This is one of the most important social scientific accounts of religion published in the last 10 years, perhaps even longer. Marshaling an enormous amount of data, Robert Putnam and David Campbell offer an analysis that is breathtaking in its ambition. And in spite of the sprawling size of Amazing Grace, their central point is clear: Although the last several decades have produced rising levels of religious polarization, the changing religious landscape and the fluid nature of American religion have nonetheless engendered high levels of tolerance. This tolerance arises out of “a web of interlocking personal relationships among people of many different faiths.” “This,” the authors conclude, “is America's grace” (p. 550).
Such an optimistic conclusion stands in some contrast to the gloomy narrative of Putnam's Reference Putnam2000 bestseller, Bowling Alone, especially regarding religion in public life. The earlier work is principally concerned with what Putnam sees as the precipitous collapse of social networks in the United States over the previous 50 years. Arguing that social networks confer many valuable benefits—an idea that is captured by his signature term “social capital”—he suggested in Bowling Alone that the crumbling of social networks betokens the implosion of American social and civic life more broadly. Religion is an important component of this story. Religious communities are important incubators of social capital, according to Putnam, but religious affiliation has declined over the last several decades with the stark demographic demise of mainline Protestantism. This is especially problematic because mainline churches are “bridging” communities, that is, inclusive communities that develop connections among multiple social networks. Bridging communities overlap with other social networks in order to “encompass people across diverse social cleavages.”Footnote 1 Thus, the decline of the mainline represents a calamity in American social and civic life because, Putnam claimed, the fast-growing evangelical Protestants have not been interested in taking up the social and civic space that the mainline has now left vacant.
Putnam and Campbell return more exclusively to the issue of religion in American Grace, though their analysis has several points of departure from Bowling Alone. They now appreciate the social capital created by churchgoers of all types and argue that those involved in religious communities, including evangelicals, are better neighbors and “more conscientious citizens” than secular Americans (p. 444). That is because churchgoers give more money to causes, volunteer more, are more likely to be civically engaged, and are more trusting of and trusted by others. One implication of Putnam and Campbell's broader argument seems to be that we should all go to church so that we could be better citizens. But what kind of church? It does not matter, they argue: What matters is not the flavor of religious tradition but the intensity with which people observe their religion in religious communities. “It is the belonging that matters, not believing,” the authors explain (p. 473). And these religiously based social ties are far more powerful than any other kind of tie, they argue, so much so that “bowling in a league may move you in the right direction, but not nearly so effectively as bowling in a church league” (p. 475).
All of this is interesting and provocative. Yet I remain unpersuaded by several of the book's central claims, especially by its frank boosterism of religious communities. The basic problem lies in Putnam and Campbell's notion of what makes a “better” neighbor and citizen. This claim involves moves into political theory and moral philosophy that are argued nowhere in this book. It even seems possible to sketch a much less optimistic story based on some of the authors' own conclusions. They note, for example, that the religious are “systematically less tolerant than secular Americans,” and that “the fundamental correlation between religiosity and intolerance has been confirmed in dozens of studies over the last half century” (p. 482). Religious networks, which function as “echo chambers,” reinforce the rigidity of religiously informed political decision-making (pp. 439–42). This rigidity adds religious sanction to the divisions of American society. For example, the gap between the rich, who tend to be more religious, and the poor, who tend to be less religious, has added religious force to a class-based divide in which “religious America has offered little support for public action to redress growing class inequalities” (p. 258). So, too, do religious divisions reinforce the structures of race. The vast majority of religious institutions are ethnically homogenous and so mirror or even reinforce racial separatism (pp. 288–9). And although religious Americans have become increasingly less racist, the authors admit that “white Americans of the major religious traditions have been catching up to their secular counterparts,” who have long been less racist as a group (p. 316).
