Spirit in Action
American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us
David Campbell, co-author of American Grace, speaks about the rise of non-religious affiliated "nones" in the USA, issues like abortion & same-sex marriage (and how they divide us), how the hippie 60's led to the rise of the Religious Right, and much more. With piercing insight, solid documentation & historical richness, American Grace is an invaluable resource to make sense of the religious world in the USA, and the political world it interacts with.
- Broadcast on:
- 29 Jul 2012
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- other
[music] ♪ Let us sing this song for the healing of the world ♪ ♪ That we may hear as one ♪ ♪ With every voice of every song ♪ ♪ We will move this world home ♪ ♪ And our lives will feel the echo of our healing ♪ ♪ With every voice of every song ♪ Welcome to Spirit in Action. My name is Mark Helpes Me. Each week, I'll be bringing you stories of people living lives of fruitful service, of peace, community, compassion, creative action, and progressive efforts. I'll be tracing the spiritual roots that support and nourish them in their service. Hoping to inspire and encourage you to sink deep roots and produce sacred fruit in your own life. ♪ Let us sing this song for the dreaming of the world ♪ ♪ That we may dream as one ♪ ♪ With every voice of every song ♪ ♪ We will move this world home ♪ Over the past 60 years, the religious and political landscape in the USA has changed remarkably, and today's Spirit in Action guest is going to shed some valuable light on these transitions and trends. We'll be speaking with David Campbell, co-author of American Grace, How Religion Divides and Unites Us. It's a fascinating book that helps us understand the dynamics and the changes of the particularly fertile religious ground in the United States. Back in the 1950s, probably at the height of religiosity here, there was no clear link between how religious a person was and what direction their politics would lean. Very different from what we see today, where the religious right looms large in the public imagination and where we have a rapidly growing percentage of the population with no religious affiliation. David Campbell and his co-author, Robert Putnam, do an exemplary and an even-handed job of considering the evidence carefully, including the human view and teasing out truths and insights about how religion divides and unites us. We'll start our discussion of American Grace in just a moment, but first, let's take a little unity medicine in the form of music that talks of our unity. I reached back to the 1950s for a song that speaks of our connection coast to coast, but it's also a reminder of our polarities. This version of "This Land is Your Land" is performed by the weavers, the band that Pete Seger performed with and had hit records like "Kiss a Sweeter Than Wine" and "Goodnight Irene," but whose members faced great adversity as a result of the Joe McCarthy years when many liberal-leaning artists were blacklisted. So, in some ways, Pete Seger and the weavers were symbols both of what united and divided us. We'll get Dave Campbell on the phone in a moment, but first, "This Land is Your Land" by the weavers. This Land is Your Land, this Land is My Land, from California to the New York Island, from the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Street waters. This Land was made for you and me. As I went walking, that ribbon of highway, I saw both me, that endless skyway. I saw below me, that golden valley. This Land was made for you and me. This Land is Your Land, this Land is My Land, from California to the New York Island, from the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Street waters. This Land was made for you and me. Dave, thanks so much for joining me for "Spirit in Action." Well, thank you for having me. I'm glad to be here. This is quite a monumental work. I was so impressed. I heard an interview on public radio some time ago. I had to go out and buy the book, and I found it a rich treasure trove. How did this book come about, this collaboration between you and Robert Putnam? Well, Bob is most of the world knows him, and I had worked together when I was a graduate student under him. That is, he was my advisor in graduate school, well over a decade ago at Harvard. So we worked together. He directed my dissertation. But I had always had an interest in religion. That had not been his primary interest, although he had written a little bit about it, or at least sort of mentioned the importance of religion in various things that he had been studying. And so, about five years ago, we were just talking really, and initially hatched a plan to start a fairly small-scale project on religion in America, or specifically religious diversity in America. And then it just kind of kept growing, and then we realized that there wasn't really a single book on the market, sort of everything you'd ever want to know about religion, and we decided, well, we should write that book. And that's where it all started, and that was about five years ago that it all began. Part of the story here is the Faith Matters survey that you did. Describe that survey and what part it plays in the material that you use in your book. Well, the Faith Matters survey refers to what we like to call the backbone of the book. This is a very large survey that we did of just over 3,000 Americans. We came up with a very long list of questions, and we actually had a group of experts come together for a day-long meeting to kind of give us advice on what ought to be part of that survey. We asked people everything you could possibly imagine about their religious background, about their religious beliefs, about their religious experiences, and then a bunch of other things about them. We wanted to know about their demographics, we wanted to know about their community involvement, about their family structure, just things like that, so that we could have an accurate picture of just the way Americans live their lives and then also how they live their faith. That survey was initially done in the summer of 2006, and it takes a while to do a high-quality survey. So after a period of weeks or months, we completed the interviews. And then a year later, we actually went back to many of those same people as we can find, and it turned out that that return interview was really important for many of the claims that we make in the book. And in fact, we're actually continuing that very same study, and we're just completing now the third wave five years later of that