Title
Christianity in the United States
Department/School
Theology
Date
2020
Document Type
Book Chapter
DOI
DOI: 10.4324/9781315537627-35
Abstract
Christianity has left a deep imprint on the United States’ laws, its politics, its moral values, its educational system, its social relations, its wars, and its foreign policy. That is true of the past and, despite increasing secularization and religious diversity, it remains true today, with 70.6 percent of Americans still identifying as Christians, according to the 2014 Pew Forum Religious Landscape Survey. The chapter describes the overview of Protestant development in America, noting the diversity of new churches that have come into being there and the emergence of what has been called a “two-party system” among American Protestants. It shows an account of how Catholicism, mainly a European transplant, has adapted itself to American conditions. The chapter explains a description of how America itself has been understood in religious terms, and the implications this understanding has had for Christianity.
Published in
The Christian Theological Tradition, 4th ed.
Citation/Other Information
Hollerich, Michael J. “Christianity in the United States.” In The Christian Theological Tradition, 466–489. 4th ed. Routledge, 2020.