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Temat: How religion defines America
How religion defines AmericaUnlike some other Western countries, the United States remains an overwhelmingly religious society. The BBC programme What the World Thinks of God examines the modern world's relationship with God. Among those taking part is Dr Richard Land who explains how profoundly religion influences American society and politics.
The USA is a very religious society. Evidence abounds demonstrating Americans' deep and abiding religious convictions.
A Gallup Poll released in November 2003 found that six out of ten Americans said that religion was "very important" in their lives.
In contrast, in Canada and the United Kingdom, two societies often perceived as quite similar to the United States, only 28% and 17% respectively described religion as similarly important in their lives.
A survey done in 2001 by the City University of New York Graduate Center found that 85% of Americans identify with some religious faith.
The same study concluded that by most standards the United States was a more professingly religious country than any European nations except Ireland and Poland.
FAITH IN AMERICA
Protestant (White Evangelical) 30%
Roman Catholics 25%
Protestant (Liberal) 20%
Protestant (African-American) 8%
Jewish 2%
Other 15%
Source: City University of New York (2001)
. Conservative belief
The religious convictions of Americans tend toward the conservative end of the spectrum.
An ABC news poll, done in February 2004, found that approximately 60% of Americans believe that the Genesis creation account, Noah's ark and a global flood, and Moses' parting of the Red Sea are "literally true."
Belief in the literal veracity of these biblical accounts was highest among the fastest growing segment of American faith, evangelical Protestantism (nearly 90% acceptance).
How does such robust religious faith impact and influence American government and the nation's domestic and foreign
Religious vote
An ABC news exit poll taken on Election Day 2000 found that among the 42% of voters who attended religious services at least once a week, 58% voted for Bush.
Conversely, Gore won 61% among the 14% of Americans who reported they never attended religious services.
It is difficult to imagine the United States electing a candidate with the beliefs and policies of a George W. Bush, or for that matter a Ronald Reagan, without the strong role an increasingly conservative faith plays in tens of millions of Americans' lives.
Some estimates conclude that perhaps 40% of President Bush's total raw vote was provided by self-identified "evangelical" Christians.
Religion and society
How does this deep and abiding religious belief impact American society?
According to an ICM poll in January 2004, Americans believe in the supernatural (91%), an afterlife (74%), "belief in a God/higher power makes you a better human being" (82%), God or a higher power judged their actions (76%), and perhaps most tellingly "would die for their God/beliefs" (71%).
In 1880 Dostoyevsky wrote in The Brothers Karamazov that "If God does not exist, then everything is permissible."
The history of his native Russia, wracked by the atrocities of atheistic communism for most of the 20th century, serves as a most graphic example of the truth of his conclusion.
Nazism, above all detested religion because it called for allegiance to something greater than the state, namely God.
When 71% of Americans say they would die for their faith, they are pledging allegiance to a loyalty beyond their loyalty to their country and are saying the exact polar opposite of "my country, right or wrong."
It is very important at this point to make a critical distinction: to be willing to die for one's faith is utterly different than to kill for it.
The overwhelming majority of Americans, religious and otherwise, would never feel that it is morally acceptable to kill, or even discriminate against, someone because they were of a differing faith or no faith.
As an evangelical Christian, I would not only die for my faith, I would die for any person's right to live their lives according to the dictates of their own consciences.
My personal commitment to the soul liberty of every human being is as deep as my commitment to Jesus Christ as my Saviour and Lord.
Like virtually all Americans of faith, I believe that a person's relationship to his or her God is a sacred matter which no other human being or group of human beings (government or religious communion) has the right to forcibly interfere with or seek to coerce.
As an evangelical Christian I believe in the right to share my faith and to seek to persuade others, as they have an equal right to seek to persuade me, but force or coercion - never!
Magdalena Prokop
27th March,2004
Topic shared with the issue of American family.
Continuity and Change in the American Society
Religion in America
America has been a highly religious country since its first days. Almost every religion in the world has adherents or organized within America. . Religious institutions in America are relatively large, powerful and definitely influential in American social and political life. What is more, even Americans who are members of no established religion are likely to believe in God. According to a Gallup opinion survey, ‘nearly all Americans, 98% of them, do, compared to 84% in Switzerland, 73% in France and 60% in Sweden. Americans also tend to believe in life after death: 73% compared to 50% in Switzerland and only 38% in Great Britain. About 60% of Americans are members of a church, synagogue or other religious group, though many more identify with various religions because of their birth or upbringing. About 40% of Americans attend religious services regularly, compared to only 20% in Great Britain’
Separation of church and state is evidently a key concept in American government and culture and it is the first line of the First Amendment of the United States constitution which states that church and state are to be kept separate forever.