initial group we first interviewed back in 2006. I'm glad to hear that you got back to it. I was wondering, one of the things that did strike me is that a one-year change in terms of religious or political or ideological or lifestyle, that's a very small window for the change. But five years, do you have preliminary reactions? Are you seeing bigger changes? Well, we don't have the data yet, so I'm not able to say what we will find. However, I can maybe tease you a little bit with what we hope to be able to look at. And one of the most interesting questions is what happens to people's own religious involvement and belief during a period of great economic distress, because it turns out that the great recession has occurred over this time period in between the last time we talked to these people, and today, that's one of the most interesting things we'll be looking at. Of course, we've also gone through a historic presidential election, and that will probably also be a factor in some of the things that we'll observe. And then there's just sort of the usual changes that go on in people's lives, and so we'll be able to see what happens when people get divorced, or when they move, when they have children, and all that sort of thing. One of the things I'm aware of is this is truly a monumental book, and we can cover some of the large ideas in the book in the course of this hour-long program, but I found the detail immensely rich and interesting. It's important to learn that detail, so I want to say that after people hear this interview, they should go out and take a look at the book, because the 600 or so pages of the book, before the notes at the end, include such wonderful texture. So thank you for doing that, and I'd like to start us out in thinking about this with what you start with in the book, which basically I think you compared the world of the 1950s with current-day USA, and one of the fundamental points that I took out of it was we didn't have the split that we have now where, essentially, and you can correct me afterwards, that to be a conservative was to be religious, was to be republican, versus the current world where the tendency is, if you're liberal, you're non-religious, and you vote Democrat. Now, of course, vast oversimplification, but talk about the truth or the non-truth of that, versus what we had back in the 1950s. Well, you're correct to note that we do have a political divide today in the United States that is defined by religion. It's sometimes loosely called the "God Gap," people like alliteration, meaning that those who are more religiously committed or devout, or even just attend religious services more frequently, they're more likely to end up on the right hand of the political spectrum, so they're more likely to be themselves conservative and more likely to vote Republican, and those who are less religious or might be outright specular in their worldview are far more likely to be on the left end of the political spectrum, more likely to vote Democratic. Now, what's interesting about that, just in the current period, is even with that generalization, which I don't think will come as news to anyone who pays even just a little bit of attention to American politics, is that there's still notable exceptions in here and now to that generalization, and the most notable exception of all are Black Protestants. African Americans are the most religious group in America, they're also the most politically liberal and the most supportive of the Democratic Party, and that tells us, or at least suggests, that there is no iron law that links any particular flavor of religion to any particular end of the political spectrum. These things are contingent upon us in a whole bunch of historical circumstances, and Black Protestants are today a good example of that. Now, when we compare the situation we have today to what we saw in the 1950s, it's a fascinating contrast. The 1950s were a high point of religiosity in the United States. You know, sometimes our media-abundant types will try to paint a picture that suggests that America started out as a highly religious country at the time of the founding, and it's been downhill ever since, but that's actually not quite right. Instead, the way to think about the overall level of religion in the United States is that it ebbs and flows. It kind of comes and goes and cycles. In the 1950s, we had a high point. In fact, some historians argue it was the most religious decade ever in American history. And there are lots of reasons for that. It was the post-World War II boom. Religion itself was sort of wrapped up in patriotism given the Cold War against an atheist ex-Soviet union. But Rhode Island, this was a highly religious time. But that religion that you saw in the United States did not have any kind of political or partisan overtones. It wasn't the case of how religious you were, anything at all about how you voted or even how you identified yourself politically. That didn't come until later. And that's also an important reminder of how religion and politics linked. You know, here's the time. People were highly religious. But they all go to church together. Some ended up voting Republican and some ended up voting Democratic. And it wasn't until other developments led to the fracture along religious lines that we see in our politics. I started doing the spirit and action programs in part at least because of exactly the kind of religious, non-religious divide. You address really thoughtfully in the book and how it was evidenced in the 2004 election. Part of my thought was that if anti-war folks pulled together into community as well as evangelicals do in general, that our country would be less involved in more and more being something that I religiously oppose as a Quaker. Perhaps analyzing my thought processes and motivations would be a good way to deal with some of the important facets of your book. How do you react to my assumptions and conclusions? Stuff like people pulling together or effectively working as community, that kind of thing. Well, I think it's fair to say that both Putnam and I are people who are happy to talk about the importance of people forming associations and groups to reflect their preferences and policy and also just for the sake of building networks that enable community problems to be solved for issues to be addressed. So what you're describing in one end of the religious spectrum or one end of the political spectrum, I think it's safe for me to say that I'm speaking for both of us on this that we would welcome that. We think that's actually what makes for