Exploring the role of
religion in America from the 1800’s through today’s day in age surely highlights
a dramatic change in organized religion and tradition within the church. A once
focused structural core of religion centered around uniform expectations and
specific beliefs in a Christian upbringing has surely delved into a liberating
freedom in which the individual has the ability to break away from the uniform
upbringing passed down from generation to generation to explore new
philosophies in which the amount of possibilities are limitless. Ultimately,
religion has progressed from a limited utilitarian individualistic perspective breaking
away from tradition instead moving towards an expressive individualistic
standpoint in life today.
From 1964 onward, after the promotion of civic rights and
the push for equal opportunities for all, a massive movement was seen
throughout American society pushing for the need to find oneself. A hippie sub-movement
emerged in which the art of love was drastically being pushed for versus the
dangerous world of war surrounding the individual. America was entering a phase
in which the need to find the independent, autonomous self was greatly being
explored. Americans born into the traditional organized groups of religion and
moral uniform expectations were branching out and going on their own way delving
into the dangerous and competitive world around. Americans would learn who they truly
were and what they indeed wanted to do with their life choosing which of the mores
they would continue to carry and withhold or drastically avoid from the family
values they once grew up with. As Robert Bellah once described, the traditional
art of religion was not being withheld as seen in the changing world around the hippie
movement: “For religion to have emphasized the
public order in the old sense of deference and obedience to external
authorities would no longer have made sense. Religion did not cease to be
concerned with moral order, but it operated with a new emphasis on the individual
and the voluntary association. Moral teaching came to emphasize self-control
rather than deference. It prepared the individual to maintain self-respect and
establish ethical commitments in a dangerous and competitive world, not to fit
into the stable harmony of an organic community” (222). Instead, religion in
the 1900’s was changing with the individual and the perspective outlook on that
time period in which they now lived varying greatly from the days of
Tocqueville in the 1800’s.
Tocqueville’s
chronicles analyzing observations through religion and politics expressed a
major difference in religion from the 1800’s to what now exists today. According
to Bellah,“Tocqueville saw
religion primarily as a powerful influence on individual character and action.
Religions political function was not direct intervention but instead rather support of the mores
that make democracy possible. In particular, it had the role of placing limits
on utilitarian individualism, hedging in self-interest with proper concern for
others. The “main business” of religion, Tocqueville said, “is to purify,
control, and restrain that excessive and exclusive taste for well-being” so
common among Americans” (223). Tocqueville expressed religion to be based upon
a limited utilitarian individualistic perspective in which one would do the best they
could on their own to do what was in the best interest of themself and their
family, while simultaneously following the “Golden Rule” in which they would
treat others how they would want to be treated in return. Americans were
focusing on being pure and moral within their actions versus upholding
doctrines expressed by the Pope and bishops in the world around them. Instead the people were focusing
on their families and the support groups of local organized church communities
in which they could express morality and show themselves living a pure
lifestyle within the community. Emerging into the 1900’s the rational following
of doctrines within these church communities was being converted into a new
evangelical perspective in which people were focusing on their beliefs on their
own and branching away from the traditional church towards like-minded support
groups in which one could show their own expressive individualistic thoughts.
Expressive individualistic perspectives most commonly
seen today have resulted in accordance to the individual’s needs. The
individual has always needed care and a sympathy or support group from others
emphasizing the need for self-control, self-respect, and morals one needs to
live by to ultimately be happy. However, when those organic communities of
traditional religion no longer offered the warm and fuzzy feelings of empathy
and support the individual needed, breaking away from the church soon resulted.
These breakaways ultimately lead to the commonality of expressive individualism
we have today and the formation of the new lifestyle-enclaves. These enclaves are
full of people branching away from organized religion who have like-minded
thoughts and want to establish ethical commitments in which they do not have to
belong to a certain denomination and follow the doctrinal beliefs traditionally
bestowed upon them. Instead, the human being today has become much happier
attending non-denominational church groups in which they can believe what they
want freely and do as they please in a support group of like-minded people
centered around no expectations other than an overall self-governing belief in
God. 
Picture: An example of a non-denominational church now existing today in which many people have turned to.
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