The Cornucopia of American Religion

In his 1972 Denominational Society, the late Andrew Greeley sketches the shape of the denominational society. It is a masterly portrait that captures the energies and contradictions of American religion.

He notes, for instance, that “most American religious groups have accepted the existing social order and served as integrators of American society.” American religion is “basically conservative; ad the overwhelming majority of Americans do not like to be disturbed by their religion more than they deep appropriate” (103-4).

At the same time, American religion throws up prophetic and reforming movements with abandon: “American Protestantism was intimately connected with the abolition movement during the Civil War, with the progressive movement at the beginning of the present century and with the temperance movement which led to the passage of the Prohibition amendment. Most recently American foreign policy has been the target of criticism.” In sum, “hardly anything has happened in the United States which some minister of religion has not risen to denounce” (103).

He knows we like to fancy ourselves self-reliant individualists, and he knows that this isn’t wholly false, but he also observes that “American religion constantly produces new organizations and eagerly devotes itself to works of social betterment and charity. We Americans think of ourselves as individualists, but it would seem only as individualists who are almost pathologically eager to join groups. We may decry organizations, but we found them. We may extol the need for individualism, but we quickly seek out others with whom to work. We may insist that man must be responsible for himself, but we desperately seek someone whom we can help, whether he wants to be helped or not” (106).

American religion is, in short, a “religion of plenty,” a religious scene premised on the conviction that “variety, diversity, plurality, paradox, and, if necessary, contradiction, are not particularly unhealthy” (106).