American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us

by Robert D. Putnam, David E. Campbell

American Grace is a major achievement, a groundbreaking examination of religion in America.

Unique among nations, America is deeply religious, religiously diverse, and remarkably tolerant. But in recent decades the nation's religious landscape has been reshaped.

America has experienced three seismic shocks, say Robert Putnam and David Campbell. In the 1960s, religious observance plummeted. Then in the 1970s and 1980s, a conservative reaction produced the rise of evangelicalism and the Religious Right. Since the 1990s, however, young people, turned off by that linkage between faith and conservative politics, have abandoned organized religion. The result has been a growing polarization—the ranks of religious conservatives and secular liberals have swelled, leaving a dwindling group of religious moderates in between. At the same time, personal interfaith ties are strengthening. Interfaith marriage has increased while religious identities have become more fluid. Putnam and Campbell show how this denser web of personal ties brings surprising interfaith tolerance, notwithstanding the so-called culture wars.

American Grace is based on two of the most comprehensive surveys ever conducted on religion and public life in America. It includes a dozen in-depth profiles of diverse congregations across the country, which illuminate how the trends described by Putnam and Campbell affect the lives of real Americans.

Nearly every chapter of American Grace contains a surprise about American religious life. Among them:
● Between one-third and one-half of all American marriages are interfaith;
● Roughly one-third of Americans have switched religions at some point in their lives;
● Young people are more opposed to abortion than their parents but more accepting of gay marriage;
● Even fervently religious Americans believe that people of other faiths can go to heaven;
● Religious Americans are better neighbors than secular Americans—more generous with their time and treasure even for secular causes—but the explanation has less to do with faith than with their communities of faith;
● Jews are the most broadly popular religious group in America today.

American Grace promises to be the most important book in decades about American religious life and an essential book for understanding the United States today.

Genres: Religion, Nonfiction, Politics, Sociology, History, Theology, Cultural

688 pages, Hardcover

First published October 5, 2010

About the author

Robert David Putnam is an American political scientist specializing in comparative politics. He is the Peter and Isabel Malkin Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government. Putnam developed the influential two-level game theory that assumes international agreements will only be successfully brokered if they also result in domestic benefits. His most famous work, Bowling Alone, argues that the United States has undergone an unprecedented collapse in civic, social, associational, and political life (social capital) since the 1960s, with serious negative consequences. In March 2015, he published a book called Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis that looked at issues of inequality of opportunity in the United States. According to the Open Syllabus Project, Putnam is the fourth most frequently cited author on college syllabi for political science courses.[

Reviews

[Beauregard Bottomley · Rating 1 out of 5]

Are Trump supporters hateful fools because they support Trump, or do they support Trump because they are hateful fools? That question is at the heart of this book but the author writes the thesis in terms of religion in America in 2006/2007.

White non-Hispanic Evangelicals believe weird things. Putnam does his best to normalize the bizarre in the way he tells his story. Pastor Rick Warren is not rational in his beliefs. He believes the bible is the inerrant word of God and it is to be taken literally. Noah and the Ark and talking snakes and talking donkeys, and unicorns, zombies and acceptance of slavery (Exodus 21) and raping virgins if the bride price is paid and somebody vicariously paying your debt of imaginary sin by dying a horrible death and gays being an abomination are part of that belief. Everyone is entitled to their crazy beliefs even if they end up talking to imaginary friends and make me uncomfortable in the process, but I don’t have to act as if it makes sense or not believe that the burden of proof lies with the one making the crazy assertion.

Putnam lets his narrative normalize their hate. This book had shades of William James’ ‘Varieties of Religious Experiences’ within it by letting the story be told with the words of the people under consideration, a really horrible way to get at the truth. It would be as if one were to tell the story of Freudian psychology only with the voice of Freudians. Or to let Fox News explain Trumps latest absurdity of the day.

The author mumbled something about there were three reasons why hate towards homosexuals is on the wane 1) TV and culture have normalized gays, 2)HIV has given sympathy and 3)people through friends and family have become more familiar. I think a more important reason goes along the line that now days that rational people see Gays no longer as an act or behavior but they realize that people are born that way. That makes it no longer a choice but a gift from God or nature itself. When it was a choice, it was easy for the white non-Hispanic Evangelical who believes the bible is the inerrant word of God and is to be taken literally to hate the sin but not the person (as if you could separate the person from the ‘sin’). Being gay is not a choice just as being schizophrenic or autistic or gifted at music are not necessarily choices. Sometimes, people are just born that way.

I think it is books like this one that opened the window for Trump and his hate to take hold in this country. One of the biggest predictors of a Trump voter is if the person is a non-Hispanic White Evangelical (and scores high on the ‘religiosity’ scale). Those so called ‘value’ voters only care about values when it serves their purposes. Trump ‘grabbing women inappropriately’ or continuously cheating on his wife are justified by Franklin Graham who has recently said it’s nobody’s business but Trumps. The real question is that are religious people (non-Hispanic White Evangelical) hateful because their religion makes them that way or do they pick the religion because it aligns with their hate? Every time a Dad tells his daughter she’s going to hell because she’s gay a little needless hurt is entered into the world. Those kinds of people outsource their values to justify their cruelty as if cruelty can ever be justified!

As stated in this book, there were five people out of 3000 surveyed in the 2007 survey who were atheist. The world has come a long way from those days. The author really missed telling a better story than he did. There was a revolution going on in the U.S. at that time and the author kept the focus of his story in the wrong place.

The author made the statement that atheist don’t believe in an after live or spiritual realm. That is an error. An atheist only means one thing: no believe in a God. Take Neil de Grasse Tyson’s marvelous hosted 2 hour debate on ‘Are we in a simulation?’ Neil (an atheist) says that there is a 90% chance we are in a simulation. Maybe there is a chance we are in a Simulation and maybe we will be rebooted one day, maybe not? Who knows, but one can’t go from only knowing someone is an atheist to saying that they also believe in no after life without knowing other facts about the person’s beliefs.

Also, it’s funny that the author made the statement that among Evangelicals 54% of them have as a primary value they would not be able to support a Mormon, but after the book was published they ignored their value belief and let their hate of the others trump their values and most of them ended up voting for a Mormon rather than a black American. Hate will always trump values and this book pretended like values are why the white non-Hispanic Evangelicals believes such crazy things.

