What is the place of the religion in the American society until the 1950s ?
A. The base of the American Protestant
- In the United States, churches and state are strictly separated by the constitution of 1787. Since the colonial period, Protestantism is diverse but the majority. It provides common references and the foundation of a civil religion consensual.
- A Protestant religious practice is associated with a behavior of work, thrift and moral rigor.
- Individual success is thus regarded as a sign of divine protection.
- Various Protestant churches have proliferated in the nineteenth century, protected by religious freedom embodied in the First Amendment of the Constitution "Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment or prohibiting the free exercise of religion." At very legalistic current heirs of Calvin's thought (nineteenth century) as the Presbyterians, were added during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, evangelical churches to recruit more popular, as the Baptists and Methodists.
B. Religious changes of the late nineteenth century.
- At the turn of the twentieth century, Protestantism was upset by the advances of science, which causes a rift between the Protestant modernists who want to adapt the old dogmas new knowledge, and fundamentalists who claim that the Bible is the only source truth.
- New religions or sects thrive on American soil, like the Mormons, who seek to establish a theocracy in Utah or Jehovah's Witnesses.
- Immigrants Catholic, Orthodox and Jews arrived from Southern and Eastern Europe. First stigmatized, they are gradually being accepted in the name of tolerance and religious freedom. The black community found its structure around his own evangelical churches.
C. Religion at the heart of society fights.
- Industrialization and urbanization have resulted in the beginning of secularization of society, but the Protestant values of social engagement, community and philanthropy still remain.
- Concerned about these changes, the Bible Belt fundamentalists launched a " Puritan crusade " from the 1920s, marked by the struggle against the theory of evolution against relations outside marriage and against alcohol (prohibition). Ku Klux Klan is the attack on him for blacks, Catholics and Jews, they considers them unassimilable.
- However from 1945 to 1960, traditional religious practice is still growing, reflecting a conformist society. Black churches in the South, helped by progressive churches North politicize their message in the fight against segregation.
Vocabulary:
Civil religion: belief in the divine protection of American nation associated with the respect of the founding documents (constitution) and Protestant values.
Secularization: weakening of beliefs or religious practices.