Tag: Religion in America

In honor of the anniversary of the death in 1980 of Dorothy Day, I’m posting this video clip promoting an intriguing documentary about her life:

Not only do 1 in 5 Americans now admit they have no religious affiliation, most of the rest overstate their church attendance.

A new study by the Pew Center for Religion and Public Life says that Atheists and agnostics know about religion than evangelical and mainlines Protestants and Catholics.

“The kind of faith that Obama articulates is not the sort of Christianity that’s understood by the media or by a large swath of Christians in the U.S.,” says [Diana Butler] Bass, a progressive Christian. “He’s a different kind of Christian, and the media and the public awareness needs to reawaken to that fact.”

About 19.6 percent of Americans say they are “nothing in particular,” agnostic or atheist, up from about 8 percent in 1990. One-third of adults under 30 say the same.

Eighty-seven percent of Roman Catholics credit Christopher Columbus with discovering America, according to a 2010 survey. But while majorities in other religious categories agree, it’s by smaller margins, especially among people of non-Christian religions and no religion.

The Middle East is not the only place where the collision of media and religion can result in violence. Americans have their own history of conflict, often violent, over depictions of God, Christ and the saints in art and film.

Throughout their lifespan they have divided society, including religion. It’s no accident that all Protestant religious denominations are rapidly splitting, led by a mostly Boomer leadership.

“If there is a growing religion in Portland, at the center of it is not God but social and political issues, ~Professor Monica Miller