Marriage equality is another area the author misses out on because he sees the world in functional terms and just can’t put the pieces together properly. Betty Friedan in her book, ‘The Feminine Mystique’ gets this point when she comments on how ‘the women’s place is in the home’ was not necessarily the way it should be and the status quo is not evidence against change.

Overall, time has passed this book by and the author gives the white non-Hispanic Evangelical more rational credence then they deserve. When ones values are derived from hate of the other because they are the other (be it Gay, brown or black or non-white, or non evangelical Christian, or an imaginary threat that a wall between us and Mexico will magically fix) the choice of religion often is just a convenience in order to preserve ones hate. The author never gets that point. Trump does and pretends to believe it’s about values not hate.

[Jeanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us was written for data geeks like me. It is looong, but keeps the reader turning the page. Amazing Graceis an in-depth analysis of national surveys performed by Robert Putnam and David Campbell, often combined with data from Gallup, Pew, and others, to give us a richer story of how religion in the US has changed across time. These quantitative data are supported by a series of case studies of church congregations of a number of denominations, sizes, ethnic make-ups, and geographical locations.

This is another in my series of books trying to understand the 2016 presidential election, although I was less clear with this book about what I was looking for. In some ways the US has become more liberal (e.g., opportunities for women, gay rights), which is true for most of the US and, to a lesser degree, for the most religious of us. We, especially younger Americans, are also becoming more conservative and less likely to support abortion rights – although Putnam and Campbell speculate that this is because abortion means different things for people in their 50s and 60s (i.e., coat hangers) than for people in their 20s, who have always had available birth control. Immigration is an issue that is unrelated to religiosity. People who attend church regularly are more generous with their money and time – in church and out – than people who do not. People who are religious see people who are low in religiosity as intolerant and selfish – while people low in religiosity see people high in religiosity as intolerant and selfish. Politics is not commonly discussed in most churches, with Black Protestant churches an exception. In sum, Putnam and Campbell provide a fascinating portrait of America.

What makes Amazing Grace fascinating is that Putnam and Campbell do not only describe religion in America, they also try to understand it. They recognize and control the various confounds in their data to tell a clear and compelling story. For example, what about church makes religious people more generous? They explore several hypotheses, finally concluding that it is not faith or religious beliefs that cause religious people to be generous, but that they attend church: attending church and having church-going friends predicts altruistic behaviors, even among people who are more secular.

Amazing Grace does not use its vignettes as well as those in Our Kids, which I loved. That is an unfair comparison, though, as Our Kids is a spectacular analysis of parenting, race, and class. Regardless, Putnam and Campbell tell great stories about their data. If you are interested in understanding the US, love data, are curious about religion, or just love good stories, this is a book for you.

[Nick Klagge · Rating 3 out of 5]

Having been a big fan of Putnam's "Bowling Alone", I have to say that I was not that impressed with "American Grace". For one thing, it is incredibly long (550 pages), and its conclusions are mildly interesting at best (to me). BA addressed issues that I hadn't thought about too much, whereas AG addresses things that are all over the media all the time. It's true that the authors turn up some findings that contradict the conventional wisdom, but they don't make for the incredibly forceful type of argument marshalled in BA.

I actually would have given this book two stars but for two sections. First, all of the "vignettes" where they leave the statistics and profile a few congregations are pretty interesting. Second, I was very interested by the findings in Chapter 13, "Religion and Good Neighborliness". (I would have appreciated reading it as a scholarly article rather than one chapter in a 550-page book, though.) Unsurprisingly it is the chapter most closely related to the subject matter of BA. The authors first find a high correlation between religiosity and various measures of community involvement, giving, and general niceness. I think that result in itself was reasonably well established before this book. What I found particularly interesting, though, is that the authors dove into the statistics to tease out what specific aspects of religiosity drive these things. And their finding, which they present fairly unambiguously, is that statistically speaking, the driver of all those nice things is specifically social connections with people in your religious congregation. This is in contrast to either social ties with "just anyone" (which make a difference, but not nearly as much), as well as strength of religious convictions (for example, that you should follow the Ten Commandments) and frequency of individual religious practice (such as reading the Bible or praying). Interestingly, religious convictions and individual practice have no effect on civic engagement once you control for congregation-based social ties.

I think this is a fascinating result, and one that resonates with positions of Stanley Hauerwas that I have come to identify with. Specifically, Hauerwas contends that the only legitimate way of practicing Christianity is by practicing and living it out in a community informed by the story of Israel and Jesus (and I don't think it's too great a leap to extend this general principle to other religions). It is important that the Kingdom of God is a community and you can't really live it out on your own.

The authors note that it's possible that this finding doesn't necessarily only apply to religion per se, and that it is possible that a similar effect could obtain from other communities where social bonds have a serious moral foundation; but they also note that there are few if any good examples of such other communities in practice.

Both of the above observations are reasons why I recently have started going to church again, so it did make me happy to read that the data are on my side!

[Jason Cecil · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had hoped this book would be a more mainstream narrative with facts rolled in. Instead, I found the book to be an extended dissertation that dissects a nationwide survey for Faith Matters from 2006 in mind-numbing statistical detail. There are some nuggets in here, like the nature of American religion (it's a marketplace), and how it relates to partisanship, and how we are in the middle of a second backlash against the first backlash that was against the 60s. Much more of a statistical academic read. I was disappointed.

[Brian Eshleman · Rating 3 out of 5]

I got what was promised, I guess. I got a lot of numbers describing the religious and the irreligious. I even got some isolated narratives. There just weren't a lot of gems that will stick with me now that the book is finished.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

American Grace is a sociological examination of religion in America. It runs a little long (550 pages of text), but it greatly appealed to the part of me that majored in Sociology at university. Putnam and Campbell had large themes, but the details were what really fascinated me. Here's a small sampling of what I flagged:

-the greatest predictor of whether a Christian will align with an evangelical church is their view of sexual ethics.
- deeply religious Americans are less traditionalist in their views about gender roles than were their secular counterparts a generation earlier.
- it is less educated Americans rather than well-educated Americans who are abandoning church and secularizing at a must quicker rate.
- religiosity correlates with greater class bridging (the more often one goes to a church or other service, the more likely one is to have friends in a different socio-economic class).
- highly religious people are less supportive than the general population of public policies to address poverty and inequality but slightly more likely to give financially to religious and secular causes and highly more likely to volunteer their time for such causes.
- evangelicals are less likely to believe systemic over individual causes of racial disparity (some argue this is because of a theology that focuses on individuals and choice).
- religious Americans appear to be more generous neighbors and more conscientious citizens (this is largely due to religious social networks), yet are less tolerant of dissent than secular Americans.
- while the correlation between religiosity and life satisfaction is higher (e.g. it makes more of a difference than does the difference between earning $10k a year and $100k a year), a person who attends church regularly but has not close friends is unhappier than her demographic twin who doesn't attend church at all.

