What Is The Faithful American?

Religion and social change are slowly becoming less exclusive in the United States.

This is the hunch I had when I saw this picture on Facebook. The Church of Latter-Day Saints is historically as socially progressive as Jehovah’s Witnesses and Catholics; quite conservative in fact. It took until 1978 for the LDS to allow black members of the church to attain priesthood and participate in any basic leadership roles. So the fact that there were Mormons, albeit from the San Francisco area which is renown for open-mindedness, were marching in the 2014 Pride Parade seemed out of place. Perhaps the liberal sides of religious communities does not receive as much media coverage because of the other extreme. For the most part religiousness still coincides with both levels of social progressiveness and party lines.

With 85.9% Americans self-identifying as religiously affiliated, The United States is still vastly religious. And although the group of unaffiliated people is growing, almost a quarter of those unaffiliated still consider themselves religious. But even though those that are more religious are also more likely to be socially conservative, the liberal religious still exist.

Even religions known for social conservatism have groups, whether small or large, influential or a small fry, engaged in liberal ideas and social change. In the case of Mormons at Pride parade, they may be the liberal outliers in a more conservative religion.

Our stereotype for the faithful does not hold space for the faithful to also be just as dynamic, or not, as the American population. For example, last week Pope Francis upheld the Catholic church’s view that evolution and the Big Bang were both accepted theories and concordant with G-d’s plan. Although the Pope continues to uphold other conservative church views towards sexuality, abortion and contraception, he is remarkably progressive in interfaith communication and acceptance. The media went wild last Sunday when he affirmed that the Catholic Church did in fact believe in evolution and the big bang—as G-d’s plan, of course. Most online articles one can find on this will ignore the fact that Pope Francis is not the first pope to reconcile evolution with Catholicism. The first pope to do so was Pope Pius XII in 1950. The media perpetuated the rigid idea that all religion hangs on to philosophies of the Renaissance.

As the Pew research shows, the modern United States is just as religious as it has ever been. Even though the religious fabric is fluid, a vast majority of Americans stay connected to a faith. Despite this, our society continues to evolve. It is only despite because in the past religious institutions have not been on the forefront of social change—on the contrary they often uphold tradition and a more static society. The more extreme a religion, the more strongly a religion holds fast to the past. Or so one would assume. But perhaps this idea of religion equals conservative views is too overarching. Yes, there are Mormons who are strongly conservative, and yes it is a socially conservative religion, but there are also socially liberal Mormons. In the united states we have a strange relationship with religion. We believe in the separation of church and state and yet swear people into public office with the bible. There may be the outward perception that religion is an “other”, but in reality the faithful are everywhere—even in pride parades.