News and Events
American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us
Institute for Religion, Politics,
and Culture
C.V Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience
September 29, 2011
David Campbell, a scholar whose study of America's religious attitudes and institutions, has revealed a surprising mix of polarization and tolerance. Offering a mix of historical sweep and detailed narrative, American Grace follows the decline of religious observance in the 1960s, its resurgence in the 1970s and 80s with the rise of evangelicalism and the Religious Right, and the exodus of young people from organized religion in the 1990s. A reviewer for Publishers Weekly applauded authors Campbell and Putnam for persuasively arguing two apparent contradictory theses: "First, that a 'new religious fault line' exists in America, a deep political polarization that has transcended denominationalism as the greatest chasm in religious life; and second, that the culture is becoming so much more accepting of diversity that the first thesis will not tear the country apart."
Enlarge photos by Kathy Thornton '13.