the bulwark of a healthy democratic society in the U.S. And specifically on the question of how religion enters into our public policy debates, it is really interesting that at this particular moment, so many people associate religion only with the political right, when it turns out there actually are a lot of Americans who hold opinions, often informed out of their own religious beliefs, that we wouldn't characterize necessarily as politically conservative. You just mentioned opposition to war, that's certainly one of them, but there are many others. There are many religious people in America who care deeply about immigration and are very concerned about the way immigration policy unfolds, and they are happy to cite scripture in their religious beliefs and justify why they would like to see a more humane immigration policy or why they'd like to see more open borders. And that's just one example of many. I think that some of your research shows that people banding together religiously gives it a certain amount of strength, cohesion, self-reinforcing, I guess I'd say. And whether this liberal or conservative, this is true, I believe, it helps support their efforts to live in a certain direction. Do you want to talk about that part of your study, what you found out? Sure, one of the most important things we found in characterizing the way religion operates in the United States is the importance of religious social networks, that it's the friends that people make in their own congregation, in their parish and their synagogue and their church. And we find all throughout the book, a variety of examples of just how powerful those social networks that come from exactly what you were describing, people banding together, how they can be. So religious people in America are a very charitable bunch. They give a lot of money, they give a lot of time to charitable causes, and not just religious causes, also the secular causes. And why is that? Well, one of the chief explanations for that is the fact that they have social networks, that they form through their network as the church or synagogue or wherever, that seem to carry with them a greater moral urgency. We don't know exactly what the mechanism is, it explains why it is that people who are enmeshed in these religious networks are more likely to give of their time and their treasure to good causes. But we suspect it has something to do with the self reinforcing nature of moral conversations, or even invitations that are extended by people that come not just from somebody you met at work, but somebody who you know shares the same moral convictions you do. So that's just, I mentioned on the charitable side, we find a similar thing when it comes to politics, that one of the reasons why religious people often within a group, you know, vote in a similar way, is because of what we call the echo chamber effect, that the social networks that are formed within a congregation often serve to reinforce people's political attitudes and opinions. And that can happen actually on both the left and the right. In contemporary politics it's a little more likely to happen on the right, but it does happen on the left, and there's no reason why it couldn't happen more on the left. So it's just two examples, but there are others still of how the communities of faith that people form are in important and unorthodox ways. Another very interesting aspect of your research is the emergence of the nuns. Could you talk about what that phrase means and how it has operated in our society recently? Sure, I know when we say that I would have to be clear that what we're talking about or not, is that the N-U-N-F kind of nuns, but rather the N-O-N-E-F. That is, people who when asked what is your religion answered, well, nuns, I don't have one. And that group, people who say they have no religious affiliations, they've been growing pretty rapidly actually over the last 20 years or so, used to be the case that roughly 5% of the American population would, when asked, what's your religion report? Well, I don't really have one. And then all of a sudden in the late 1980s, early 1990s, that percentage, that share of the population began to grow until now it's about 17 or 18%. We tested a number of different explanations, what was going on, what would lead to a rapid increase? We don't typically see such rapid increases in that sort of thing in data like this. The answer that we settled on, one that was most convincing to us, is this is a reaction to our political environment. That increasingly, politics and religion have come to be associated with one another in a particular way, that is to be religious means to be politically conservative, at least to many Americans. And so, when people are asked what's your religion, if they themselves are not politically conservative, especially if they're young, so they've only known a world in which religion and political conservatives can go together, when they're asked what's your religion, they're reluctant to say they even have one, because they don't want to be thought of as political conservatives, or at least to being in one end of the political spectrum, that doesn't reflect their actual beliefs and attitudes. And so, what we have then is a case of the political environment in the US actually affecting our religious environment, which is interesting, because we usually think of it as going the other way, that it's religion that drives our politics, but here we have a case where it seems to be that our politics is driving our religion, or lack thereof. I have to ask this because I'm a Quaker. I know that Quakers are an absolutely minuscule drop in the American religious bucket, but did you bump into any Quakers anywhere in your study and in your research? Well, I can say yes we have, so we do have a few Quakers in the survey. You know, when we get down to any particular denomination, whether it be the Quakers, but even if it groups to think of it being even a little larger, like the Mormons or, you know, one of the particular denominations say within Lutheranism, you never get all that many. We're a religiously diverse country, and so even in a large study like ours, you're only going to get a small number of any one group. But you might also be interested in knowing that one of the key members of our research team is actually himself a Quaker, and so I can say that as a group of the team, I think we are probably a little better acquainted with the Quaker face than we might otherwise expect. It says in the book that you, David Campbell, are a Mormon, and that your co-author Robert