• Though there has been much change, in important
  ways the landscape of American religion has
  remained remarkably stable through this turbulent
  half century.
• What has changed in the decline in religious
  moderates, and numbers have shifted to a
  religious right and a secular left
• But importantly History never ends. (132-133)