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The religious composition of the United States is rapidly shifting. As institutions and their stakeholders negotiate the needs of an increasingly diverse public, leaders of national chaplaincy organizations offer insight into how actors can effectively understand and engage matters of religious pluralism. This article identifies two distinct institutional frameworks ("mandate" and "interpersonal care") that provide chaplaincy leaders with different schemas, tools, and strategies to use when understanding and motivating their engagement with religiously diverse publics. Using interviews with sixteen national chaplaincy leaders working in public and private settings, we delineate how institutional leaders interpret, articulate, and fulfill their roles as negotiators of religious differences within their respective frameworks. Our findings allow scholars and leaders to better understand how institutions and their actors can successfully interact with a diversifying, religiously pluralistic public. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The dynamic of American religious pluralism contains at its core a spatial politics configured by a longstanding pattern of Anglo-Protestant dominance coupled with a widespread though tension-filled acceptance of religious pluralism. This dynamic has been particularly dramatic and intense since the 1960s because of an increase in the numbers of adherents of non-Protestant and non-Western religions in the United States and an increase in the degree to which religious groups have sought a more active and visible involvement in American life. One can observe the American pluralist dynamic functioning spatially at three interlocking levels—regional, local, and national—with spatial politics playing out differently in different locations depending on a variety of factors. As the new century opens, new factors such as globalization, virtual communication, and heterolocalism come increasingly into play. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A spat of recent polls show that Americans are as religious as ever, even if their affiliations to particular faith groups have somewhat faded. Furthermore, during the past two decades, historians of American religion have unearthed much new information, connecting American religion to broader currents of American life in numerous exciting ways. Despite these two events, we argue that religion has yet to become central to the way in which most historians of modern America (since 1865) tell their story—except in areas that are either racialized (the civil rights movement) or considered to be politically marginal (the New Right). Religion is everywhere in history, but nowhere in mainstream historiography. We explore some possible reasons for this fact, and then conclude by pointing out several directions in which religious history is currently moving, and in which an examination by mainstream scholars might benefit the field as a whole tremendously. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses the U.S. as a religiously diverse nation. It mentions that the U.S. is the most diverse country in religion in the planet. It also states that Los Angeles, California has the most varieties of Buddhism in the world. In addition, it provides information on the history of various religions in the country that is influenced by other nations. According to the author, the complication in North America worsens because of globalization. Moreover, he examines the impact of global factors on different religions in the U.S.

The article discusses the connection of globalization of American religion and religious diversity in the U.S. It was stated that as the country become more internationalized, with the increasing populations of Asians, Africans,. and Latinos, so to as the American religious life. The author reveals that the impact of the changing demographics and ways of communications on religion is immense, in which it transformed the manner the Americans think about religion. In addition, the author suggests that educated discussion and debate are needed to address various issues in the strengthening religious pluralism.

This paper addresses religious pluralism as an academic, civic, and theological challenge. Looking at religious communities in their connections and interrelations is a critical academic challenge for students of religion who would gain insight into the dynamics of religious life and identities today. The encounter of people from different religious traditions in hometown America has reshaped the context of religious life, calling for attention and serious study. In short, the study of a complex city like Fremont, CA, might well be the study of today's Silk Road, today's convivencia. Religious pluralism is also a critical civic issue for citizens of increasingly diverse societies, raising fundamental questions about the nature of civic polity, the "we" of our civic life. And, to be sure, religious pluralism is a critical theological issue for people of faith, raising fundamental questions about one's own faith in relation to the religious other. Scholarly, civic, and theological issues have their own distinctive realms of discourse and require us to think carefully about the meaning of "voice" in our work. We cannot evade the question of voice in thinking theoretically about pluralism, for diversity is not only the characteristic of the worlds we study but of our own identities, our multiply-situated selves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to situate Orthodox Christianity within the context of American religious pluralism in the twenty-first century. It explores the role of Orthodox Christianity, as both subject and object, in the evolution of American religious identity, with particular focus on the domestic, international, and transnational factors that account for the locus of Orthodox Christianity in debates about the religious dimensions of collective identity in America. The article concludes that internal pluralization is redefining the identity and mission of Orthodox Christianity in America, such that the consolidation of a distinct type of American Orthodoxy may allow for a renegotiation of the place of Orthodox Christianity in the American public sphere in the twenty-first century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents information on the impact of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in the 1990 religious case Employment Division versus Smith on religious freedom exercise in the U.S. History of the court decision on Employment Division versus Smith case; Influence of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and its ability to counteract the decision; Potential effects of the court decision on religious involvement and plurality in the U.S.