Putnam, he was raised Methodist, converted to Judaism and marriage, so there's all kinds of diversity and complexity in the religious makeup of your extended families and your research team, as you just said. How much did this help or hurt your research? I figure it helps broaden your prism, if you will. Did you get blowback from your own or from other religions? Because people don't like to be portrayed differently than they perceive themselves. That's a very good question, actually, very productive. First of all, I would say that the religious background of both my co-author and I have really only been a help to us, and this research team that we've assembled, which, over the course of the project, numbered probably close to 20 different research assistants. It was also extremely diverse. In fact, as I describe it, you're going to think that I'm describing some cheesy World War II foxhole movie. We have Catholic priests. I mentioned we had a Quaker. We had a woman who was in Divinity School to be a Unitarian minister. We had an evangelical Christian. The Bible itself is Jewish, but it converted you, and then we had others who were Jewish. They haven't been raised in the faith. There's just a variety of people who are doing backgrounds. That was all very healthy and a good way for us to bounce ideas off each other and make sure that the language we were using worked across different faith traditions. I should also mention that some on our team were not especially religious, would be characterized or described themselves as a nun as well. Hopefully, we were covering as many bases as we could. Now, in terms of within our own faith, so myself as a Mormon, I was actually a little curious how the LDS community would respond to American grace, but I can say, actually, it's been very positive. I've actually been asked to speak to different LDS audiences, and we've received some nice words of praise from LDS leaders. That's been true of other religious leaders as well, and I know that's also true within my co-authors own tradition, which is Reform Judaism. They've also, the national publication of the Reform Judaism has said that's a nice thing about American grace. Overall, it's actually been received quite well. The reason for that, I think, is that we let the data speak. We don't actually consider this to be a book, a chemical in any way. We just wanted to explore the data and see what we found, and people have responded positively to that, even if their own group is not necessarily always portrayed in the best way. We're not putting a spin on it. We're just trying to tell them the way it is. You said you let the data speak, but, in fact, you do something even better than that. I really loved Shaelyn Garrett's vignettes that you included in the book. They were so wonderful in terms of converting the data into real-life experience. Where did you come up with that, Jim? It's really a rich part of the book. Well, thank you for saying that. There's a funny story, actually, behind these vignettes, so those two might be listening and haven't seen the book. In addition to a lot of chapters that deal with data and a lot of charts and graphs, and those sorts of things, we also have three chapters where we go into great detail about particular religious congregations in the country. These are real places, and what we describe are interviews and observations of real people. The whole idea was to just bring the reader inside a synagogue or Lutheran Church. We have a Lutheran Church in Houston that we highlight, or an Episcopal parish in Boston, or Catholic parish in Chicago. We just wanted to give a taste of the variety of religion in the US. Interesting about the vignettes is when we first wrote the manuscript and we circulated it amongst our academic colleagues. We actually held a conference at Harvard, and we brought in 10 or 15 people who were all experts on social science and stuff. They were not very enthusiastic about the vignettes. In fact, we even had some who suggested that they be caught, or at least they be changed dramatically, because they didn't feel social sciencey enough. We decided to stick with them more or less in their present form because of, I guess, exactly the reaction you had. We were hoping that there would be readers out there who maybe could see the value in stepping away from the data and just seeing how people live out their religion and to do that without offering really any analysis, but just, you know, we kind of described as being the prose version of a video camera. Here's what we saw when we went to the church picnics and we went to the worship services and such. So thank you very much, actually, for mentioning the vignettes. Sometimes I fear they don't get enough attention and we talk about American grace. I can imagine how it doesn't feel scientific enough, but that's an unfortunate point of view to lose the real people behind the statistics, I guess. The fact that you put the two together in such an artistic and insightful way made a big difference to me, one of the things that your vignettes did for me was taught me that there was a mega church right over in Minneapolis, which is, you know, 90 miles from me. I was amazed to hear what a mega church would look like up here as opposed to in California or somewhere else. I guess it's not a phenomenon that has to be part of the coasts. No, in fact, actually one of the first mega churches was not in California, but instead in the suburbs of Chicago. So the Whittle Creek Church, which was founded in the suburbs of Chicago, is generally identified as one of them, and maybe even some would say the first true mega church as we think of them today. So they really are all over the place. It's a phenomenon nationwide. Could you talk a little bit about your findings with respect to ethnicity and congregations? And there's so many aspects of this, I imagine you can't cover all of them. But, you know, for instance, one of the vignettes has to do with a Texas church, and some of your detail you looked at was how black congregations, how religion happens there. Talk a little bit about the diversity, the centrality, how ethnicity and religion can go together or don't go together. Well, it's an interesting fact that even though we have a religious environment in the United States, it's highly fluid, and that's one of the running themes in American grace. You know, people, they change their religions, they change their congregation, they attend on a quite a frequent basis, that even in spite of that, we still see a pretty strong connection between people's own sense of