Religious Pluralism in the United States

THE BOISI CENTER PAPERS ON RELIGION IN THE UNITED STATES Religious Pluralism in the United States The apparent discrepancy between high levels of religious identity and an overwhelmingly secular popular culture in the United States can be baffling to outsiders. This paper aims to shed light on that paradox by exploring the role that the country's founding principles and history have played in forging a genuinely pluralistic environment. It will present religious pluralism as a desirable ideal in which Americans continue to place their faith. INTRODUCTION Foreign observers of American religion often note This paper aims to acquaint readers with both the the paradoxical existence of both high levels of breadth of this diversity and its historical professed Christian faith and an avowedly secular, development in order to provide a more nuanced even hedonistic, popular culture. There is truth in portrait of the American religious landscape. By both observations, but neither fully captures the way of example, it will pay particular attention to richness and complexity of the American religious the role of Islam in American society and to the landscape. Most Americans identify themselves as unique case of the Mormons, who are formally Christian, but American Christianity is known as members of the Church of Jesus Christ astonishingly diverse: hundreds of different of the Latter-day Saints. The focus on Islam is a Christian denominations coexist, and no one function of the increasing importance and person or group can rightly claim to represent all visibility of the approximately three million Christians. Moreover, religious diversity extends Muslims now present in the United States. The well beyond Christianity: Jews, Muslims focus on the Mormons reflects the particularly Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs, Zoroastrians, and compelling insight into the religious and social adherents of many other faith traditions all consciousness of the American people that their flourish here, making the United States one of experience provides. the most religiously diverse nations in the world. The United States is also widely known for its The paper will also distinguish between the mere secular legal system and materialistic popular diversity of religious faiths and religious culture, yet neither of these has dampened the pluralism as a normative ideal. The ideal of population’s persistent religious vitality. religious pluralism becomes a reality when adherents of different faith traditions are free to express their beliefs in ways that uphold the peace the Hebrew Scriptures), worship one God, and and well-being—the common good—of society. In have in recent history engaged in mutual support this sense, pluralism is something that is achieved of one another. Nevertheless, the Jewish and rather than simply given. It has been said that Christian traditions are distinct to the extent that achieving such pluralism entails participating in Christians accept Jesus Christ as the Messiah and the very “idea of America” in that the United Savior whereas Jews reject such claims. Referring States was founded on the constitutional ideals of to the United States as a Judeo-Christian nation religious freedom, and liberty and justice for all. also overstates the Jewish influence. Jews were But Americans have not always lived up to these present in the United States only in very small ideals. Consequently, this paper describes some of numbers until the late nineteenth-century, and the darkest moments in American history, before even today amount to no more than two percent of concluding with a brief consideration of the the population. Currently about eighty-five benefits and dangers of the United States’ percent of Americans identify themselves as commitment to religious pluralism. Catholic or Protestant Christians. There is immense diversity within American Before proceeding, a few comments about the Christianity—dozens of independent Protestant description of the United States as a "Judeo- denominations or sects and various sub-groups Christian" nation—which this paper will avoid— within Catholicism—but the predominance of are in order. The term "Judeo-Christian" Christianity provides crucial context to any emerged in the nineteen-thirties as a discussion of religious pluralism in the United counterweight to Fascist anti-semitism and then States. Finally, viewing the United States as a served as moral ballast for Western democracies Judeo-Christian country overlooks other non- during the Cold War. But the term suffers from a Christian communities of faith experiencing number of shortcomings. To begin with, it too growth in the United States, including Islam. easily conflates the Jewish and Christian Christianity may still dominate the religious traditions. It is true that these traditions hold landscape of the United States, but religious certain sacred texts in common (namely those pluralism has now become its defining feature. which Christians call either the Old Testament or RELIGIOUS DIVERSITY IN AMERICAN HISTORY Religion in the American Colonies paper on church-state separation for an extended discussion of religious establishment and It should be noted at the outset that Americans religious freedom.) Some states maintained an have not always promoted religious pluralism as established church even after the United States an ideal. On the contrary, religious was founded (the First Amendment only forbade establishment—not religious freedom—was the establishment at the federal level), and it was not norm in colonial America. (See the companion until 1833 that Massachusetts forswore 2 establishment altogether. The Puritans, an ascetic discipleship of Christ that eschews violence and group of Protestants, controlled the social and results in a withdrawal from the modern world. political life of colonial Massachusetts, and other They are congregated primarily in Pennsylvania, religious practices were not tolerated. In fact, the Ohio and Indiana. present state of Rhode Island began as a refuge for banished religious dissidents, including Roger In the southern regions, Protestant slaveholders Williams and Anne Hutchinson, who in the mid- often forced their African slaves (some of whom 1600s advocated toleration for non-Puritan had been Muslims) to become Christians. Many interpretations of Christianity. The Quakers, a slaves, however, mixed elements of their own sect many at the time considered non-Christian, spiritual heritage with the Christian faith of their were also banished from Massachusetts; those captors. The Native American experience often unwilling to leave were subject to the death mirrored that of the African slaves; Catholic and penalty. Indeed, in what was one of the earliest Protestant missionaries aggressively proselytized instances of religious violence in colonial North native peoples who held onto their own spiritual America, four Quakers were hanged in Boston practices in spite of Christian influences. The between 1659 and 1661. Like Massachusetts, ability of the African slaves and the Native Virginia also had an established religion during Americans to preserve aspects of their own non- the colonial period. Virginia’s original charter Christian traditions was a triumph in the face of stipulated that its religious life was to be governed forced or heavily coerced conversions, but the by “the ecclesiastical laws of England.” Thus, the result was a large amount of religious syncretism. governor exercised formal jurisdiction over many Consequently, the efforts of some colonies to aspects of church life prior to the revolutionary encourage a uniform Christian faith were never era. likely to prevail in the new world. As a new and vast territory, the United States lacked historical At the same time that Massachusetts and Virginia traditions and institutions, and it also abounded in maintained their religious establishments, space; these factors naturally fostered religious settlers in the other eleven colonies practiced diversity. Individuals and groups who disagreed several versions of Protestantism as well as with the prevailing religious norms in one place Catholicism. In Maryland, for instance, could simply move to another. Thus the Quakers Catholicism was the primary Christian religion. moved to a region distant from the Puritan The Quakers—unwelcome, as we have seen, in centers of power and the Mennonites separated Massachusetts—moved to Pennsylvania to avoid themselves entirely from the broader community. persecution. Also in Pennsylvania, a small group When faiths collided, as they often did in Puritan of Mennonite Christians—followers of Menno New England, Puritans typically banished Simons and descendants of the radical Anabaptist religious undesirables to the vast unsettled wing of the Protestant Reformation—found a safe territories of the new continent. Furthermore, the haven from persecution in Holland in 1683. colonists who arrived from England were making Mennonites have continued to immigrate to the a new American history. Accordingly, the United States and today constitute a small but religious conflicts of Europe lost some of their viable community, stressing an uncompromising intensity on these shores. 3 Early National Period movements encountered criticism from “mainline” Protestants who questioned the The ratification of the United States Constitution devotion of the revivalists. The revivalists also in 1788 ensured that religious diversity would criticized each other and splintered still further continue to develop in the United

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