{"id":335,"date":"2014-12-22T07:10:14","date_gmt":"2014-12-22T07:10:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/?p=335"},"modified":"2014-12-22T07:10:14","modified_gmt":"2014-12-22T07:10:14","slug":"catholic-and-jewish-americans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/2014\/12\/22\/catholic-and-jewish-americans\/","title":{"rendered":"Greater Acceptance, Persisting Antipathy: Catholic and Jewish Americans Since The Civil Rights Era"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Civil Rights Act of 1964<\/a> not only ushered in stronger federal protections for racial and ethnic minorities and women, but also for religious minorities. Antipathy toward Catholics and Jews in the US was a persistent and prevalent theme through much of American history. It was common for these groups to be labeled \u201cun-American\u201d and even categorized as \u201cnon-white.\u201d Members of these religions were often discriminated against in hiring and in admission to institutions of higher learning (this was especially common for Jewish applicants) and excluded from many neighborhoods, clubs, and political positions. From the late 19th<\/sup> through the mid-20th<\/sup> century, organized hate groups, most notably the Ku Klux Klan, used the threat of violence to intimidate not only African-Americans but Jews and Catholics as well.<\/p>\n

After World War II, these restrictions and prejudices eased somewhat. By 1955 the now-classic essay Protestant Catholic Jew<\/em> could proclaim that although these three religions were the primary sources of identity in America, they were now \u201calternative ways of being an American\u201d rather than two of them being seen as Un-American.<\/p>\n

Still, anti-Semitism and anti-Catholicism persisted. In the 1960s, some commentators worried that President Kennedy, a Catholic, would take orders from the Pope. In the 1970s, President Richard Nixon was recorded making several anti-Semitic comments. And even today nativist hate groups continue to perpetuate centuries-old hostilities against Catholic and Jewish Americans. But the Civil Rights Act did give these minorities protection against outright exclusion and discrimination, and other religious minorities have also looked to it for security as the American religious landscape has diversified.<\/p>\n

American Religious Belonging Today<\/h3>\n

Religion scholars consider the United States to be an anomaly on the modern religious scene. Compared to other nations at similar levels of modernization, the United States stands out as highly religious. For example, in Western Europe about three-quarters of the population profess a belief in a God or higher power (with this proportion significantly lower in some individual nations). In America, by contrast, 90 percent of adults profess such a belief. These American numbers have remained fairly stable, with only small long-term declines, over the past fifty years.<\/p>\n

However, one major measure of religiosity has changed significantly over that time period: religious belonging, or identifying with a particular religion rather than simply holding religious beliefs.<\/p>\n

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Currently 80 percent of the U.S. adult population identifies as belonging to one of the 3,500 groups that make up the American religious landscape. Religion scholars categorize these groups in different ways, but one of the most popular classifications divides them into six major American religious traditions: Evangelical Protestants, Mainline Protestants, Black Protestants, Catholics, Jews, and Other Religions. Twenty percent of Americans fall into a seventh category, which sociologists call the \u2018religious Nones\u2019 \u2013 those who identify with no religious tradition even if they do believe in God or a higher being.<\/p>\n

The distribution of Americans among these various groups has fluctuated and changed over the past 50 years. Figure 1 shows these trends in affiliation from 1957-1971 using Gallup polling data and from 1972-2012 using data from the General Social Survey (GSS).<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

We draw attention to six specific trends:<\/p>\n

1)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The Protestant<\/strong> share of the American population has shrunk<\/strong> from more than 70 percent of the population in the late 1950s to less than 50 percent today. This is primarily due to the precipitous decline of Mainline Protestants (e.g. Methodists, Lutheran and Episcopalians), from more than 30 percent of the U.S. population in the 1970\u2019s to around 15 percent today.<\/p>\n

2)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Evangelical<\/strong> Protestants (e.g. Baptists, Pentecostals) have increased<\/strong> their representation in the population from less than a quarter of the population in the 1960s to 31 percent in the early 1990s. However, this was the period of their peak membership. Contrary to popular impression, their share of the religious market has since declined to 24 percent.<\/p>\n

3)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Catholics<\/strong> have sustained<\/strong> their share of the religious market, remaining at approximately 25 percent throughout the latter half of the 20th<\/sup> century. But this is primarily due to the influx of Latino immigrants to the United States. The share of native born (primarily white) Catholics has declined.<\/p>\n

4)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Despite the large percentage of Americans who profess a belief in a higher power, there has been a recent meteoric rise of the religious<\/strong> Nones<\/strong>, from about 3 percent of the population in the mid-20th<\/sup> century, to 10 percent in 2000, to 20 percent today. One in every 5 Americans does not <\/em>identify with a particular religious tradition.<\/p>\n

5)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The proportion of Americans who identify with \u201cOther<\/strong>\u201d religious traditions has doubled, an increase that is closely tied to the increased immigration<\/strong> of Asian populations who brought non-western religions (e.g. Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam) with them. While still a small proportion of the overall population, they contribute greatly to the increased religious diversity of the American religious landscape. In 20 states,scattered in the Midwest and South, Islam is the largest non-Christian religion. Judaism is the largest non-Christian religion in 15 states, mostly in the Northeast, and Buddhism is the largest religion in 13 western states. In Delaware and Arizona, Hinduism is the largest non-Christian religion, while in South Carolina it is the Baha\u2019i. For more details visit here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

6)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 According to the Pew Research Centers<\/a>, \u201cthe percentage of US adults who say they are Jewish<\/strong> when asked about their religion has declined by about half since the late 1950s.\u201d It is currently is a little less than two<\/strong> percent<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Religion and Socio Economic Status\u00a0<\/em><\/h3>\n

Religious groups differ not only in their beliefs but in their place in the socioeconomic and educational hierarchy. Some groups have been upwardly mobile during this time period while others have experienced more limited progress.<\/p>\n