their ethnic identity and their religion. Now, for some groups, that is kind of self-evident, and the black church is a good example of that. The very fact that we actually use the term "the black church" to refer to the Protestant churches that many African Americans attend tells us that this is a religious tradition that is deeply intertwined with, in that case, the racial identity of African Americans. And, you know, black Protestant churches really came out of a segregated America, and most sociologists and other scholars of religion would actually say that black Protestantism is its own religion. It's not merely another, you know, sort of subdivision within evangelical Protestantism, it's its own thing, because it evolves on its own separate from what Graland and the purposes were white churches. But the black church is just one example of how ethnicity and religion can blend together. We find many other cases. You mentioned, just now, one of the, in yet congregations, we highlight the fascinating church. It's a Lutheran church in Houston, Texas that is very German in architecture, the actual building of, you know, the people worship in, but also in terms of what you hear spoken in the hallways. You actually hear people communicating in German and they sort of retained this connection to Germany, which, you know, makes sense for Lutherans, but you wouldn't necessarily expect that in Houston, Texas, but there it is. And when you kind of step back and just look more generally at the way Americans report their strength of ethnic identity and their strength of their religious identity, often they go together with two notable exceptions that is not especially true among evangelical Christians, nor among Mormons. And that's interesting because those are two faiths that are very centered on proselytizing or evangelism, and that kind of makes sense that churches or religions that are focused on winning converts would not actually make much of an ethnic tie or an ethnic connection, because if you want to be in the business of any converts, presumably you want to win them from everywhere, and you don't want to focus on just one ethnic group. So that's kind of the story just in a nutshell of ethnicity and religion in America, which is that you find strong connections in some places and then not so much of a connection in others, and it kind of makes sense where you find one and where you find the other. In Quaker circles, we've been going through a lot of soul searching about being a little bit too white and too middle class. I guess there's a concern that we should be more multicultural, and I think on the liberal end of the spectrum, that's not an unusual concern. But what I find interesting is that perhaps the part of the spectrum best doing something about it is not the liberal and concerned about multiculturalism, they're just concerned about evangelism. Does that make sense? That's right. Building on what I was just saying about evangelical Protestants not necessarily, you know, reporting a strong connection between their ethnic identity and their religious identity, one consequence of that is the mega churches we referred to earlier, they are often quite racially diverse. So it's not that necessarily evangelical Protestant churches in general are racially diverse. And if someone overstate this, there really aren't very many congregations in the country that are extremely diverse. But, you know, on the spectrum, you're more likely to find people worshiping with someone of another face if they attend an evangelical mega church or a Catholic parish. Catholics are the other group that actually do quite well in mixing anglers and those who are of other ethnicities and typically that's of a Hispanic or Latino background. The information you have about the Catholic Church in the book is intensely interesting. And again, I want to emphasize for listeners, Dave, there's so much detail in this book, you really can't have a full appreciation of the riches unless you read the whole book. The book being American Grace, How Religion Divides and Unifies Us by both Robert Putnam and David E. Campbell and Dave's here with us today for Spirit in Action. This is Spirit in Action, which is Northern Spirit Radio Production. Go to our website northernspiritradio.org for links to the program, links to our guests. And also, please post comments. We love to hear from you. And your feedback really does help us know what we have to lift up better to serve you, our listeners. Again, we're with Dave Campbell, co-author of American Grace. And there's so many facets of the book, one of them that I wanted you to delve into a little bit more. Was that about what was happening with the Catholic Church? The numbers for the Catholic Church are holding better than a lot of us would assume because we know a lot of ex-Catholics. And I myself was raised Catholic, although I've been Quaker since I've been an adult. Talk about some of the intricacies of what is the Catholic Church in the U.S. today. Well, you are correct to note that the percentage of Catholics in the American population over the last 30, 40 years has held steady at 25% of the U.S. population. And that is the single largest religious denomination. Obviously, if you add all the Protestants together, you have more Protestants and Catholics, but they're split across lots of different denominations. Now, the fact is true, but it's also true that white Catholics, or sometimes called Anglo-Catholics, are leaving the church in droves. So, how can those two things be true? Well, the answer is the Catholic Church has managed to maintain its market share. If you want to call it that, that is its proportion of the population. Because of immigration, that because we've been experiencing a way of immigration over the same 30 to 40 year period and that immigration has come largely from heavily Catholic countries, it means that many of the folks coming into the U.S. are Catholic. So, they've retained that 25% of the population. But that also means the Catholic Church has been undergoing a demographic transformation that is really stunning. Such that there are many, many parishes in the United States that have gone from being completely Anglo to being completely Latino. And sometimes that happens in a very short period of time. And we highlight some of the both challenges and opportunities that come with that sort of transformation in American grace. Some of our vignettes actually deal with some Catholic perishes in the Chicago area that are undergoing exactly this change as we speak. It's interesting to note that