The larger them is that America is very unusual to have both high diversity of religious traditions and high devotion to faith matters, yet religion is hardly the powder keg in America that it could be. They identify the sexual revolution as the most disruptive event in America's religious patterns in the second half of the 20th century, and the present religious milieu is a mixing of two aftershocks - the first resulting in the evangelical boom and focus on moral matters, and the second the secularizing reaction to the spiritual revanche. While they acknowledge the intensity with which Americans engage in religion, they also find that religion in American is highly fluid, so much so that most Americans have close connections with people of different religious traditions (including no religious tradition), and that this ultimately has a pacifying effect.

[Timothy Lugg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some books are a quick read, others are not. This one actually became a chore to finish because it is so long. So why finish? Because the interesting data just kept coming page after page. Putnam and Campbell affirm and deny many common beliefs about religious, church, and political habits in regards Americans. For example, from what one hears in the press he or she could come to the conclusion that right-wing politics are actively promoted in evangelical churches in order to educate parishioners on the right way to vote. Yet, the data reveals the exact opposite. It is in liberal churches that one is likely to hear about political issues rather than evangelical churches. This is just one of dozens of interesting observations.

Some observations are so startling that they are almost beyond belief for the authors as well as the reader. They write (on p. 145) that "We were initially skeptical of this finding, since it seem implausible that people would hazard the fate of their eternal soul over mundane political controversies." What was the finding that brought this response? That people more frequently change their religion rather than their politics when the two are in conflict.

What I most admired about the work of the authors was their efforts to interpret the data correctly. When issues that confound normal understandings like the above surfaced, they would go back and ensure that they were interpreting it correctly.

The authors have done an excellent job of documenting where things currently stand and where they are heading if current trends continue in the same direction. I suppose I enjoyed the observations and conclusions regarding politics more than ethnicity or gender, which are in the latter part of the book. However, the opening chapters that document the religious movement over the last 60 years was very instructive as well.

[Phillip · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book really appeals to me. It is loaded with graphs of statistical data from a 2006 phone survey of over 3000 participants.

It is like finding a particularly striking fossil on the shelf of a souvenir shop. It is probably just another fossil (just another book about religion), more or less, the same as all of the rest on the shelf that are for sell. But this one appeals to you (in this case me).

This book should appeal to people interested in looking at and evaluating the statistical data. The book says things about religion in the United States. It should appeal to readers interested in what the authors have to say about our perceptions of folk with various degrees of religiosity and the view that we are a country divided in the political arena by religion.

Personally, I find it to be a dazzling piece of writing to look at and to think about. There is so much there that, like the fossil from the souvenir shop, I look forward to the pleasure of looking at it and letting it inspire my imagination. Maybe in time it will impact what I think. Regardless, I really like this book.

[Michele Waggoner · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have a lot of thoughts about this book and am not sure that I'll be able to adequately put them all into words, but I'm going to try to put some of them into words. Listening to this audiobook as a religious minority within the United States is very interesting (Catholic and African American) since we are pretty much nonexistent in this narrative along with African immigrant Catholics within the United States. In regards to Catholics in the U.S., the authors mainly focus on Anglo/white Catholics (Irish, Italian, Swedish, ect) and Latinos. I will give them credit, though, for mentioning numerous times the amount of rich and beautiful diversity that exists within the American Catholic Church. (I worship at a historically black Catholic parish that is predominantly black and Latino) The average Catholic parish in the U.S. is not racially homogeneous. This book mainly focuses on the experiences of white evangelicals, white mainline Protestants, Jews, and black protestants, a.k.a. "the black church". I felt that the authors did a good job of making a distinction between white evangelicals and black Protestants. While both groups are highly religious and highly conservative and traditional when it comes to personal beliefs, moral issues, and behaviors, these two groups are very far apart in regards to politics. Black Protestants have historically voted Democratic and white evangelicals have historically voted Republican. That's a very important distinction to make, and the authors did a good job of explaining why these two groups are so far apart politically despite having very fundamentalist beliefs as far as religion goes. Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists are mentioned from time to time, but again, since they fall into the religious minority category within the context of the religious framework of the United States, they are glossed over. This book was published in 2010, and the research was conducted in the early and mid 2000s, so obviously, it's very outdated. I would be interested to read a current/updated version that reflects our society today (post legalization of gay marriage, post overturning Roe V Wade) or a future version( postTrump presidency). (Side note: I mention Roe V. Wade and the legalization of gay marriage because abortion and homosexuality are topics that are discussed a lot throughout this book.) I would love to find out whether or not the authors have been following how politics has influenced religion in the age of MAGA. I think that the politics and religion of MAGA adherents is a subject that is worthy of its own book. I would also like to read about the role that the mainstream American media and big tech moguls played in normalizing Trump and MAGA ideology. I'm sure that there will be many books about these subjects in the years to come after the dust has settled. I have a feeling that some of the claims that the authors made in this book, specifically the one about politics being preached in the pulpits of conservative, right-wing churches being rare, no longer hold water.

[Jane Van Hof · Rating 2 out of 5]

Way drier than the “Bowling” book. It was alternately overladen with data and statistics and saturated with narrative snippets. I did not feel there was a strong analysis, just a bunch of dense facts and saccharine stories. A let down.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

Finally! I'm done!! After renewing the book five times (with two separate checkouts) I have finally read the last page!

It's a bit on the long side. But in its favor, the print is not miniscule and there are plenty of graphs and charts (some a bit more obtuse than others) that take up considerable space, too.

