POPULATION
313,847,465 (July 2012 est.)
GDP PER CAPITA
$49,000 (2011 est.)
RELIGIONS
Protestant 51.3%, Roman Catholic 23.9%, Mormon 1.7%, other Christian 1.6%, Jewish 1.7%, Buddhist 0.7%, Muslim 0.6%, other or unspecified 2.5%, unaffiliated 12.1%, none 4% (2007 est.)
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ALSO IN U.S. AND CANADA
Canada
United States
The United States is a secular democracy with a culture rooted in its majority Christian tradition. Religious dissidents from Europe, particularly Puritans from England, were among the first North American settlers in the 17th and 18th centuries. The Declaration of Independence (1776), which marked a break with the British Crown, invoked an Enlightenment Deism, while the first amendment to the Constitution of 1789 both prohibited the establishment of religion and protected religion’s free exercise. High levels of religious diversity and observance have remained distinctive features of American society; even as waves of Catholic immigration from the 19th century onward have diluted the Protestant majority, Jewish and, more recently, Muslim minorities have assumed a more visible role in American society. With the exception of John F. Kennedy, a Catholic, all U.S. presidents have been Protestants. The engagement of religious communities in politics, which has increased since the rise of Evangelical Christianity in the 1980s, often centers on values issues such as abortion and homosexuality.
ESSAYS ON UNITED STATES
From the Colonial Era to the Founding
United States history has been marked by a deep religious diversity from the beginning. North America was home to a wide variety of indigenous religious traditions before the arrival of European colonists in the seventeenth century. Initial colonial settlement took place under different religious auspices: Puritans were prominent in New England, Anglicans in Virginia, Quakers in Pennsylvania, and Catholics in Maryland and French Louisiana. A first Protestant Great Awakening took place in the 1730s and 1740s, at a time when the colonial population and economy were steadily growing through immigration, expansion, and the exploitation of African slaves in the southern colonies. While the rebellion against the British and the successful war of Independence (1775-1783) were driven mainly by economic and political interests, the Bill of Rights incorporated into the United States Constitution (1791) began with a religious freedom clause designed both to prevent the establishment of a state religion and to guarantee free religious exercise, though individual states were still able to establish a particular church as the state religion. The subsequent consolidation of the new federal government through further economic growth, the incorporation of French Louisiana, and the forced expulsion of Native Americans, generated a powerful, religiously diverse, Protestant-majority country.
The Nineteenth Century
The fundamental conflicts that culminated in the Civil War (1861-1865) – the institution of slavery in the South and the balance of power between the federal government and the states – had a significant religious dimension. The Second Great Awakening (1800-1840) saw extensive preaching against social ills and a turn among most Northern Christians against slavery. Political struggles over whether new states incorporated through western expansion should be slave or free also spurred religious divisions. In the 1840s and 1850s, the Baptists and several other large denominations split along North-South lines, each identifying support for its view of slavery in scripture. Reconstruction and industrialization after the Civil War saw a further transformation of the U.S. religious landscape. Massive Catholic immigration, from Ireland before the war and later from Southern and Eastern Europe, led to a strong nativist, anti-immigrant movement. Public education was a key battleground; starting in the mid-1800s, Catholics opposed to the Protestant ethos of public schools founded their own extensive network of parochial schools. Toward the end of the century, longstanding conflict between the federal government and the Mormons (Church of the Latter Day Saints) came to an end when the Church banned polygamy, allowing Mormon-majority Utah to be granted statehood in 1896.
The Twentieth Century
The twentieth century saw a shift from Protestant dominance towards a more inclusive religious and political landscape. In 1928, the first major Catholic candidate for President, Al Smith, lost a campaign in which his faith was an issue. Three decades later, John F. Kennedy was elected the country’s first – and, to date, only – Catholic president in 1960. By this time, the negative legacy of the Holocaust in Europe and recognition of Jewish contributions to American life led to a sharp decline in anti-Semitism, and the rise of the idea of a Judeo-Christian tradition. The 1960s also saw a resurgence of religion in public life, evident in the catalytic role of Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. and progressive Christian and Jewish allies in the struggle against segregation and in favor of civil rights. From the late 1970s onward, political mobilization among Evangelicals and Catholics around a conservative social agenda helped to elect several Republican presidents. This upsurge of religion in public life posed an ongoing challenge to the U.S. Supreme Court, which defined and redefined the proper church-state relationship through controversies including prayer in school and the public display of religious symbols. At the turn of the 21st century, growing religious diversity complicated the political and legal constellation. The lifting of restrictions on non-European immigration in the 1960s encouraged the growth of Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu and other groups, challenging established ideas of a Christian or Judeo-Christian America. A major contemporary challenge for religious pluralism in the U.S. is discrimination against American Muslims in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
Contemporary Affairs
The United States is a decisively Christian nation, with approximately 78 percent of all adult Americans identifying with a denomination of Christianity. Within the American Christian community, 52 percent identify themselves as Protestant and 23 percent identify themselves as Catholic. The largest minority group is comprised of atheism and agnosticism, while Judaism and Islam follow at approximately two and one percent, respectively. Religion has historically had a foothold in American contemporary discourse. Recently, this has been clearly demonstrated by the controversy over President Obama’s Affordable Care Act. The Catholic Church has been the most vocal religious community to challenge the Act, claiming that its use of tax dollars to fund abortions and contraception and its requirement that all institutions cover contraception violates religious liberty. Religion is also a notable factor in the 2012 presidential race. A surprising number—17 percent—of Americans believe that President Obama is Muslim, despite the fact that he was previously criticized for attending the church of Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Likewise, others mock Mitt Romney’s Mormon faith, and approximately 13 percent of voters find this problematic. These concerns about the future president’s religion underscore the importance of religion in American politics, a subject that also includes discussions on abortion, funding for stem-cell research, and gay marriage among others.
Religious Freedom in The United States
The United States is widely recognized for its strong commitment to religious freedom, which is upheld by its laws, public programs, and the actions of its citizens. The Constitution and associated legislation provide all people with the right to practice their religion and identify avenues for recourse when these rights are violated. The U.S. Department of State also conducts an International Religious Freedom Report in which it surveys countries around the world and identifies religious liberty concerns. Because expanding religious liberty is a foreign policy goal, State Department officials work with their foreign counterparts to resolve these concerns. Additionally, the American public is generally respectful of religious tolerance, however fringe actors occasionally diverge from this trend. Specifically, Islam has been an increasingly frequent victim of acts of intolerance since the September 11 Attacks of 2001. In 2012, the Islamic month of Ramadan was marred by an increasing number of hate attacks; at least seven mosques and one Islamic cemetery were desecrated by fires, explosions, or pig parts. These attacks have been complimented by biased legislation that aims to prevent Shari’a law from being implemented in the U.S. Many religious and political leaders have rejected these acts as unnecessary and stigmatizing to the American Islamic community.
Religion in the United States Constitution
The United States Constitution was adopted in 1787, but broad constitutional protection for religious rights came with the United States Bill of Rights, the ten amendments added in 1791. While Article 6 prohibits any "religious test" as a qualification for public office, but the primary constitutional foundation for religious freedom rests on the First Amendment, which is divided into two clauses: the Establishment Clause separates church and state, declaring that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion"; the Free Exercise Clause adds “or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” guaranteeing freedom of religious belief and practice. However, because the First Amendment only explicitly prohibits laws made by Congress from infringing upon these rights, the Constitution offered no broader protection until the 1940s, when the First Amendment was deemed binding upon all state and local governments through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Since then, both the freedom of religion and the state’s relationship with religion have been reinterpreted through numerous Supreme Court cases.
First Amendment
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Article 6: Federal Power
All Debts contracted and Engagements entered into, before the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the United States under this Constitution, as under the Confederation.
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.
The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.
Article 6: Federal Power
... The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.