one of the largest religious groups, if you want to call it that, in America today are actually ex-Catholics. If you add them up, there's something like the 4th or 5th largest religious group in America. That's a sizable share of the U.S. population. What we used to think of as the religious mainstream, I guess, was Catholic and Protestant. And yet, there's this other group which has been emergent, the evangelicals. Numerically, how do they compare this evangelical pool which has been growing to what we think of as the mainstream? Is the mainstream still the mainstream? If I mention what are sometimes called "mainline Protestants," it does turn out to be the case that in today's America, there are more evangelical Protestants. That is, Protestants who fall into the evangelical wing of Protestantism than there are members of the historic mainline denominations. But after the reasons for that, part of that has come through just sheer growth of the part of evangelical Protestantism. But that Protestantism has been counterpartized with a rather precipitous decline of mainline Protestants. And a lot of that has to do with the fact that if you're raised in a mainline Protestant home, you're not totally likely to actually stick with a mainline Protestant faith. And when I say "mainline Protestants," just to make sure everybody's clear what we're talking about, these denominations, like the Episcopal Church, for example, or the Idid Methodists, or the somewhat ironically named Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. In spite of Evangelical and the title, it's considered to be the more mainline of the various Lutheran denominations. I don't think they're right about theirs, but that's the sort of church we're talking about when we say the mainline Protestant. Who does stick with their birthchurch? Who does grow up to be what they were raised? Is there any particular religion or sector of the religious landscape where that is true? Yeah, so I'll move another way to think of it is that there are some traditions where the next generation is more likely to stick with the faith. You know, again, because of the validity of the religious environment in America, with the switching rate, all groups suffer from defections and then maybe also from conversions. But given all of that, the Evangelical Protestants do very well and hold on to their young people, as do the Mormons. As do Black Protestants, although that's a little trickier because to stop being a Black Protestant means you have to stop being a Protestant, and it maybe also has something to do with your racial identity that kind of goes back to that tie between your ethnic or your real identity and your religion. In Jews, with another group that are likely to hold on to their young, but again, it's a little hard to stop being Jewish, a little different than what it means to say, you know, I'm going to remain a Baptist or remain a Mormon or remain a Lutheran. When you say it's hard to stop being Jewish, that's because there's this kind of ambiguity. Is it a race or is it a religion? That's right. That's exactly right. And thanks. There's a little bit of that within the Black Protestant community as well. That's exactly the same thing. But when you have this heightened interconnection between ethnicity and religion, it's a little harder to sort of start what it really means to say that it's attaining people within that tradition. So when you put those complications aside, it is clear that if you compare Evangelical Protestants to mainline Protestants and Catholics, they even have to come out ahead and retain their young people. Okay, let's delve into something which is, I think, pervasive throughout the book because the name of the book again, American Grace, how religion divides and unites us. You try and take a pretty square look at the things that divide us and the places where we're united, and they're both important to understand our landscape. And so the issues of abortion and of homosexuality or sexual preference or whatever that is are central to these divide issues. Could you talk a little bit about them, how they do divide or unite us? Sure. So earlier on conversation, we mentioned the fact that we do have a political divide that has a religious opponent to it in the United States. And that didn't happen by accident. It actually happened when we had a more cultural dimension introduced to a politics centered initially on abortion and now accompanied by the debate over same-sex marriage that those two things are often grouped together. And the reason why that has led to the God gap in American politics that is this divide between folks who are more religious and less religious and how they vote is actually only on those two issues, only on abortion and things like marriage, that you find sharp divides between with religious Americans and less religious Americans, or second Americans, and what they think. When you look at almost any other issue that you can think of, you might find small differences between religious Americans and secular Americans, nothing close to what you find on abortion and same-sex marriage. Just that I'll leave is when a politics is about issues, about issues like abortion and homosexual rights, or specifically gay marriage, you expect religious and secular Americans to vote differently because that's where their opinions are most divided. But when we talk about other issues, when we talk about immigration, when we talk about the environment, when we talk about foreign policy, it seems that religious and secular Americans actually don't prefer all that much in how they see the world and what they prefer in terms of policy. These reactions, these differences about religion and these particular two items, abortion and same-sex marriage, these grew over the last 50 years. The historical tides that you address, the '60s, the whole revolution that was the 1960s, the counter-reaction backlash, what phase are we in now? I mean, you point at a few different ebbs and flows of religiosity and reaction against it. Where do you see us as being right now? What we actually say in the book is that we are currently living through what we call the second aftershock. Let me explain what that means aftershock. What was the shock? The shock came in the 1960s. So, earlier on, we talked about '50s, and now that was a high religiosity in America. Immediately after the 1950s, America went through all the wrenching changes that came in the '60s, which led to dramatic and rapid changes in people's attitudes, especially toward premarital sex, that many people to divide