American Grace provides some fascinating insights into religious life in the United States over the past seventy or so years. Putnam and Campbell trace the "shock and two aftershocks" that prompted major shifts in spirituality, religious identification, religious activity, even stretching into politics and social life. No surprise, the first major shock was "the sexually libertine 1960s," which was followed by "a prudish aftershock of growth in conservative religion." Finally, another opposing reaction occurred: "a growing number of...young people have come to disavow religion" in response to the greater association between religion and conservative politics. Within that general framework, the authors discovered a remarkable fluidity to American religious life.

Putnam and Campbell cover almost every imaginable angle of the data they have gathered: gender, ethnicity, politics, class, income, level of religious activity, trends within religions and between religious traditions, friendships and relationships with neighbors, measures of tolerance and inter-faith conversion. Interspersed between chapters cram packed with data and statistics are vignettes describing worship services for different faiths.

The sections on the interplay between religion and politics yielded some very interesting results as the authors clearly state "God in American history has not been a consistent partisan of left or right." They point out religion's influence on both ends of the political spectrum and provide some plausible explanations for why the political right seems to have such claim over religion in the public sphere today.

Being LDS, I was most intrigued by what the authors (one of whom is also LDS) concluded about Mormons. Some highlights:
* "Even among the most heavily Republican religious group in the country [i.e., Mormons] there is still some degree of political diversity, as 20 percent of highly religious Mormons identify as Democrats." [Another 10% claim political independence from either party - so as much as one-third of "highly religious" or "active" Mormons are not politically conservative!]
* "Mormon women are overwhelmingly opposed to women as (lay) priests, but Mormon men have more mixed views: 90 percent of Mormon women as compared to 52 percent of Mormon men. In short, Mormons, especially Mormon women, appear to be the only substantial holdouts against the growing and substantial consensus across the religious spectrum in favor of women playing a fuller role in church leadership."
* Regarding the results of a survey asking members of certain faiths their impression or "warmth level" toward those of other faiths: "Mormons like everyone else, while almost everyone else dislikes Mormons. Jews are the exception, as they give Mormons [the only!] net positive rating."
* One more note for my LDS friends: Elder Quentin L. Cook quoted some of this book's findings in his most recent General Conference address!

Some other reviewers have commented that Putnam and Campbell focus almost exclusively on Christian faiths. While I would have liked more info on Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs in America, the authors had to work with the data they had, and that shows that all of those "other faiths" together comprise a total of only about 3% of the population. They mention this in their introduction, explaining the limitations of their data: "Since the Faith Matters survey was administered to a randomly selected representative sample of the United States, it contains the correct proportion of each group. But the absolute number of these other faiths is too small to permit reliable analysis. We are thus limited in what we can report about these disparate faiths."

In short, American Grace demonstrates solid scholarship, interesting insights, and lots and lots of statistics.

For more book reviews, come visit my blog, Build Enough Bookshelves.

[Kirsten Hawkes · Rating 4 out of 5]

I recently finished "American Grace", a fascinating sociological examination of religion in America. It answers the question "How is it that an America that is increasingly polarized on religious (and political) lines manages to avoid the social divisions and factional violence that grips so many other highly religious societies?" The research is meticulous and successfully demolishes many of the negative stereotypes of religiously observant people. The number-crunching and analysis is interesting, but I was particularly riveted by the chapters that take an in-depth look at different congregations in America: an evangelical Lutheran church, an LDS ward, an evangelical mega-church, a bilingual Catholic parish, a liberal synagogue, etc. If you are looking for a good non-fiction read, this is highly recommended.

[Jennifer (JC-S) · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘America manages to be both religiously diverse and religiously devout because it’s difficult to damn those you know and love.’

This book, by Professors Robert D Putnam and David E Campbell, presents a comprehensive study of religious beliefs and practices in the USA, and provides a detailed overview of an important aspect of American culture. Data was collected as part of a two-step interview survey (Faith Matters 2006, 2007)) which involved more than 3000 respondents across the USA. The series of findings presented make for interesting reading. Consider:

• Between one third to one half of all marriages are interfaith;
• Young people are more opposed to abortion than their parents, but more accepting of same- sex marriage;
• Jews are the most broadly popular religious group in the USA today;
• Roughly one third of Americans have switched religions at some stage.

The findings affirm the importance of organized religion: more than 83% of Americans report that they belong to a specific religion; 59% report that they pray at least once a week and 40% report attendance at weekly services. At the same time, the traditional role of religion has been challenged by ‘the sexually libertine 1960s’ which subsequently resulted in ‘a prudish aftershock of growth in conservative religion, especially evangelicalism, and an even more pronounced cultural presence for evangelicals, most noticeably in the political arena.’ Professors Putnam and Campbell assert that this evangelical revival, which began to recede by the early 1990s was sparked more by deeply personal moral concerns than by hot-button political issues: ‘Abortion and same-sex marriage are the glue holding the coalition of the religious together.’

‘How has America solved the puzzle of religious pluralism – the coexistence of religious diversity and devotion? And how has it done so in the wake of growing religious polarization? By creating a web of interlocking personal relationships among people of many different faiths. This is America’s grace.’

In part, this is due to the nature of American society. The combination of an absence of a religious monopoly and an atmosphere of religious liberty has supported the development of religious pluralism. ‘Religions compete, adapt and evolve as individual Americans freely move from one congregation to another, and even from one religion to another.’

It is true that America’s tradition of peaceful religious coexistence is largely about relative harmony between different Christian denominations. But harmony between Catholics and Protestants is comparatively recent, and the process of how this change came about raises an important question: How do mutual fear, suspicion and intolerance make way for tolerance and trust? What lessons can be drawn from the past?

This is a fascinating study which is highly readable and provides much food for thought.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

[Bob · Rating 4 out of 5]

Summary: A sociological study of the landscape of American religion, the connections between religious and political attitudes, and changes between 2006 and 2011, when the newest edition of this work was published.

If my Facebook newsfeed is any indication, we do not heed, at least on social media, the old social dictum of refraining from discussions of religion and politics in social situations. What I think this reveals is the vibrant and diverse religious and political landscape in the United States, a landscape explored at great nuance in the sociological study represented in this book.

The book combines vignettes of congregations and detailed results (with tables and bar graphs) from the Faith Matters survey results. The authors begin with a survey of religious history, particularly twentieth century religious history, particularly the post-World War 2 boom in religiosity, the first decline in the Sixties, a later boomlet in the Eighties, and more recent declines. Then, mixing vignettes with survey results, they explore the shifting religious scene: old fashion and newer congregations, traditionalism and change around gender and ethnicity, and the role of politics in religious congregations.

Broadly speaking, the authors see an increase in what they call a tolerance, a friendliness with those who are different that includes everything from greater acceptance that people of other religions will also go to heaven to acceptance of same sex relationships. They attribute this at least in part that many have an "Aunt Susan" or "pal Al" who are one of these "differents." It is this that the authors consider "American grace"--an increasing acceptance of the differences of religious expression and moral behavior in our communities. At the same time, the authors find that there is still a deep divide politically and that this maps along lines of religiosity, even though most churches do not make politics an overt aspect of worship and congregational life with any frequency, and even less so between 2006 and 2011.

One of the more sobering passages for religious teachers is one where the authors were presenting results around theological belief of denominational participants to a group of conservative Missouri Synod Lutheran leaders. It was very clear that on many matters, congregants were for more liberal, and indeed had departed from orthodox belief. This is a broader finding for many of the respondents from Christian backgrounds, whether Catholic, mainline, or evangelical. What it appears is that there is a cultural religion that is gaining ascendancy that reflects a religious consensus on faith and morals quite different from the theological stance of our church bodies.

This brings me to a terminology difference with the authors. They speak of seeing an increasing "tolerance" toward the religiously different, and toward moral stances once deemed unacceptable. I do not disagree with the fact that such tolerance is a good thing but with how they are using the word tolerance. They are using the word tolerance for what is really a growing cultural consensus, or common cultural religion, where people are saying that formal differences between faiths or around certain questions of morality don't really matter in our practiced belief and behavior.

Tolerance historically had to do with where we have disagreements and how we act toward those with whom we substantively differ on matters of belief and/or behavior. That can be how someone who is liberal in political or religious beliefs acts toward someone who is conservative, or vice versa. Tolerance has nothing to do with what one believes or, within certain boundaries, how one behaves (I hope we would agree that there are some behaviors that must not be tolerated such as murder or rape or theft, for example), but rather whether we respond graciously or censoriously toward those who differ. I am troubled with the way these authors use the term tolerance, because it assumes that sincere believers who do not believe that others may share one's heaven while holding different beliefs, or that fail to approve some culturally accepted behaviors are intolerant, no matter how they act toward those who differ. Likewise, a person may be thought tolerant even while acting censorious toward a person whose beliefs they deem "intolerant." This seems to me a decided and concerning shift of language.

The epilogue of this book summarizes a follow-up study in 2011 that included part of the 2006 cohort as well as younger respondents who were not of age for the first cohort. This survey showed that on the whole, religious beliefs were marked stable, while detailing a growing trend toward those who would not identify with any belief, introducing the idea of "nones" into a conversation about religion in America, as a decidedly growing category. They document a decided movement on the part of the youngest generation away from religious faith, as well as continued growth in the trends around respondents views on questions of belief and behavior toward the new cultural consensus noted above. It also revealed that both political parties as well as the "Tea Party" are disliked more than any religious group.

Coming off the 2016 election, there are some important implications I draw from this book. One is that it explains the almost universal revulsion I've found among young people, religious or not, for white evangelicalism's overwhelming (81 percent) support of the Republican candidate, and why young people are leaving this movement in droves. It also presents a challenge to those of us who seek to teach and pass along the faith. Peter Drucker was known for saying that "culture eats strategy for breakfast." I would contend that culture is also eating belief for breakfast and that this has come through the redefinition of the language of tolerance (and intolerance) discussed above where tolerance must define not only our behavior, but in fact our beliefs. My sense is that religious communities must figure out ways to compellingly embody what they believe, or they will come to the place where they throw up their hands and say, "we got nothing."

What troubles me most is that the "American grace" being described in this book is nothing like the "Amazing Grace" of which John Newton writes. Amazing grace is the marvel that what was "wretched" and "lost" and "blind" can be saved. "American grace" I fear, would just say these are intolerant labels, that you are fine the way you are, and offer no hope that life should be any different. Sure, avoiding intolerance is better than the alternative, but it doesn't offer much if you are looking for a reason for hope. As a sociological study, there is much that deserves our attention. But as a prescription, and not only a description, of American cultural religion, American Grace is wanting.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a really interesting book providing a picture of the history and relationships and changes in religion in America over the years. It's well researched and the authors do a good job of helping readers understand several different religions specifically and create a greater appreciation and respect for others' beliefs. One of the most important founding principles of our country was religious freedom. This freedom creates and allows for a diversity of faith and belief. It's interesting to see how these differences bring people together or create misunderstandings. I found it most interesting to see how ethnicity and political persuasion affect religious beliefs. I also thought it was interesting to see trends in church attendance and religious persuasions change over generations. I personally think it's inspiring to see that how religion in general encourages people to be good neighbors. I think it's interesting to see the reasons people choose their religion and how important social networks are in inviting and encouraging participation and understanding across groups. There are many good people working to do many good things through religion, politics, community service and in their families. This book made me more grateful for my religious beliefs and the freedom to worship in peace in a unique and wonderful country!

[Jeffrey Howard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Demographics. Trends. Data.

I had hoped this book would provide more historical or sociological commentary. Instead, American Grace is an elaboration on a long study conducted by Putnam and Campbell. The majority of the book gives context to the data they found, explores the trends, and shows lots of demographic charts, which makes it a great resource, and less of an engaging read.

The volume contains several vignettes highlighting various faith communities, give color and detail to the worship services and lifestyles of their members. I wish the book have been much more of this and less about "the survey."

It's a long haul to get through this book. I would have preferred if the used the study to buttress their commentary and arguments rather than use it as the focal point. Honestly, they spent little time talking about how religion divides and unites us. I got half-way through the book and completely forgot that tension was the exact reason why I wanted to read it. Instead, we get demographics, data, and trends. Where's the human element! I wanted to hear how individuals experience religion and how those subjective experiences divide or unite them with others.

