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AMERICA’S RELIGIOUS LANDSCAPE
- State University of New York Press
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such as Marxism ought themselves to be categorized as religious, or at least as comprehensive worldviews similar to religion. For my purposes, these definitional lines need not be starkly drawn. While I will claim that religion poses some particular challenges for civic deliberation—and thus merits focused analysis in chapter 6—ethical education also needs to involve frameworks that are not commonly understood as religious. The general characteristic that makes them subjects for Ethical Dialogue is their concern with central metaphysical questions that inform a robust vision of the good life, and thus will likely impact our civic lives together. Nonreligious worldviews may generally have a more limited ethical scope, but they deserve thoughtful attention when their concerns arise in ethical discourse involving more comprehensive religious frameworks. Because of public schools’ tendency to sidestep exploration of religious -ethical frameworks, my case for the importance of Ethical Dialogue in public school classrooms focuses largely on the role of religion. The first part of this chapter sketched a conception of mutual respect and ethical identity, characterizing humans as project pursuers with (inevitable) ethical frameworks. My argument, at its broadest level, is that public schools should help students learn how to engage in respectful deliberation about these frameworks through a process of mutual understanding. My more specific focus is Ethical Dialogue involving religious frameworks (and, as I just explained, their secular counterparts). In chapter 4, I will explore how public schoolteachers might help their students engage in thoughtful Ethical Dialogue, particularly as it relates to religious understanding. Before reaching this stage of educational application, however, we need to consider more closely the link between religious and ethical identity in the lives of many students. AMERICA’S RELIGIOUS LANDSCAPE Even if students themselves don’t voice ethical perspectives informed by religious commitments, it is still vital that they learn how to engage thoughtfully with religious-ethical disagreement. Religion is a central concern in American life, public and private; it contributes mightily to the vast diversity of ethical projects in our society. The requirements of mutual respect impel us to understand these often conflicting projects, and this includes understanding their frequently religious influences. 50 Grappling with the Good A common misconception exists that the United States is becoming an increasingly secular society. Certainly our society has become increasingly open to diverse ethical frameworks, but America is noteworthy as a nation for its relatively high level of religiosity—defying sociologist Peter Berger’s “secularization thesis” that increasingly advanced, technologized societies would become more secular (a thesis Berger himself disowned in 1998). National surveys regularly report anywhere from 60 percent to 85 percent of Americans claiming that religion is an important part of their lives. As a recent illustration of this sentiment, recall the national uproar over an appellate court ruling that reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools is unconstitutional because of the phrase “under God.”14 Nevertheless, the U.S. religious landscape has changed noticeably in recent decades. The tremendous influence of immigration underscores the link between religious development and broader social trends. The Immigration Act of 1965 opened U.S. borders to a vast array of non-European newcomers, many of whom also brought religious faiths other than Christianity . In the eyes of researcher Diana Eck, this influx holds broad implications for our assumptions about America as a Christian nation: As Muslim Americans stand in the halls of Congress, Buddhist Americans ordain monks in temples flying the American flag, Hindu Americans run for local and state office, and Sikh Americans insist on their constitutional right to wear the turban and retain their uncut hair in the military, the presupposition that America is foundationally Christian is being challenged, really for the first time. There is no going back. As we say in Montana, the horses are already out of the barn. Our new religious diversity is not just an idea but a reality, built into our neighborhoods all over America. Religious pluralism is squarely and forever on the American agenda. Even with Christians having become more vocal and politically active in the past three decades, and in spite of lingering assumptions that equate American religion with Christianity, Eck is clear in her contention: “The United States has become the most religiously diverse nation on earth.”15 The presence of religious diversity does not necessarily mean a shift in the nation’s religious center of gravity, however, which remains predominantly Christian. As Philip Jenkins argues, “When Eck envisages ‘the world's most religiously diverse nation...