American national rituals are almost always nominally religious, broadened in recent years from a vaguely “Christian” tradition to an equally ill-defined “Judaeo-Christian” tradition. Politicians almost always profess a belief in a “higher power,” but are careful not to sound too fundamentalist, too metaphysical, or too extreme. Political officials are installed with a prayer and a Bible as part of the ceremonies, but in the most democratic of institutions—the school—prayer is prohibited lest it appear that there is official proselytizing of any particular religious practice.
Instead of a shared religion, the United States is greatly influenced by what some observers have called “civil religion”—a widespread acceptance of a unifying set of values that bind Americans to a shared code of behavior. While trying to maintain a posture of separation between church and state, Americans have attempted to balance that posture with using amorphous religious rhetoric to legitimize certain standards of ethics and behavior. One observer describes this balancing act as “an effort to find a faith sufficiently encompassing and inspiring to envelop all of ‘God’s New Israel’ under one snugly religious quilt.” Certainly a largely patriarchal Protestant and Puritan set of values has shaped the American religious mainstream, informing everything from marriage, child-rearing and social relationships to politics and marketplace ethics. But Native American influences can be seen in some of the religious-political framework of the Constitution, and Jews, African Americans and women have successfully invoked religious rhetoric to highlight social injustice.
The American openness to religious diversity has had mixed results. There has been plenty of opportunity for new denominations to flourish, such as the AME Church, which was born in Philadelphia in the 1790s, but there has also been plenty of opportunity for conflict and dissension. Despite the fact that unconventional forms of religious behavior have brought angry and sometimes violent responses, Americans have, to date, not been dislodged from the conviction that freedom of worship is important, even when this conviction has sparked violence. In the 1830s, Illinois residents attacked Mormon settlers over their practice of polyandry and drove them from the state; in the 1980s the Branch Davidian group, which preached that David Koresh was the modern incarnation of Jesus Christ, became involved in a shooting match with federal government officials. Yet the Mormons, who eventually found a home—and legal protection for their practices—in Utah, are now hosts to one of the most respected genealogy centers and religious choirs. The Branch Davidians have largely disbanded, but similar groups prepared to launch violent resistance in pursuit of extreme forms of religious freedom continue to flourish. One such group, the World Church of the Creator, which advocates deportation of non-whites, was brought to public attention when a former member, Benjamin Smith, went on a shooting spree in the suburbs surrounding Chicago, IL.
Since the Second World War, as Americans have grown increasingly sensitive to curbing any form of intolerance, the widespread recognition of rituals such as Jewish Chanukah, African American Kwanzaa and Muslim Ramadan has challenged everything from traditional bank holidays to national foodways to school curricula. As one observer phrased it: “the growing diversity of religious and ethnic populations in the United States [has] drawn our attention to the need to accommodate pluralism everywhere.” Such postwar tolerance, however, has not staunched Americans’ anxiety that excessive commitment to particular religious beliefs will lead to behaviors and loyalties that are at odds with mainstream American civil norms (e.g. Catholic loyalties to the Pope, Quaker commitments to pacifism, Muslim adherence to abstinence from alcohol, Christian Science resistance to modern medicine, shamanic invocations of other-worldly spirits, Wicca celebrations of feminist religions, etc.). The delicate boundary between religious freedom and civil authority continues to occasion dozens of legal confrontations each year. As immigration restrictions have been relaxed, Buddhist, Hindu and various smaller groupings of Old-World religions also have taken a significant place in the modern religious landscape, and these, too, sometimes are accompanied by rites and traditions that are disturbing to their neighbors.
In twenty-first century America it seems likely that the tightrope comprising civil religious impulses, commitment to religious freedom, increasing diversity among the population and tensions between conflicting religious requirements and rites will continue a dynamic relationship that defines Americans’ religious experience.
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