American Grace is a sturdy book and should hold up well in academic circles, but I was definitely disappointed.

[Lisa Reising · Rating 3 out of 5]

A wonderfully researched book with all kinds of facts, figures and charts. It does not feel biased toward certain conclusions, and the conclusions seem logical and believable given the statistics. I ended up skimming through a lot of it because it is thick and scholarly - although very readable. I liked the vignettes - glimpses into beliefs and lifestyles of a variety of belief systems. I wouldn't mind buying my own copy to be able to reference when specific topics come up - a good resource for backing up opinions. For example, the divisive issue of abortion can be hard to sort out and I like this sensible statement (p. 390):

"To be pro-life typically, then, indicates more than one's position on abortion. Abortion stands in for a bundle of beliefs that, grouped together, can be called moral traditionalism." In other words, it's more complex than one medical action.

The general conclusion gives me comfort and hope: Religious beliefs are important to a majority of Americans.

[Shirley Freeman]

This one took a couple months to finish - it's not a page turner, but I'm very glad to have read it. If you liked Robert Putnam's earlier book about social capital, Bowling Alone, you'll find this one of interest. Using huge data sets and in-depth statistical analysis, Putnam and Campbell describe the state of religion in America over the past 5-6 decades. The statistical chapters are interspersed with 'vignettes' - case studies of a dozen real congregations in the United States. The authors conclude that the coexistence of religious devotion and religious diversity in America is generated by the strong web of interlocking personal relationships among people of many different faiths - hence the title 'America's Grace.'

[Jeff Gasser · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it. You gotta push through some of the data and just accept the fact that you probably won't remember any of it. But that brief moment when you peer into the soul of America makes it worth it. Contains a lot of gems that can help you better understand your own faith community and others: trends of religious observance, conservative and liberal religion, religion and charity, conversion, the truth about the nones, the rise of Latino Catholics, the rise and fall and rise and fall of religion in America, what different religions think about each other, religion and race/abortion/homosexuality, I could go on and on (and it certainly does at 560 pages).

[Chris Jaffe · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an informative book based on heavily polling and sampling of views of Americans of different religious persuasions about what they feel about religion.

In modern day America, religion is a polarizing issue. That wasn't the case for almost all of US history. Putnam & co-author Campbell argue that religion first became polarizing as a result of one culture shock, and two subsequent aftershocks. The shock was the 1960s changing behavior, especially with regard to family and sexual issues. The first aftershock was the rise of fundamentalism by those who opposed the changes to tradition. The second aftershock was a recoiling against the evangelicals and fundamentalists. We still live with these shocks, even as things have often become more polarized.

Looking over the data, Putnam notes that the evangelical high tide really came by the 1990s. It hasn't had a massive fall off since then, but it has fallen off. Also, the people who came to the evangalical pews back in the day were more likely to be middle class, not lower class. The notion of "country club Republican" and "church-going Republican" misses the heavy degree of overlap between the two groups. But evangelicals have had trouble winning over younger people for a while now. One of the biggest changes in recent decades has been the rise of "nones" - those not affiliated with any church. They are especially prominent among the young and this is an unprecendented growth in US history. Oftentimes, the nones are turned off by the political overtones of churches.

Putnam also looks at issues like race and ethnicity and how that relates to various churches. Groups like Mormons, Jews, and black Protestants tend to be in less racially diverse groups. Catholics are often older Anglos and younger Hispanics, which often creates tension and awkward relations. While Sunday's sermon hour has a long tradition as "America's most segregated hour" Putnam finds no connection between religiousity and racism, once adjusting for other factors.

The book also looks at gender. There is a gap in how the secular and religious view gender roles. This was in fact one of the shocks of the 1960s that led to the rise in conservative Protestantism. But all groups, from very secular to very religious, have adapted to how they view women working outside the home. There's still a difference, but it's not as strong as it once was. There's an emerging feminist consciousness in the pews.

Putnam looks at economic division and religion. We've become more economically segregated and that's led to less contact between haves and have-nots in churches. Evangelicals have more cross-class contacts than others. In general, modern religion isn't looking to address economic problems - which stands in contrast to other times in American history that focused on the social gospel.

In more recent decades, the key issues of religious polarization are gays and abortion. In particular, abortion stands for a nexus of issues centered around traditional values for many people who are very religious. Putnam notes that the way religion divides people might have an end game, as we're seeing increasing acceptance for gays among all groups, even the religious (though they still aren't as accepting as others) while secular types are more likely to accept some degree of regulation/limitation on abortion - and even most people who consider themselves to be very religious have some wiggle room on abortion in certain cases. (This is the optimistic take. My own views, well, sure that would be nice - but I'm more skeptical for the time being).

The GOP has branded itself heavily with religion, by increasingly standing for the traditional values that the churches often associate themselves with. That said, many members of conservative churches really don't like it when their ministers get political. In fact, Putnam finds that the churches that are more liberal are more likely to bring up overt politics. This is most clearly the case with the black Protestant churches.

He also looks at charity and finds that religious people tend to be more giving, more civic-minded, and more alturistic - but also more intolerant. The more religious tend to be more trusting, ACCEPT for fundamenalists, who are less trusting the more they go to church. The key point in this is that going to church gets one more involved in the outside community. Someone who is devout but prays alone in their own pew isn't likely to be more involved in the community, but if an athiest starts going to church (maybe due to a spouse) and becomes active in the networks, then that person will become more involved in other programs in the church and possibly community. In other words, it isn't necessarily the degree of religious feeling a person has, but how involved one gets in these groups. But you have to be going to church in the first place, and that tilts things toward the religious.

The end tries to look at how religion can become less divisive over time, and Putnam is optimistic. He notes that people have many contacts with people of other beliefs, and that leads to more acceptance. Religious inter-marriage is more common. Groups people have less contact with (Mormons, Buddhists, and Mormons) are generally looked worse on - in part because people have less contact with him.

It's an interesting argument. The book is about 10 years old and you can still see a lot of it going on - but if anything, stuff has gotten more polarized since he wrote this book, not less.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bogged down in statistics in places, but still an interesting read; the portraits of individual congregations ("vignettes") help a lot to break up the numbers crunching. Audio narrator did a wonderful job making such a challenging project come alive.