Scholars around the country are engaged in studying the "new religious pluralism." However, this scholarship to date has been conducted without much theoretical guidance. While there is general acknowledgement that the old assimilation model is inadequate for understanding the dynamics of contemporary religious pluralism, alternative models have not been forthcoming. This essay is an attempt to move the study of religious pluralism forward by charting out the theoretical dimensions of the research problem. Then, using secularization theory and the idea of an American civil religion as theoretical guides, two models for understanding contemporary pluralism are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay chronicles the development of Catholichealth care in the United States during the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries.The author points to the religious pluralism and the respect for that pluralismas well as to the evangelical drive for conversion evident in Catholic hospitals.This essay is a phenomenological study of this commitment to pluralism andthe evangelical impulse within the contexts of health care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that church membership rates are lower in contemporary US counties having greater religious pluralism and that the same negative relationship is found in most historical data on US church membership. Finke and Stark find a positive relationship but in most cases only after statistically controlling for the percent of the population that is Catholic and/or Mormon. Breault has shown that these statistical controls create multicollinearity problems that distort the true, negative effects of pluralism. Finke and Stark counter that such multicollinearity is unavoidable because the statistical controls measure important substantive characteristics of Catholicism that are necessary to accurately observe pluralism's true, positive effects. This paper shows that the statistical controls do not measure substantive effects of Catholicism and that the resulting multicollinearity problems are the result of a mathematical artifact of the way pluralism is calculated and the cases Finke and Stark select for analysis Without these problematic statistical controls, most contemporary and historical analyses of US data reveal a negative association between religious pluralism and church membership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Editorial. Focuses on the unprecedented growth in religious pluralism in America in the last half of the 20th century. Free expression of religious faith; Constitutional mandate on a secular state; Desire to subdue differences; Call for a return to Christian America.

Expounds John Courtney Murray's argument that the cohesiveness of decentralized religious pluralism is caused by an ethical core inherent in natural law. Murray's concepts on civil discourse and political pluralism; Impact of pluralism on the Catholic church; Pluralism's social and economic underpinnings; Classifications of institutional functions.

A theory of religious activity based on principles of supply-side economics has generated considerable controversy in the sociology of religion. This theory posits that religious pluralism increases rates of religious activity by promoting competition between churches. This paper tests "supply-side theory" with data describing US Mormons. Results uncover patterns in Mormon church activity that refute the theory. The paper outlines several characteristics of Mormonism that explain its deviance from the theorized outcome, and suggests a scope condition for supply-side theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three models of the American political culture are considered: consensus theories, dualistic theories, and pluralism. The appropriate rote of religion in each is examined, and the risks to both politics and religion are assessed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines data from surveys, historical records, position papers, minutes of group meetings, and other sources to shed light on the ways the laity of the Roman Catholic church in the United States are bringing about change, often in spite of the hierarchy and Vatican bureaucracy. A range of traditional teachings and policies focusing on sexuality, marriage, the priesthood, the locus of authority, and participation in decision making within church organizations, are examined in the light of Gallup surveys carried out nationally in 1987 and 1993. These data plus the qualitative data indicate the existence of a pluralism that pits the magisterium (teaching authority located in the Vatican) and most of the American bishops on one side and a growing majority of laity on the other. This pluralism raises questions about the possibilities for organizational change within the Church in America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]