American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites UsAmerican Grace is a major achievement, a groundbreaking examination of religion in America. Unique among nations, America is deeply religious, religiously diverse, and remarkably tolerant. But in recent decades the nation’s religious landscape has been reshaped. America has experienced three seismic shocks, say Robert Putnam and David Campbell. In the 1960s, religious observance plummeted. Then in the 1970s and 1980s, a conservative reaction produced the rise of evangelicalism and the Religious Right. Since the 1990s, however, young people, turned off by that linkage between faith and conservative politics, have abandoned organized religion. The result has been a growing polarization—the ranks of religious conservatives and secular liberals have swelled, leaving a dwindling group of religious moderates in between. At the same time, personal interfaith ties are strengthening. Interfaith marriage has increased while religious identities have become more fluid. Putnam and Campbell show how this denser web of personal ties brings surprising interfaith tolerance, notwithstanding the so-called culture wars. American Grace is based on two of the most comprehensive surveys ever conducted on religion and public life in America. It includes a dozen in-depth profiles of diverse congregations across the country, which illuminate how the trends described by Putnam and Campbell affect the lives of real Americans. Nearly every chapter of American Grace contains a surprise about American religious life. Among them: • Between one-third and one-half of all American marriages are interfaith; • Roughly one-third of Americans have switched religions at some point in their lives; • Young people are more opposed to abortion than their parents but more accepting of gay marriage; • Even fervently religious Americans believe that people of other faiths can go to heaven; • Religious Americans are better neighbors than secular Americans: more generous with their time and treasure even for secular causes—but the explanation has less to do with faith than with their communities of faith; • Jews are the most broadly popular religious group in America today. American Grace promises to be the most important book in decades about American religious life and an essential book for understanding our nation today. |
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LibraryThing Review
User Review - GlennBell - LibraryThingThis is a highly detailed analysis of religion in America. The book is basically an analysis of a faith survey conducted over multiple years. The accuracy of the book is almost entirely dependent on ... Read full review
LibraryThing Review
User Review - MaryAlice411 - LibraryThingThis book isn't something you can sit down and read. At least I couldn't. So much info, not trying to get you to believe anything, but how does religion control our live and politics and how religion ... Read full review
Contents
| 1 | |
The Old and the New | 37 |
The Historical Backdrop | 70 |
Shock and Two Aftershocks | 91 |
Switching Matching and Mixing | 134 |
Innovations in Religion | 161 |
Ethnicity Gender and Religion | 180 |
The Womens Revolution the Rise of Inequality and Religion | 231 |
Religion in American Politics | 369 |
Politics Within Congregations | 419 |
Religion and Good Neighborliness | 443 |
A House Divided? | 493 |
How a Tolerant Nation Bridges | 516 |
Acknowledgments | 551 |
Notes | 571 |
| 649 | |
Other editions - View all
American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us Robert D. Putnam,David E. Campbell Limited preview - 2012 |
American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us Robert D. Putnam,David E. Campbell No preview available - 2010 |
Common terms and phrases
2006 Faith Matters abortion activity African Americans aftershock Ameri American religion Anglo asked attend church attitudes believe Beth Emet Bethel Black Protestants century Chapter Christian church attendance churchgoers civic clergy cohorts congregation conservative decades demographic denominations emerging church ethnic Evangelical Protestant evidence explains Faith Matters survey feel Figure friends Gallup gay marriage gender gion gious God’s highly religious homosexuality identity immigrants important intermarriage issues Jews Latino Latino Catholics less liberal lives Lutheran mainline Protestants megachurch Michele Bachmann moral Mormons National Election Studies neighborliness nonreligious one’s parish parishioners Pastor people’s percent pews political population Protestantism question racial reli religious affiliation religious Americans religious diversity religious groups religious services religious traditions Republican respondents Robert Wuthnow role roughly Saddleback same‑sex marriage says secular Americans sermon social networks Social Survey switching tion trend University Press views vote voters women worship young
Bibliographic information
| Title | American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us |
| Authors | Robert D. Putnam, David E. Campbell |
| Edition | illustrated |
| Publisher | Simon and Schuster, 2010 |
| ISBN | 1416566880, 9781416566885 |
| Length | 688 pages |
| Subjects | › Political Science / Civics & Citizenship Religion / General Social Science / General |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |