Freedom of religion in the US Constitution (and other associated thoughts....)

[All Along The Watchtower]

So I think that the United States has a rather... interesting relationship to religion, when looked at from a bit of a distance.

On the one hand, America remains unusually religious in the 21st century by most measures for an  advanced industrial capitalist/liberal democratic country. On the other hand, religion is intensely individualistic and private (as opposed to state-sanctioned or public-which is impossible in the US for obvious but significant reasons) in this country. As I alluded to in the previous sentence, the First Amendment, IMHO, is really, really important to understanding America's relationship with religion. By guaranteeing  the right to express one's own religion (or lack thereof), the First Amendment provides a legal justification for individual religious conscience, religious diversity/pluralism, and a distinction between religion in the private sphere and politics in the public one.

It's an odd  thing, though, when you have "freedom of religion" in the sense outlined above. There are contradictions that can arise. For example, when does a person's religious beliefs infringe on the rights of others' religious beliefs (or lack thereof!)? When does a politician's own religious beliefs-which inform the individual conscience and judgment of said politician-interfere with their ability to help govern a both increasingly religiously diverse and an increasingly secular country? And what is the rationale for any answer to any of these questions?

I dunno, I am just thinking out loud here. Any thoughts?

[Never]

I suspect that America remains more religious than other developed nations due to its lack of a state-sanctioned religion. It would appear that the government-supported Christian denominations of European nations made religion sterile and somewhat unappealing there.

[GaussLaw]

Got questions time!

http://www.gotquestions.org/freedom-of-religion.html

[TNF]

For example, when does a person's religious beliefs infringe on the rights of others' religious beliefs (or lack thereof!)? When does a politician's own religious beliefs-which inform the individual conscience and judgment of said politician-interfere with their ability to help govern a both increasingly religiously diverse and an increasingly secular country? And what is the rationale for any answer to any of these questions?

I dunno, I am just thinking out loud here. Any thoughts?

I would say at any point in which a religious justification is used to justify a particular public policy, a person's religious beliefs are infringing upon others' religious beliefs or lack thereof. Religion has no place in government whatsoever. Politicians should not justify their positions using religious language or outwardly claim religious mandates or justification for positions they hold or laws they seek to enact. Religious entities should be barred from speaking on political issues and prevented from endorsing candidates. The separation of religion and government should be absolute and total, and the state should stop granting religion a de facto subsidy by not taxing religious organizations.

[ingemann]

I suspect that America remains more religious than other developed nations due to its lack of a state-sanctioned religion. It would appear that the government-supported Christian denominations of European nations made religion sterile and somewhat unappealing there.

No, it's thanks to your weaker welfare state and general lack of other strong social and political clubs, at least it looks that way from across the ocean. Churches give a community you can depend on when you run into a bad period. That's not in the same way necessary in many European states, where the states back one, but also things like political parties and sport clubs give one a strong network.

[TNF]

I suspect that America remains more religious than other developed nations due to its lack of a state-sanctioned religion. It would appear that the government-supported Christian denominations of European nations made religion sterile and somewhat unappealing there.

No, it's thanks to your weaker welfare state and general lack of other strong social and political clubs, at least it looks that way from across the ocean. Churches give a community you can depend on when you run into a bad period. That's not in the same way necessary in many European states, where the states back one, but also things like political parties and sport clubs give one a strong network.

And of course, labor unions.

Another thing to consider is that the hyper-religiosity of the United States (compared to that of Europe) is a relatively new development, historically speaking. Church attendance wasn't at all that high up until the Cold War assault on anyone that could be described as disloyal (Communists, Socialists, left-wing unionists, gays and lesbians, atheists) exploded in the late 1940s and continued throughout the 1950s. The Religious Right as an organized political phenomenon (at least, as an advanced organized political movement) is a product of Cold War anticommunism. Without Reds under beds, it's facing a natural period of decline and disorganization, even if it was given a shot in the arm by the War on Terror and Bush's frequent use of 'holy war' style imagery and rhetoric to describe his imperialist actions in the Middle East.

[Never]

I suspect that America remains more religious than other developed nations due to its lack of a state-sanctioned religion. It would appear that the government-supported Christian denominations of European nations made religion sterile and somewhat unappealing there.

No, it's thanks to your weaker welfare state and general lack of other strong social and political clubs, at least it looks that way from across the ocean. Churches give a community you can depend on when you run into a bad period. That's not in the same way necessary in many European states, where the states back one, but also things like political parties and sport clubs give one a strong network.

And of course, labor unions.

Another thing to consider is that the hyper-religiosity of the United States (compared to that of Europe) is a relatively new development, historically speaking. Church attendance wasn't at all that high up until the Cold War assault on anyone that could be described as disloyal (Communists, Socialists, left-wing unionists, gays and lesbians, atheists) exploded in the late 1940s and continued throughout the 1950s. The Religious Right as an organized political phenomenon (at least, as an advanced organized political movement) is a product of Cold War anticommunism. Without Reds under beds, it's facing a natural period of decline and disorganization, even if it was given a shot in the arm by the War on Terror and Bush's frequent use of 'holy war' style imagery and rhetoric to describe his imperialist actions in the Middle East.

I'm pretty sure that church attendance was much higher in the nineteenth century than any time in the twentieth. Anyhow, I would sincerely appreciate a source to justify the claim that church attendance was lower in the years before the Cold War.

While the Religious Right did develop because of the Cold War, it seems like it simply made  Christians more vocal instead of growing our numbers.

@ingemann, It could be argued that European nations have stronger social and political clubs than America due to the presence of state religion there.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The actual answer is that the extremely strong tradition of popular 'evangelicalism' - one of the dominant themes in American cultural and political life going back to before the beginning - clashes (but also sometimes compliments) with American state secularism in various socially significant ways.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

What TNF is describing is a combination of factors.  First of all, religious adherence as measured by a combination of membership and attendance is pretty much near its historical high in the US.

http://madeinamericathebook.wordpress.com/2010/03/26/a-christian-america-what-history-shows/


The surge in church membership and attendance in the early Cold War era was more a combination of the Baby Boom, since families with kids are more likely to go to church than those without them and of the recovery from the Great Depression which adversely affected membership and attendance due to people feeling they couldn't afford to be churchy, an effect which adversely affected all sorts of membership based groups:

http://ethicalpolitics.org/reviews/social-solidarity-2.htm


One notable effect in the past fifty years has been the drop in attendance by Catholics.  Attendance by Protestants has remained fairly constant over the years. while Catholics who used to attend regularly far more than Protestants are now indistinguishable from Protestants:

[Never]

^ Wow, that information genuinely surprises me. I am honestly at a loss for words; I'm going to seriously research more on this subject. Thank you very much for sharing Ernest.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Definitely never would have thought that church attendance declined after the Depression hit, or that church attendance had even been surveyed for that long.  Very insightful indeed, Ernest.  Interestingly, this seems to debunk the traditional notion of poor people being more adamant about church attendance than wealthy people.  Conventional wisdom would, after all, suggest that people without an occupation have more time on their hands, and therefore would invest that extra time in activities which do not require having an abundance of wealth.  If memory serves, I believe I also once saw a chart correlating religiosity with poverty among select countries, though I'm not sure if it was entirely accurate.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Attendance may have increased, but paid membership certainly would have had reasons to decline during the depression and the first graph is trying to measure both in one statistic.  I do caution tho that the second graph does include non-religious groups as well and is based on just membership and not activity, so in the absence of some data to confirm what happened, making assumption for attendance and membership separately for 1926-1956 is rather iffy.

[GaussLaw]

Also it is harder to go to church in rural areas before automobiles, so urbanization increased the rates. 

[dead0man]

when does a person's religious beliefs infringe on the rights of others' religious beliefs (or lack thereof!)?

As soon as it infringes on the freedoms of others.  If your church commands you to drag noobies to church, you still can't drag somebody there that doesn't want to go.  It doesn't matter if your religion says men can't wear dresses, I can wear a dress if I want to.

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As soon as his constituents notice.