[Fran Caparrelli · Rating 4 out of 5]

very interesting and I just am always amazed that a concept like religion can be such a dividing point among human beings. My idea of religion is that it is practiced to help humans be better humans to their fellow beings.

[Sharman Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was chock full of info and commentary on religion in America. I find myself going back for this or that study, poll, or story, which makes me glad I bought it instead of borrowing--I definitely need my own copy and markings.

[Alice · Rating 3 out of 5]

this book was mostly dry statistics. i had expected (and hoped for) a more engaging analysis of the why's and so what's of religion in america. they were there, but you have to slg through a lot of info to get there.

[Charlie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Note: This review is of the print edition, not the Kindle.

Overview: American Grace is a massive sociological description of Christianity in the United States. Its primary data source is the Faith Matters survey, a 2006 poll of approximately 3,000 respondents with a 2007 follow-up of approximately 2,000 of those same people. Its most important benchmark is a religiosity index, culled from a subset of the Faith Matters questions. The book is supplemented by a number of vignettes of American churches, presumably to offer a more concrete and fine-grained description alongside abstract, statistical evaluation.

Argument and Method: The book’s focus is structured around two relatively stable features of American life that together render it exceptional: 1) its high level of religiosity, specifically in polarized forms and 2) its high level of religious pluralism. To these two basic features, two more are added that may at first glance be surprising: 3) religion is quite active in public life, and 4) overt religious conflict is rare. The central focus of the book is devising a solution that will explain these four generalizations about American religious life. The proposed solution is choice: the relative freedom that Americans have to choose their religious affiliation accounts both for the sorting of Americans into relatively ideologically homogenous groups and for the significant amount of inter-religious contact most Americans have. Fluidity ensures both that likeminded individuals are easy to find and that individuals of different persuasions are never too far away. Polarization and pluralization are mutually held in check by the churn of American religious society.

One of the key concepts in this work is religiosity. Certain questions on the Faith Matters survey attempt to go beyond religious affiliation to determine individuals’ religious intensity. These questions included both objective behavioral criteria (how often do you attend a religious gathering?) and subjective criteria (how important is religion to you?). The purpose of this “religiosity index” is to allow the researchers to control for religiosity as an independent variable, distinct from religious affiliation. However, determining the intensity of individuals subsequently allows generalizations about the intensity of groups if religiously intense individuals are concentrated in certain groups. Religiosity is not the only factor considered by these authors, but it does take a prominent place, perhaps even displacing more traditional demographic categories such as gender, class, and race.

In addition to this sociological approach, the authors employ historical and ethnographical methods. A historical argument is that American religion since the middle of the twentieth century has been affected by a large shock with two aftershocks. These historical turning points affected many areas of society, but none so much as traditional sexual mores. The starting point for the authors’ narrative, the pre-shock era, was the 1950s. During this time American religious institutions were anchored by families in which the man had a college education thanks to the GI Bill. These middle class families generally held traditional Christian moral sentiments about the desirability of defined gender spheres, the importance of family, and the immorality of pre-marital sex. The shock was the anti-authoritarian and sexually liberated long 1960s (stretching into the early ‘70s). This period resulted in the largest relevant generational shift of the 20th century, a significant alienation of youth from the church. However, it produced a conservative aftershock in the later 1970s and 1980s, in which pro-family and pro–traditional morality Christian evangelicals gained numerical ground and made effective common cause with traditionalist Catholics. One consequence of this was the perception that religion was right-wing and that the Republican party was more religion-friendly. This aftershock in turn produced its own liberal aftershock, in which youth, turned off by the association between religiosity and certain right-wing cultural values, resolved their dissonance largely by dropping their religious affiliations.
The ethnography is a bit more difficult to integrate into the aims of the book.

A series of vignettes scattered throughout the book break up the analytical sections. Each section of vignettes highlights a particular theme by juxtaposing a few very different churches. Presumably the purpose of these sections is to reinforce the analysis and show that the statistical descriptions are rooted in reality; conversely, they also point out the limits of purely statistical descriptions that can never attain the ultimate concreteness of daily life. (We may know that the average American family has 2.4 children, but we do not know a single American family that actually has 2.4 children.)

Interesting Conclusions:

identifying “liminals,” a fairly consistent number (10%) who stand at the edges of all American religious traditions; the aggregate stability of some of the statistics about denominational numbers conceals individual instability: many Americans do in fact change religious traditions during their lives (cf. 135f)

"Switching is up, and nonmarital switching is up even more. The implication: More and more Americans are choosing their religion independently of both their family of origin and their current family.” (143)

"Over the last several decades, the religious institutional ties of have-nots in America, especially men, seem to be weakening. This trend is clearly contrary to any idea that religion is nowadays providing solace to the disinherited and dispossessed, or that higher education subverts religion. Secularization (at least in terms of organized religion) seems to be proceeding more rapidly among less educated Americans.”

"Strikingly, religiosity is correlated with greater class bridging, especially downward bridging. That is, among the American upper middle classes, those who are religiously observant are more likely to report friendship and social interaction with people on welfare or manual workers than [are] comparably placed secular Americans.” (253) "This pattern seems to be driven not by generalized religiosity or theology in itself, but by involvement in religious social networks, like prayer groups and Bible study groups and (above all) having more friends in one's congregation. Just "being religious" does not seem to produce more social bridging….” (254)

"Evangelical churches, because they are both socially diverse and socially active, appear to be one important exception to class segregation in America.” (254)
"Congregation size turns out to be the most important predictor of attending a diverse congregation. People attending the largest congregations (99th percentile) are 15 percentage points more likely to report worshipping with a diverse group of co-parishioners than those who attend the smallest congregations (1st percentile)." (295) "Size and evangelicalism work together to predict congregational diversity. Diversity appears to spike only when congregational size numbers in the thousands." (307)

"In general, religion has not served a prophetic role and promoted greater racial equality. Religious Americans are following the trend, not setting it." (315)

"The glue which holds religiosity and partisanship together is the political salience of two issues in particular: abortion and same-sex marriage. Attitudes on both are tightly connected to religiosity—which is not a new development. The new part is that they have become politically salient, as the Democratic and Republican parties have taken opposing positions on both abortion and homosexual rights. As the parties have moved apart on these issues, religious and nonreligious voters have moved apart also." (370)

