Keep Moving Forward: Gender, Race and the Future of American Religion (Essay Sample)

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8 April 2015
Keep Moving Forward: Gender, Race and the Future of American Religion
Numerous scholars have projected that religious viewpoints and practices will continue to be lively in the United States. Putnam, Campell and Garrett (7) for instance, cite that any person can prevaricate over just how religious conviction, and religiosity, ought to be determined, but, by every criterion, the American nation as a whole a religious country. To these authors, a high percentage of Americans have demonstrated augmented rates of religious affiliation, behaving, and believing. From their research, Putnam, Campell and Garrett (7) established that more than eighty percent of Americans have indicated to belong to a religion.
Other researchers have further asserted that religious belief amongst Americans presently is as spirited, forceful and extensive as it ever has been. Migration incessantly passes novel and diverse religious customs and practices to the United States to an extent that even Christian backgrounds to which a great number of Americans believe in continue to adjust to the wants of an ever-shifting populace. Generally, religion appears as an insidious influence on American way of life, public policy and politics. This paper will present some of the aspects that are considered to be the most influential in fashioning the future of religion in America.
From the contemporary religious landscape in America, the congregational shopping and shifting point out to a trend that seems to fashion the future of religion in America. The multiplicity of religious denominations as well as the divergence of religious traditions has led to commercialized religious gatherings. A large percentage of the youthful American society tends to be lured by the technological innovations that churches and pastors have used to attract followers. Putnam, Campell and Garrett (175) posit that "inter-congregational moves conjure up an image of dueling pastors squaring off against each other in a competition to win converts.”
Competition is another factor that is projected to endure in America in the future. Churches are projected to highly compete against each other as against secularism. David Brown once cited that American spiritual denominations are at the center of an era of divergence and probable realignment. He gave examples those Protestant denominations such as Episcopal, Lutherans, Presbyterians and Methodists are participating in intensive internal fights regarding the relationship of their religion to non-Christian faiths and their comprehension of issues associated with human sexuality and gender (futurist.com). Similarly, Putnam, Campell and Garrett (175) have also highlighted that the seemingly merger between politics, religion and secularism is expected to transform further the religious background of United States. This view will either lead to influx of liminals (people who flap back and forth amid acknowledging a religious belonging or not) or increase the number of religious entrepreneurs who are out there to fish as per the biblical words, "Jesus told his disciples to be fishers of men”
The fascination in spirituality and its connection to religion appears to gather roots among Americans. Scholars such as Martin Marty of University of Chicago have established that five decades the phrase spirituality was absent in most religious literature but in the early twentieth century saw the entry of it in multiple books and journals. Sociologists define spirituality as the network that holds an individual’s life together and links it to something greater. One’s spirituality offers their life consistency and meaning. It refers to both the manner people comprehend who they are in relation to the world and others, and the actions they engage in that permit them to feel connected. It is a sense of inner rationality. With the current religious diversities, Americans seem not to pay more attention to fellowship and attending congregations. Technology has further brought sermons to their comfort of their bedrooms. The scenario is even worsened by the doctrinal fights and political-religious mergers. All these aspects are projected to create a spiritual community that only wishes to know what their lives basically mean.
Religious divergences pose critical threats to United States’ social and political environments in a manner that has not been witnessed for a long time. Although the federal Constitution protects individuals against any form of discrimination, recent influx of terrorist attacks inclined to particular religious groups seem to cause major unreported conflicts among varying religious factions. As the latest disturbances in the world indicate, a religious cosmopolitan region like United States faces what might be considered as disastrous religious difference and hostility and that might position "Muslim minorities against secular states and Muslim societies against Christian neighbors" Jenkins (1).
Globally, religious discussions have centered on the instantaneous growth of Muslim communities. For over a century, United States has accepted a considerable migrant populations primarily originating from Asia and Africa, such that presently, Muslims constitute approximately three percent of the American population. For several years, a political compromise held that Muslims would be attracted to the America’s partly religious and partly secular social context, but the conception of complete incorporation has in the past endured terrible hurdles. In September 2011, terrorist bombings that attacked the World Trade Center drew interest to an entire sub-culture of unaffected second-generation American Muslims who were ready to maim and die for their faith. British intelligence report has cautioned of a domestic uprising, noting that most immigrant Muslims originated from entirely militarized areas of the globe, for instance Somalia or Afghanistan. Generally, if scarcity, indoctrination, and discrimination concurs precisely with religious identity, if the youthful, deprived and Muslim, incessantly face up to the aged, well-off, and Christian, then the American and global societies are likely to experience a biased meltdown similar to the Lebanon’s experience in 1970s.
Furthermore, even as Islam is unquestionably pervasive, Christianity in terms of active practice has been cited to be apparently dwindling. The trend of declining Christian practices has marked the swiftest progression of secularization ever observed.
The emerging church movement will also see diverse reactions and confusion among the future American citizens even though their emerging church leaders consider their ‘missional existence’ not as a way of worship but a distinguishing feature between them and the mega church. Indeed, the diversion from the doctrinal worship by the emerging church movements to focusing on what people do and supporting secular lifestyles might be expected to cause market differentiation and create allusions among their followers that the emerging church is a postmodern approach to religion (Putnam, Campell and Garrett 178). The emerging church has already taken over and imitated by many urban churches in United States. They are featured by less strict dressing conducts, loud present-day tunes, and late night talk shows in place of the archetypal Sunday mo...