Religion in the US
wenell
IntroductionUSReligiousDemographics-11.pptUS Religious Demographics
78% of US citizens identify as Christian
51% Protestant
26% Evangelical Protestant
18% Mainline Protestant
7% Historically Black Churches
24% Catholic
2% Mormon
1% Orthodox
16% unaffiliated
5% other religions
(All numbers are approximations and taken from Pew Forum “US Religious Landscape Survey,” 2008)
Introductory Notes about the Demographics
- A high percentage of US citizens identify as Christian (almost 80%)
- At the same time, as we will see, some of the fastest growing religions in the US are non-Christian. Over the last several decades, the world religions have been growing in the US primarily through immigration. The number of devotees of non-Christian religions is at unparalleled heights in US history. It is one of the factors that makes the US the most religiously diverse nation in the world. The last two sessions of the course are devoted to examining non-Christian religions and their growth in the US.
Introductory Notes about the Demographics
- The majority of Americans identify as Protestant, although just barely (51%). If this poll had been taken at the time of the American Revolution (1776), the number of self-identified Protestants would have been much higher – well above 90%.
- While Protestant Christianity has commonalities, which we will discuss, at the same time, it is separated into literally hundreds of denominations and individual groups. Many of these groups value what they hold in common with other groups, and cooperate with other groups on larger goals. Many do not. One of the major goals of the course is to sort through Protestant Christianity. This means examining the history, beliefs, and practices of many of the major Protestant denominations, but also establishing inter-denominational categories for understanding Protestantism.
Introductory Notes about the Demographics
- Roman Catholics make up approximately one-fourth of the US population. While Roman Catholics are a minority in the US, this is not the case for worldwide Christianity. Worldwide, there are over a billion Roman Catholics and something like 700 million Protestants.
- While Roman Catholics have been present in what became the US from the colonial period forward, it was not until the end of the 19th century that their numbers reached approximately one-fourth of the population. That level has been maintained from the end of the 19th century until today primarily as a result of immigration. One of the major stories told in this course how a country with a strong Protestant majority opened to a significant Catholic presence through immigration, a process beginning in the mid-19th century.
Introductory Notes about the Demographics
- Slavery has been called the “original sin” of the US. It was prevalent even early in the colonial period. It divided northern and southern culture in the 18th and 19th centuries and led to a devastating civil war. While some African-American denominations began before emancipation, most began afterward. Today, some religious traditions are racially integrated to a fairly significant degree. Still, even after civil rights, much Christian worship in this country is voluntarily segregated. In this course, we examine the burden and blight of slavery, and the emergence of distinctive African-American forms of Christianity. Approximately 7% of the US population is affiliated with a historically black church.
Introductory Notes about the Demographics
- Not only is the US the most religiously diverse nation in the world, the US is notable for being a place where religious experimentation has flourished to a degree that may well exceed religious experimentation anywhere else. This religious experimentation has meant that existing denominations have continued to transform and reinvent themselves over time. It has also meant that many new denominations have been formed on US soil. Some have succeeded. Some have not.
- One of the most successful is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or the Mormons, who have experienced astonishing rates of growth from their foundation in the 1830s. Today, they make up over 2% of the US population. One of the important goals of this course is to examine distinctive US religious innovations and denominations that have arisen on US soil.
Introductory Notes
- The first three sessions of the course give a sweeping overview of US religious history, introducing many Protestant denominations, and proposing ways to understand them. We begin the overview of US history with a look at some of the diversity of religion in the colonial period.