"The highly religious are far more likely to be Republicans than Democrats, those who are low on our religiosity scale largely favor Democrats over the GOP, and religiosity has no bearing on partisan independence." (371)

"Highly religious members of different traditions vary widely in their Republicanness. Roughly 70 percent of highly religious evangelical Protestants and Mormons identify as Republicans, with highly religious mainline Protestants right behind at 62 percent. However, only half as many highly religious Catholics describe themselves as Republican (35 percent).... Black Protestants are arguably the most highly religious group in America ... and yet are also the least likely to identify as Republicans." (371)

"There is little overt politicking over America's pulpits and, to the extent it happens, it is more common on the political left than the right." (419) "The people who are most likely to report political activity at church are liberals who attend a politically homogeneous congregation." (428) "Liberal churchgoers who attend politically active congregations equal about 2 percent of the market." (428)

"Religious "socializing" explains roughly half of the connections people make between their religion and their politics." (436)

“Religious Americans are, in fact, more generous neighbors and more conscientious citizens than their secular counterparts. On the other hand, they are also less tolerant of dissent than secular Americans, an important civic deficiency. Nevertheless, for the most part, the evidence we review suggests that religiously observant Americans are more civic and in some respects simply “nicer”…. Theology is not the core explanation for what we shall call the “religious edge” in good citizenship and neighborliness. Rather, communities of faith seem more important than faith itself.” (444)

Evaluation: Stuffed with data and tremendously relevant. Not all the analysis is equally convincing or significant, but most of it is both. The vignettes were quite interesting, but I don't know that their purpose was clearly defined or that they filled any real need, so they may have just bloated an already large book. Still, anyone interested in contemporary American religion (particularly Christianity) and who isn't afraid of numbers can't pass up this book. It's the best of its kind.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an extremely interesting book about the state of American religion circa 2010. The authors are sociologists who rely on detailed studies of American's religious practices and faith to inform the book. They state at the outset that as compared with other nations, America is highly religious, diverse and tolerant. They discuss the three phases of participation in religion in the past 75 years, from the era of high attendance in the post war years to the decline in practice following the Vietnam war and sexual revolution to the backlash that led to the rise of Evangelism, to the current state in which so many younger Americans identify themselves as belonging to no denomination yet stating that they still believe in God (spiritual not religious). The authors reveal many surprising facts, such as that religious Americans are more generous with their time and treasure even outside their religion than secular Americans, that younger Americans are more liberal on LGBT marriage and more conservative on abortion than the generation above them, that even the most conservative denominations are filled with people who say that Jesus is not the only path to heaven and that people of other faiths will be welcomed there. The tolerance of Americans toward religious diversity is unique in the world, even though we think that there is so much seeming rancor among believers. The best parts of the book were the in depth analyses the authors did of certain churches and congregations, from a Mormon stake to an Episcopal parish in the Boston suburbs to a Catholic parish outside Chicago to Saddleback Church in Laguna Niguel. The authors are detailed and complete in their research, and the analysis is interesting and engaging. I listened to this book and wish I had read it in print because the authors kept referring to the charts and diagrams contained in the book. The narrator needed to be schooled on pronunciation of certain words, such as Concord, MA which he pronounced as Con CORD. Minor quibbles, however, re: a great book.

[Heath]

Overall, "American Grace" was an interesting read and will probably be a great resource to reference for the next 10 years or so.

Though trying to be objective, in studying American religions, the authors seemed to impose their own frameworks onto various religions when examining them. This is, of course, unavoidable, however, I would have liked the authors to be more self-aware and acknowledging of this fact.

My key takeaway's were that 1) the most ethnically diverse congregations in America are Catholic churches and evangelical non-denominational mega-churches. The former because of the parish model that Catholics use - pushing against the "church shopping" mentality so common among church-goers in America. 2) 100% of PCA ministers polled (the denomination of which I am apart) answered that Christianity is the only way to heaven. However, over 80% of self-identified Christian laypeople do not hold this view. It was not the authors task to explore why this disparity exists, but I am intrigued by it. Even given the conservatism of the PCA and her members, I would imagine the response would still be over 50% of most attenders of PCA churches.

[Travis · Rating 3 out of 5]

I most appreciate Putnam's work for illuminating--and then bringing immediacy and urgency to remedying--the collapse of American community and opportunity. American Grace surprised me because it appears that the diversity of religion in America unites more than it divides, and brings us together more than we perceive that it separates us. 3 stars because I personally found the deep analytical and statistical dive into religion less interesting and engaging than his previous deep dives into community (Bowling Alone) and opportunity (Our Kids). More engaging and interesting were the less prominent vignettes featuring various denominations, congregations, and practitioners around the country; and what I learned about the historical and evolving role of religion in American life and society.

Lastly, it was a refreshing and important reminder that there are various different forms of community (and, therefore, (re)building community); and that religion is, historically at least, a very important part of community in America.

[Andrew McHenry · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book explores the history of recent religious shifts -- e.g. the mainline boom of the 50s, the 60s counter-culture with some rejection of religion/authority, and the reactive evangelical/conservative boom in the 80s and beyond. It takes the reader up to the present state of things, with a 2006 Faith Matters Survey being at the heart of the presentation. Putnam is an exceptional sociologist and he does excellent research. A lot of the data is older now, but it's still insightful for some of the details and nuances. It makes you wonder how things would evolve if there were more recent surveys of this type.

His research is complimented by vignettes of different religious institutions in America -- which to me are much more engaging because I find churches to be so interesting. It's a very good primer for understanding the roles religions play in America today -- in both good and bad ways.

[Marla · Rating 4 out of 5]

A super interesting look at the role religion plays in American from a statistical point of view. There are vignettes for different religions which are fascinating and from my experience are true. What I learned is that although the culture of different religions plays a huge part in how people vote, very few religions preach how to vote from the pulpit. That religious people on both sides of the political spectrum are really more generous as a whole with donating there time and money to society and the needy. And that there is more tolerance then we think about people who are in different religions because most of us now associate with different people in different religions with the exception of people willingly interacting with Mormons and Muslims. That black women are the most religious in our country. Read the book to see how religiousness is measured. Overall, a great discussion and interesting view of religion in America.