Scan barcode
A review by tanyarobinson
American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us by Robert D. Putnam, David E. Campbell
3.0
I requested American Grace from the library because it was repeatedly footnoted in Elder Quentin Cook's talk from the April 2011 LDS General Conference, and I wanted to know more about what it said. This lengthy tome discusses the findings of the authors' 2006 and 2007 "Faith Matters" survey, a massive study of religious, political, and civic attitudes and behaviors of Americans across the faith spectrum. Interspersed with the statistical analysis (and plenty of charts and graphs) were vignettes from random congregations across the country, which saved the book from being too dry. Overall I found the information fascinating, but often way too drawn out.
Since the great majority of my Goodreads friends are Mormon, I thought I'd point out some of the interesting things the authors found about our religion and its place in America.
- We represent roughly 2% of the U.S. population
- Mormons are the most religiously observant group in America, followed by Black Protestants and Evangelical Protestants
- On the question "Of all respondents whose parents were in a given religious tradition, what proportion have left that faith or rarely attend services?" the LDS response was just under 45%. That sounds like a lot to me, but it was the lowest response of all the denominations.
- On the question "How important is it that your children marry someone of your own faith? the Mormons had the highest positive response, with about 66% saying it was somewhat or very important.
- Mormons gave the lowest response when asked if they favored allowing female clergy. 30% said yes, while the highest response came from Mainline Protestants (93% in favor).
- The three least popular religious groups in America are 1)Buddhists, 2)Muslims, and 3)Mormons
- Mormons report warm feelings toward all other religious groups, or as the author says, "Mormons like everyone else, while almost everyone else dislikes Mormons." The one exception to that are Jews.
- Responses to "People not of my faith, including non-Christians, can go to heaven" range from Mormons (98% agree) to Evangelical Protestants (54% agree). Protestant clergy are unhappy at this response, as their doctrine teaches only Christians can go to heaven, and their congregants evidently disagree.
- Questions about politics over the pulpit found that "Mormons and evangelicals have the least politicking and the most Republicans." "Jews and Black Protestants have the most politicking and the fewest Republicans."
- When looking at generosity across different religious traditions they found that overall it mattered more how religious you were than what religion you were apart of, yet they still commented, "Mormons are strikingly more active in giving and volunteering of all sorts."
- One of the vignettes focused on the Pioneer Ward in the Sandy West Stake. It is overall very positive (helped, I'm sure, by the fact that one of the book's authors, a professor of political science at Notre Dame, is a convert to Mormonism). It talks a lot about peoples' service in callings, the attitude of "giving their lives over to God," the fact that ward members also give above average secular community service, and shows Mormon families in a warm fuzzy light. The biggest criticism is that members put pressure on each other to hold Republican views, and that "there's always been kind of this unsaid belief that you can't be a Democrat and a good Mormon."
This is a just a glimpse in what you can find in the 570 pages before the footnotes begin. If this is even marginally appealing to you, you can get a lot out of just looking at all the charts and graphs without going through all the text. Getting through the whole book was a lot of work, but I'm glad I read it.
Since the great majority of my Goodreads friends are Mormon, I thought I'd point out some of the interesting things the authors found about our religion and its place in America.
- We represent roughly 2% of the U.S. population
- Mormons are the most religiously observant group in America, followed by Black Protestants and Evangelical Protestants
- On the question "Of all respondents whose parents were in a given religious tradition, what proportion have left that faith or rarely attend services?" the LDS response was just under 45%. That sounds like a lot to me, but it was the lowest response of all the denominations.
- On the question "How important is it that your children marry someone of your own faith? the Mormons had the highest positive response, with about 66% saying it was somewhat or very important.
- Mormons gave the lowest response when asked if they favored allowing female clergy. 30% said yes, while the highest response came from Mainline Protestants (93% in favor).
- The three least popular religious groups in America are 1)Buddhists, 2)Muslims, and 3)Mormons
- Mormons report warm feelings toward all other religious groups, or as the author says, "Mormons like everyone else, while almost everyone else dislikes Mormons." The one exception to that are Jews.
- Responses to "People not of my faith, including non-Christians, can go to heaven" range from Mormons (98% agree) to Evangelical Protestants (54% agree). Protestant clergy are unhappy at this response, as their doctrine teaches only Christians can go to heaven, and their congregants evidently disagree.
- Questions about politics over the pulpit found that "Mormons and evangelicals have the least politicking and the most Republicans." "Jews and Black Protestants have the most politicking and the fewest Republicans."
- When looking at generosity across different religious traditions they found that overall it mattered more how religious you were than what religion you were apart of, yet they still commented, "Mormons are strikingly more active in giving and volunteering of all sorts."
- One of the vignettes focused on the Pioneer Ward in the Sandy West Stake. It is overall very positive (helped, I'm sure, by the fact that one of the book's authors, a professor of political science at Notre Dame, is a convert to Mormonism). It talks a lot about peoples' service in callings, the attitude of "giving their lives over to God," the fact that ward members also give above average secular community service, and shows Mormon families in a warm fuzzy light. The biggest criticism is that members put pressure on each other to hold Republican views, and that "there's always been kind of this unsaid belief that you can't be a Democrat and a good Mormon."
This is a just a glimpse in what you can find in the 570 pages before the footnotes begin. If this is even marginally appealing to you, you can get a lot out of just looking at all the charts and graphs without going through all the text. Getting through the whole book was a lot of work, but I'm glad I read it.