The collective weight of these concessions, when set against Putnam and Campbell's general celebration of American religion, is more problematic than they are willing to admit. The markedly lower support for civil liberties by religious Americans, in particular, makes me resist their attempt to crown the religious with the title of “Best Citizen.” But that is because I am a liberal, and liberals have historically prioritized the rights of the individual over communal values. As the liberal philosopher Isaiah Berlin pointed out, the nature of politics often requires choosing between these absolute and often incompatible ends.Footnote 2 Could it be, after all, that religious Americans are more intolerant and less inclined toward civil liberties precisely because they are devoted more to the community than the individual? Could the intolerance that the authors lament be inherent in the communitarian involvement of the highly religious? In Bowling Alone, Putnam faces this issue squarely, arguing that we do not have to choose between liberty and fraternity because, with the exception of lack of support for civil liberties by the religious, people who are socially involved are more likely to be tolerant than are social isolates.Footnote 3 But in American Grace, Putnam and Campbell decline to discuss any possible trade-off between these values, even though one seems to be happening. Instead, they conclude, somewhat limply, that religious people are more authority-minded, which accounts for their intolerance (pp. 488–9).
There is much in their book that ought to give communitarians such as Putnam or Campbell pause as well. The most troubling questions come from a comparison between the two books. In Bowling Alone, Putnam includes a map of social capital in the various states (see Figure 1). He then provides voluminous data to show that education, children's welfare, neighborhood safety, economic prosperity, health, and happiness are all linked to social capital. In other words, the more social capital a place has, the better its collective life as measured by these factors. So how do we explain that in American Grace, Putnam and Campbell include a map of religiosity that is nearly the inverse of Putnam's earlier map (see Figure 2)? The comparison of the two maps seems to suggest that with a few exceptions, such as Utah and some states in the Mississippi Valley, the higher levels of religiosity in a state, the lower that state's social capital, and thus the higher that state's level of social ills. How, in light of this rough correlation, do Putnam and Campbell justify their optimistic claims about religiosity?
Social Captial by State.
Source: Putnam, Bowling Alone, p. 293.
Religiosity by State.
Source: Putnam and Campbell, American Grace, p. 27.
Finally, as a historian, I was particularly bothered by Putnam and Campbell's history. This might seem like the usual disciplinary cavil against nonspecialists' use of the past, but it is not. My problem is not just with particular historical facts in American Grace but with how history functions within the book. For the authors, history either authorizes conclusions that they cannot otherwise support or wards against a conclusion that might seem to grow out of their evidence. For example, they devote two chapters to the way that gender, ethnicity, and class have intersected with religion since the 1960s. These are fascinating chapters, and the picture is not entirely pretty. When it comes to women's liberation, the authors claim that religious groups gave, at best, a lukewarm toleration of the movement at its inception. But religious Americans' acceptance has grown over time into outright support for several important measures of female equality. Religious groups did not lead, the authors concede, but neither did they ultimately hold the movement back. From the perspective of a secular progressive, the religious acquiescence to broader social trends has turned out well. But the case is different when it comes to the phenomenon of rising class inequality in the United States: Here, too, religious groups have calmly accepted the social trend, a phenomenon that the authors decry.
Because Putnam and Campbell prefer their religion in the prophetic mode, they censure the complacent acceptance of social inequality as unworthy of the religious ideals of the United States. Yet in keeping with their boosterism of the civic function of American religion, they offer some historical background to soften the blow. “Many contemporary secular progressives have forgotten that the history of religion in America is replete with powerful examples of evangelical revival promoting social reform and equality,” the authors suggest. They then offer a short fable about the progressive influence of religious groups in the United States. Since the purpose of this section is primarily hortatory, it is replete with historical anachronisms and downright dubious claims. Putnam and Campbell begin with the American Revolution in which the egalitarian ideology of evangelicals is supposed to have combined with rising political fervor against Great Britain. This egalitarian idea continued, they claim, in the Second Great Awakening, which thrust northern evangelicals into the fight over slavery on the side of the slave. The trend of evangelical activism for equality continued into the Gilded Age as religious groups supposedly became central to fights over social injustice: They fought for workers' rights, were integral to the Progressive movement, and supported the populist William Jennings Bryan (pp. 249–52).