in their religious views following the 1960s. There were a lot of young Americans who worked for the law on board with these new sexual noise, but there was another group who were quite concerned about these changes. They didn't feel that it reflected their values, and they flocked to conservative religion. And so, if we had the shock of the '60s, the changes in these attitudes, in the 1970s, we had the first aftershock that had grown from conservative religion, especially evangelical Protestantism, in reaction to those changes to the '60s. And then, following the rise of evangelical Protestantism as a religious force, we knew it had always been there, but it was growing in terms of its numbers and its prominence, that then led the evangelical Protestant movement into politics. And so, these issues were done in sex, and the family began to be sought out in politics, and that's what led to the rise of the religious right. And so, that was all part of what we call the first aftershock to the '60s, but it didn't continue on along the same path. Instead, it was interrupted by the period where, in now, the second aftershock that, as we saw religion in politics intertw-- your conservative religion in conservative politics intertwined, we then began to see the growth of the nuns that we described earlier, that is a reaction to that intermingling of religion in politics. And so, we are currently in a period where many people in America, particularly those in the center on the left of the political spectrum, who are uncomfortable with the mixture of religion in politics. And in some cases, that's even affected how they perceive their own religiosity. The second aftershock might appear, if you didn't have a historical context for it, might appear as though America is just on its way toward rampant. Second, you know, after all, did you see a growth in the percentage of people saying they had no religion, and it kind of maybe, if you only looked at that one little flight of the data, it would suggest that America was on its way to becoming, you know, France or something. But we would have a reason to think, if you step back and look at the larger historical context, that's probably not what's going to happen, that there will likely be yet another reaction. So this reaction, because that seems to be the way American religion evolved, it's very dynamic. So we wouldn't be surprised if, 20 or 30 years from now, we see a reversal of the trends that we're describing now. Somehow, somebody's going to figure out how to take those new nuns and speak to them in a way that brings them back to church. Because what's interesting about them, and I'm going to emphasize this, is these nuns, as we call them, while they say they don't have a religious affiliation, that doesn't mean that they've necessarily turned completely away from religion. Most of them say they believe in God, most comfortable with the idea of an afterlife, they're comfortable with their duality, they just don't like organized religion, not suggest that, you know, they could be won over by the right kind of religious message. There also was, I thought, something that represents potential good news, it's a promising trend. There's been this deep divide on issues of abortion or on same-sex marriage, but I think the glimmer of hope that's on her horizon is that this divide is being filled in. That's right, in fact, one of the more interesting developments that we see in American politics and how it might interact with religion is precisely on the two issues of abortion and same-sex marriage, in that the trends on those two issues are actually moving in opposite directions. So most people are probably not going to be surprised to learn that America is becoming much more accepting of homosexuality, whether it just be homosexuality in general, or whether it's same-sex marriage in particular, and there's a very sharp generational demise. So young people are much more comfortable with gays and lesbians, and much more comfortable with the idea of gays and lesbians marrying one another than other parents, and certainly their grandparents. So in that issue, the trend seems to be in a more liberal direction, and that's probably not going to come with a surprise to anyone. What is a little more surprising is what's happening on abortion. There, the movement is in the opposite direction. Young people are actually more likely to be uncomfortable with abortion or ambivalent toward abortion than are their parents' generations. So it's fair to characterize young people today as more conservative on abortion than their parents. I don't want to overstate that. It's not that young people are necessarily fervently pro-life in that they don't want to see abortion under any circumstances, but they're certainly comfortable with restrictions on it, more so than their parents are. So what does that mean? Well, it means that we've got these two issues that currently are combined together in a very potent political combination, abortion and same-sex marriage. But if you look just a little bit into the future, what we expect to happen, those two issues are not going to fit together very well, because on the one hand, you're going to see increasing numbers of Americans, even religious Americans, who are very comfortable with same-sex marriage. It's not going to be much of an issue for them. And on the other side, you're going to find secular Americans, as you already have, who are uncomfortable with abortion and taking a more conservative line on that. And it suggests that those two issues will not be combined together the way they are, and it might even suggest that they will cease to be, even on their own, the political rallying cry that they are today. I find that to be fascinating. This is something that you didn't comment on in your book, Dave, but it's something that has struck me repeatedly over the decades. Being, again, I guess I'm a religiously devout Quaker, right? And so I'm very religious, but I'm normally portrayed as being on the liberal end of the spectrum. I believe that I am across the board pro-life, I just say I'm anti-war, I'm anti-capital punishment, and I think abortion has to be absolutely minimized. So I find myself as being integrally pro-life, but there are a number of religious and non-religious groups where they're pro-life in this aspect, but they're anti-life as I perceive it in this respect. Did you find anything about that in your studies? I didn't find anything in the book about that. Well, what you find is people's political attitudes often come to dominate how they necessarily