Religion in the USA (1)

Catholics, with 60 million members, are the second largest group; they have been growing fast with the influx of immigrants from Latin America.	Protestants, by far the largest group – about 80 million – are divided into a multiplicity of denominations in churches, ranging from the ultraconservative to the liberal- minded.
Jews are a little more than 4 million.	Islam is a fast-growing group with nearly 6,000,000 members.
. Jehovah's Witnesses are just above 1 million.	Hindus are 1.3 million – are expected to increase their number in the future

Religion plays a more important role in the United States than in the rest of the developed world: 95% of the population believe in God , over 40% attend a religious service every week. Being religious does not just mean going to church, it also involves a lot of social activities, participation in charity work, and sometimes political activism ( the Civil rights movement of the 60s was initiated by black congregations and ministers.

Religion is present in official references, in university curriculum , on bookstore shelves, in the workplace, on the airwaves and along the roadsides dotted with churches of all kinds. America is home to a wide array of denominations reflecting both the diversity of its population and their heritage of the country’s Protestant tradition – a tradition which has had paramount influence in public and private life, much beyond the realm of protestantism itself.

I) Church and state are separated

The first Amendment says that Congress” shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibit the free exercise thereof” – no religion can be declared the official religion of the country and political power cannot interfere with religious freedom. The religious dissenters, the Puritans, who had fled the corruption of the old world and the oppression of its” established religion” founded congregations( an assembly of church members who chose their own minister) which were free of all coercive power( Protestants have no church hierarchy). The pattern has remained much the same today: local congregations enjoy a high degree of autonomy .

While there is no state interference with religion, religion is invoked in many circumstances in America's public life; Americans see themselves as a religious people and think that the model democracy they have built is somehow the model the early Puritans had in mind, endowed as they were with divine mission.

American democracy abstains from supporting any religion but constantly refers to God:

-God is invoked in the declaration of Independence

- the words” in God we trust” are engraved on coins

-presidents swear on the Bible and call on God to bless America.

-conscientious objection on religious grounds is accepted as a reason not to become a soldier .

-the military forces pay chaplains of all faiths and give them a military rank.

-schoolchildren recite the Pledge of Allegiance every morning:

“I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands.

One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

II) Freedom of religion

Though the majority of churchgoers are Protestants, religious freedom has not only allowed dissenters of mainstream Protestant denominations to develop churches of their own but also favoured the unfettered development of other religions. With the new influx of immigrants in the past decades, the United States can rightly boast of having practically all the creeds of the planet represented on its soil. In an increasingly diverse country, religious diversity is felt both as a treasured freedom and as a means of reinforcing the voluntary segregation pervading today's society. In many ways, religious identity is related to social status and ethnicity.

In addition to the rich variety of creeds, countless sects have been mushrooming across the country, some being dissenters of one church or another, others inventing new cults and utopias, and quite a few being bent on developing a profitable business.

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