American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us

American Grace is a large and useful white paper on the place of religion in contemporary American society. Relying on a 2006–2007 survey of their own, but also employing an array of other survey data and monographic studies, Robert D. Putnam and David E. Campbell give a readable account of much of what is known about the religious demography of the United States and offer balanced views on how religion has shaped contemporary American social and political values and identities. They provide sophisticated analysis while eschewing social science jargon and technicality. There are footnotes for specialists and, for the general reader, extended vignettes of a number of congregations (written by Shaylyn Romney Garrett) that supply anecdotal commentary and reference points for the analysis. Those interested in obtaining new insights into American religious history, however, are likely to come away disappointed. The authors are not historians, and their account of how we got to where we are boils down to the 1960s and its discontents. Circumstances that do not fit the narrative—such as the fact that the most significant growth of conservative churches occurred before the 1960s sex-and-gender revolution—are ignored or glossed over. Institutional developments such as the decline of denominationalism receive little or no attention, much less explanation. Regional religious variation gets an early glance but quickly fades from view in favor of national aggregates.