Many of the colonies that in 1776 became the United States of America were settled by men and women of deep religious convictions who in the seventeenth century crossed the Atlantic Ocean to practice their faith freely. That the religious intensity of the original settlers would diminish to some extent over time was perhaps to be expected, but new waves of eighteenth century immigrants brought their own religious fervor across the Atlantic and the nation’s first major religious revival in the middle of the eighteenth century injected new vigor into American religion.
According to the 1995 Yearbook of America and Canadian Churches, there are more than 163 million Americans which is more than 60% of the total population affiliated with a religion. It difficult to list in detail all the sub-denominations, and only the major denominations will be considered in more detail.
American Christians break into two major ones: Catholicism (about 60 million adherents) and Protestantism (about 100 million). Protestant denominations can be divided into major subgroups as: Baptist, Methodist, Pentecostal, Lutheran, Mormon, Presbyterian, Church of Christ, Episcopal, and Reformed.
Concerning Christian denominations, their significant adherents are: Orthodox Eastern (1.885.346) Church, Jehovah’s Witnesses (926.614), Adventist churches (794.859), Christian Scientists (700.000), and many others. Summing up, more than 154 million of the nation’s 163 million churchgoers are Christian, concerning the numbers.
Although America is a Christian country, the principles like religious tolerance and separation of church and state makes the country a “welcome ground” for the people of other beliefs, namely Jews ( 6 million), Muslims (3 million), and Buddhists (20.000).
The main three denomination groups to consider more closely are Protestants, Roman Catholics, and Jews.
Roman Catholics are considered to be the largest individual denomination in the America with estimated 50,000,000 adherents. Roman Catholic believers are mostly people of Irish, Italian, Hispanic, and Eastern European descent, all together with a smaller, however still large number of Germans.
Most Catholics inhabit metropolitan areas of in the Northeast and Midwest except the large number of Hispanic Catholics concentrated in Florida, The Southwest and California.
Protestants founded and formed largely the United States as a nation, who still remain a powerful national group. It is reflected in when looking at the American presidents’ list where out of the all the men who have been presidents of the United States, only one - John F. Kennedy, a Roman Catholic - was not either a Protestant or from a Protestant family background. Another aspect of Protestant influence is seen in the existence of numerous Protestant affiliations and sects.
Jews deserve special treatment in the sphere of religion. Some people doubt whether they should be considered as a religion, nationality or race? It is due to the fact that many Jews themselves as well as non-Jews consider the Jews to be more of an ethnic group than a religion in America, as most of the nation's 7,000,000 Jews have had at least a nominal connection to Jewish religious practices. The Jewish religion is ancient and has its complicated history. The Jewish people have suffered through thousands of years of cruel persecution and oppression and America has served as a great refuge for the ones who were persecuted, where they quickly became part of American life. The largest proportion of Jews are concentrated in the Northeast and in the Miami and Los Angeles areas. More Jews live in the United States than in any other country, including Israel.
Jews are not a homogeneous group. They can be divided according to the branch affiliation and difference in the attitude towards different issues like obeying ancient rituals and observing laws regarding food. Those are Reform, Conservative, Orthodox, and Reconstructionist Jews.
The phenomenon typical for the U.S. is the Black church. Nearly 90% of African-American church-goers attend predominantly-black churches, mostly Baptist. The black church has existed as a separate entity for hundreds of years. Black churches have contributed many notable American religious and political leaders, the most prominent of whom have been the civil rights leader the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., the Reverend Jesse Jackson. The gospel music of the black church is one of the building blocks of America's unique musical heritage. It forms the basis for much of black music, which itself forms the basis for much of American popular music.
The function of religion in American society is universal which is fulfilling basic functions within societies – for the authorities – integrity and social control, for the believers – the feeling of belonging to a ‘society’. It is especially important for the immigrants coming into the United States, a completely foreign country, where the denomination society adopts the newcomer no matter (in most cases) the country he is from. It is reflected in the American background, the Constitution’s First Amendment concerning freedom of religion and as a result there is a great diversity of beliefs, rituals, and experiences that characterize American society. Thus everyone entering a new country will find a religion of his own. American social life is largely religion centered, mostly for middle aged and elderly adults. It does not mean in most cases attending a mass every day but meeting and spending free time within the group of people from the parish, going to baseball matches, playing golf, having Christmas parties and the like. Religion is for Americans something that helps them organize their life, not only social but provides the set of rules to obey.
http://www.lifeintheusa.com/religion/