put their politics and their religion together. So what you're describing is often taught. In fact, it's core to say many Catholic teachings. Hernola of America and Chicago used to refer to the seamless garment of life. To be pro-life means that you pose abortion, you pose capital punishment, and you're also wanting to be supportive of the court. It turns out that in real politics, those things do not typically fit together very well. That abortion has come to win out as the dominant issue related to life, even though the way the doctrines are supposed to fit together, but that seems to be the way it works out in practice. So with the bottom line, I think that you are somewhat unusual in the way that you are a particular bundle of beliefs together, but you probably knew that already. I'm fine with being unusual. I wanted you to say a few more words about charitable giving, because I think Dave, that is one of the just absolute gems in the book. I mean, American grace is filled with all kinds of gems, but the care with which you analyze the way people give their time and their money and who they give it to. The overall findings, I think, are astounding. Could you share a little bit of that texture from the book? Sure, so on charitable giving, what we find is religious Americans are more likely to give to both religious causes, no surprise there, and secular causes than our secular Americans. That's especially true for the time they donate for the work they do as volunteers, and it's also true on the financial side, and they're more likely to give to really charitable cause you might think of. And that's an interesting finding, but as I was mentioning earlier, it does not seem to be tied to the belief that people hold. It's not the religious belief that's going to be driving that. Instead, the social networks, the social networks, the form and their communication, so it seems to explain why it is that religious people are receiving. And in that same chapter, though, we have some other interesting things that we look at. So, the finding that religious Americans are more charitable, all that generally makes the religious folks feel good, and the secular folks maybe not feel so good. But on the other hand, it turns out that when it comes to tolerance, the tolerance of groups with which you might disagree, typically, the social sciences use the term tolerance. There you find that it's the secular people who are more tolerant for, in that sense, the better citizens than our religious people. So you get kind of this interesting mix, you know, religious people that give more, but they're a little less likely to be tolerant, whereas the secular people that don't give as much, but they're more likely to be tolerant. A little something for everybody, that's good. Well, I really appreciate the time that you've given both to the book and to speaking with us for Spirit and Action. Again, it's a gem. The book is American Grace How Religion Divides and Unites Us, co-authors Robert Putnam and David Campbell, and Dave was with us here today for Spirit and Action. Thanks so much for your work. I think you're providing a light to move forward in this country. Well, thank you very much. I always enjoy the opportunity to talk about religion in America and talk a little bit about our book, and I hope that if any of us do pick up the book, they will find something of value in it. As you mentioned, it is a big book. There's a lot there, but we've tried to be as comprehensive as we can. Thanks again, Dave. Thank you, Mark. We'll take you out for today's Spirit and Action with a beautiful, whimsical, human-gritty, divine song by Carrie Newcomer. It dances the religious spectrum and aims at something bigger at the center. Where you been by Carrie Newcomer. See you next week. ♪ He was driving into Chicago in a borrowed El Camino ♪ ♪ On a haze I stay in springtime ♪ ♪ I think it was a single to my own ♪ ♪ Maybe it was safe at ease over gay pride parade ♪ ♪ But I'd never seen nobody light up the street that way ♪ ♪ Brother, where you been ♪ ♪ Hold on if you can ♪ ♪ Just do your best then say amen ♪ ♪ Calling safe for a weekend ♪ ♪ Drinking Saint Paul is in Wisconsin ♪ ♪ I was fishing with my buddies ♪ ♪ Most of Sunday at the noon ♪ ♪ Pippin' in the halo ♪ ♪ But let home the walk inside ♪ ♪ He said there's big ones in the shallows ♪ ♪ And I still want to ♪ ♪ Brother, where you been ♪ ♪ Hold on if you can ♪ ♪ Just do your best then say amen ♪ ♪ I stopped him 7-11 ♪ ♪ I was by the night beating ♪ ♪ He was wearing like a sneaker's ♪ ♪ I was nursing a hangover ♪ ♪ He said you're worth a hold on more baby ♪ ♪ Than you ever did ♪ ♪ Dreamer like you knew the secrets ♪ ♪ You got cheap places ♪ ♪ I've been looking for love ♪ ♪ Sister where you been ♪ ♪ Hold on if you can ♪ ♪ Just do your best then say amen ♪ ♪ I taught skinny guy and dreadlocks ♪ ♪ Said they're giving out three bagels and lights ♪ ♪ I took the kids and all my plastic bags ♪ ♪ I walked the seven blocks ♪ ♪ There were jobters and computers ♪ ♪ Skateboard kids and guys ♪ ♪ There were drums and dogs and meet them mates ♪ ♪ Yeah, downtown vacant lot ♪ ♪ ♪ He said the universe is unfolding ♪ ♪ The center still is holy ♪ ♪ There's enough people we just shed ♪ ♪ Now y'all don't forget to pass the basket ♪ ♪ Blessed are the good hearted ♪ ♪ Moists and the dreamers ♪ ♪ And our hearts are crazy ♪ ♪ Holy, hungry ones ♪ ♪ Who still believe in something better ♪ ♪ Brother where you been ♪ ♪ Hold on if you can ♪ ♪ Just do your best ♪ ♪ Then sing ♪ ♪ I saw Jesus talking shout ♪ ♪ Put him at the storebox ♪ ♪ A soft guy and goodness ♪ ♪ You end up touching the part ♪ ♪ Ohio was growing popcorn ♪ ♪ To the pigeons and the spirits ♪ There's a bear roasting on us crazy, holy, hungry ones We're still believing something better, but they wear you And hold on and you can just do your best They're the same, man The same, the same The theme music for this program is turning of the world performed by Sarah Thompson This spirit in action program is an effort of Northern Spirit Radio You can listen to our programs and find links and information about us and our guests on our website northernspiritradio.org Thank you for listening, I am your host Mark Helpsmeet and I welcome your comments and stories of those leading lives of spiritual fruit May you find deep roots to support you and grow steadily toward the light This is spirit in action With every voice, with every song We will move this world along with every voice, with every song We will move this world along and our lives will feel the echo of our healing [MUSIC PLAYING]