To pronounce something “progressive,” however, is to assume progress toward a specific and agreed-upon end. This is where the authors' historical anachronism shows up. All of these movements possessed different ends. The American Revolution sought to create a new nation independent of Great Britain but did not create a society of individual equality. One need not be a radical to acknowledge that the revolution perpetuated slavery, denied women any political rights, and rejected the Indian nations' land claims. It did not even create a democracy—that would await the Jacksonian political revolution. So, too, evangelical support for populism was not what we would call progressive: It sought the devaluing of currency in order to give aid to struggling farmers who resented urban elites and the banks to which they were indebted; populism was a rural economic response to the political and economic trends out of their control. Progressivism, by contrast, was mostly urban and often only moderately reformist, as opposed to radical; it sought to ameliorate the worst abuses of industrial capitalism while holding back the most far-reaching demands of labor. These disparate movements cannot simply be placed under the simplistic and anachronistic rubric of struggling for “equality.”
Even if a movement was what we might today consider progressive, that does not mean that the religious influence within it was also progressive. Take the abolitionist or women's rights movements, which I have no problem characterizing as progressive. The abolitionist movement split in a dispute over the movement's purpose. Evangelicals saw antislavery as but one prong in a multilateral effort to confront sin and establish a moral rule in law. In other words, for many, antislavery went hand in hand with efforts to stop dueling, Sabbath breaking, drinking, and blasphemy. By contrast, the many Quakers and Freethinkers of the movement saw abolition as a step toward a society of individual rights, which is why they connected abolition and the women's movement. Since evangelicals did not support this individual rights agenda, calling it a step toward anarchy and ungodliness, the American Anti-Slavery Society split in 1840, with evangelicals leaving the society to form organizations that more fully supported their broader religious agenda. Although abolitionism was progressive, it turned out that evangelical involvement in it was not.Footnote 4
Putnam and Campbell do concede, usually in undeveloped asides, that the religious have not often worked toward equality in the American past. But having made the concession, the authors tend to quickly return to religion's many civic benefits. In making this argument, they seem to have picked up on a strain of historical writing that, in the words of the religious studies scholar Robert Orsi, tends to conceive of religion as a “denominationally neutral version of Christianity recast as an ethical system,” one that is “good and even necessary for American democracy.”Footnote 5 This sunny disposition toward religion not only explains their history but also helps explain some of their most dubious claims about our contemporary moment, which I find otherwise baffling. In spite of all the problems associated with religion, in spite of their multiple findings about religious polarization and the indifference or hostility of the highly religious toward civil rights, and in spite of the fact that 72% of Americans say that the country is divided along religious lines, the authors still conclude: “For many Americans, religion serves as a sort of civic glue, uniting rather than dividing” (p. 517). How do they support this? They again draw upon a putative American character that arises out of the distant American past. “Embedded in the American psyche,” they explain, “is an implicit article of patriotic faith that the nation owes its very existence, and survival, to a God in the heavens” (p. 517). This civil religion, they argue, has existed from Thomas Jefferson to Barack Obama and is fundamentally inclined toward toleration. In making this argument, they ignore or downplay three decades of historical writing that has shown the conflict associated with religion, the real and deep limits of tolerance, and the continual desire of Protestant Christians to maintain power and control over others.Footnote 6
In the end, I come away from this book puzzled. American Grace is undoubtedly a remarkable statistical analysis filled with fascinating insight in many particulars. And it sets a new standard as the book to which many scholars and lay readers will look in order to understand religion in contemporary American life. But these many insights are clothed in a boosterish attitude toward religion that does not seem to be adequately supported by the authors' own evidence and that itself emerges out of an inadequate view of the American past. Ultimately, it may be that the place of religion in public life is less divisive than the media portrayals of the contemporary culture wars suggest. Yet I remain unconvinced that we in the United States live in a state of grace.
